The Republic, the Laws, and Two More Dialogues in Plain English · First Edition (2026)
EUTHYPHRO: What's new, Socrates, that's brought you here to spend your time at the King Archon's colonnade instead of at your usual haunts in the Lyceum? Surely you don't have some case before the King yourself, the way I do. SOCRATES: Well, the Athenians don't exactly call it a "case," Euthyphro -- they call it an indictment. EUTHYPHRO: What's that? Someone's brought an indictment against you? I can't believe you'd do that to someone else. SOCRATES: No, I certainly wouldn't. EUTHYPHRO: But someone's done it to you? SOCRATES: Exactly. EUTHYPHRO: Who is it? SOCRATES: I don't even know the man very well myself, Euthyphro -- he seems to be young, and not well known. His name, I believe, is Meletus. He's from the deme Pitthus, if you can picture a Meletus from Pitthus -- straight-haired, not much of a beard, and a bit of a hooked nose. EUTHYPHRO: I can't place him, Socrates. But what exactly is the indictment he's brought against you? SOCRATES: What is it, you ask? Nothing trivial, I'd say -- it's no small thing for someone so young to have grasped a matter of such importance. He claims to know how the young are being corrupted, and who's corrupting them. He must be some kind of wise man, and having noticed my ignorance corrupting people his own age, he's come to accuse me before the city, as if going to his mother. And he seems to me to be the only one of our public men who's starting out correctly -- because the right way to start is by taking care of the young, making sure they turn out as good as possible, just as a good farmer would naturally see to the young plants first, and only afterward to the rest.
SOCRATES: And no doubt Meletus intends first to weed out those of us who are, as he puts it, corrupting the sprouts of the young; and after that, obviously, once he's taken care of the older folks too, he'll become responsible for the greatest number of the greatest benefits to the city -- as one would naturally expect from someone starting out this way. EUTHYPHRO: I'd like to believe that, Socrates, but I'm afraid the opposite might happen -- it looks to me exactly like he's starting his mischief against the city right at its own hearth, by trying to wrong you. Tell me, what does he say you do that corrupts the young? SOCRATES: Strange things, my friend, when you hear them stated plainly. He says I'm a maker of gods -- that I invent new gods and fail to recognize the old ones -- and that's the charge he's brought, on that very account, so he says. EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates -- it's because you say your divine sign comes to you from time to time. So he's brought this indictment on the grounds that you're introducing novelties in religious matters, and he's going to court to slander you, knowing that such things are easy to make people believe. It's the same with me -- whenever I say something in the Assembly about divine matters, foretelling what's going to happen, they laugh at me as if I were mad. And yet nothing I've predicted has failed to come true -- still, they resent all of us who do this sort of thing. But we shouldn't worry about them at all -- we should meet them head on. SOCRATES: My dear Euthyphro, being laughed at is probably no great matter. The Athenians, it seems to me, don't much mind if they think someone is clever, so long as he doesn't go around teaching his cleverness to others. But whoever they think makes other people the same way, that makes them angry -- whether out of resentment, as you say, or for some other reason. EUTHYPHRO: As for how they feel about me on that score, I'm not too eager to find out. SOCRATES: Perhaps that's because you seem to make yourself scarce, and aren't willing to teach your wisdom to others. But I'm afraid that because of my fondness for people, they think I pour out whatever I have to anyone at all -- not only free of charge, but I'd gladly even pay extra if someone were willing to listen to me. So if, as I was just saying, they intend to laugh at me the way you say they'll laugh at you, it wouldn't be unpleasant to pass the time joking and laughing in the courtroom. But if they mean it seriously, then how that turns out is unclear -- except to you seers. EUTHYPHRO: Well, perhaps it will come to nothing, Socrates, and you'll fight your case just as you'd like -- and I think I'll do well with mine too. SOCRATES: And what is your case, Euthyphro? Are you defending or prosecuting? EUTHYPHRO: Prosecuting. SOCRATES: Whom?
EUTHYPHRO: Someone whom, in prosecuting, I again look like a madman for pursuing. SOCRATES: Why is that -- are you chasing someone who can fly? EUTHYPHRO: He's far from flying -- he happens to be a very old man. SOCRATES: Who is this person? EUTHYPHRO: My own father. SOCRATES: Your father, my good man? EUTHYPHRO: Exactly. SOCRATES: What's the charge, and what's the case about? EUTHYPHRO: Murder, Socrates. SOCRATES: Heracles! Surely, Euthyphro, most people have no idea what the right course is here -- I don't imagine it's something just anyone could get right, but only someone already far advanced in wisdom. EUTHYPHRO: Far advanced indeed, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: Is the man who died at your father's hands one of your own relatives? Or clearly he must be -- you wouldn't be prosecuting your father for murder on behalf of some outsider. EUTHYPHRO: It's ridiculous, Socrates, that you think it makes any difference whether the dead man was a stranger or a relative, rather than this being the only thing one needs to watch for -- whether the killer killed justly or not. If justly, one should let it go; if not, one should prosecute, even if the killer shares your hearth and table. The pollution is the same if you knowingly associate with such a person and don't purify yourself and him by pursuing justice. In this case, the dead man was a laborer of mine -- when we were farming on Naxos, he was working there for us as a hired hand. He got drunk, flew into a rage at one of our household slaves, and cut his throat. So my father bound the man's feet and hands, threw him into a ditch, and sent someone here to ask the religious authority what should be done. Meanwhile he neglected the bound man and paid him no attention, since he was a murderer and it didn't matter if he died -- which is exactly what happened. He died of hunger and cold and his bonds before the messenger got back from the authority. Now my father and the rest of the family are furious with me, because on behalf of a murderer I am prosecuting my father for murder -- though he didn't even kill the man, they say, and even if he had killed him outright, since the dead man was a murderer himself, they say I shouldn't concern myself over such a person -- that it's unholy for a son to prosecute his father for murder. They know so little, Socrates, about how the divine stands regarding what is holy and unholy. SOCRATES: And you, Euthyphro, in the name of Zeus -- do you think you understand the divine, and matters of holiness and unholiness, so precisely that, given the facts happened as you say, you're not afraid that in prosecuting your own father you might be doing something unholy yourself?
EUTHYPHRO: I'd be of no use at all, Socrates, and Euthyphro would be no different from the run of men, if I didn't know all such things precisely. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, my astonishing Euthyphro, the best thing for me is to become your student, and before facing Meletus's indictment, to challenge him on this very point, saying: that I always used to think it important to know about divine matters, and now, since he claims I go wrong by improvising and introducing novelties about them, I have become your student -- and I'd say to him, "Meletus, if you admit that Euthyphro is wise in such matters, and holds correct views, then consider me the same and don't take me to court. But if you don't admit that, then bring your suit against that teacher of mine before you bring it against me, on the grounds that he's corrupting his elders -- me, by teaching me, and his own father, by admonishing and punishing him." And if he won't listen to me and doesn't drop the suit, or brings it against you instead of me, shouldn't I say in court exactly what I proposed to him? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates -- if he tried to indict me, I think I'd find out where he's rotten, and we'd end up talking about him in court long before the case ever got around to me. SOCRATES: And indeed, my dear friend, knowing this, I'm eager to become your student -- since I know that this Meletus, like others perhaps, doesn't even seem to notice you, while he's spotted me so sharply and easily that he's charged me with impiety. So now, in the name of Zeus, tell me what you were just now insisting you knew so clearly: what sort of thing do you say the holy is, and the unholy, both regarding murder and everything else? Isn't the holy the same as itself in every action, and the unholy, in turn, the opposite of everything holy, yet the same as itself, having some single form with respect to its unholiness, whatever is going to be unholy? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then tell me: what do you say the holy is, and the unholy?
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, I say that the holy is exactly what I'm doing now -- prosecuting someone who commits wrongdoing, whether murder or temple robbery or any other such offense, regardless of whether the wrongdoer happens to be one's father or mother or anyone else whatsoever; and failing to prosecute is unholy. Look, Socrates, at how strong a proof I can give you that this is the law -- one I've already given to others, that this is the correct way for things to be done -- namely, that one must not give way to the wrongdoer, whoever he happens to be. People themselves believe that Zeus is the best and most just of the gods, and yet they agree that he bound his own father for unjustly swallowing his sons, and that his father in turn had castrated his own father for similar reasons. Yet they're angry at me for prosecuting my father for wrongdoing, and so they contradict themselves in what they say about the gods and about me. SOCRATES: Could this be, Euthyphro, the very reason I'm facing this indictment -- that when someone says such things about the gods, I have trouble accepting them? That, it seems, is why people will say I do wrong. But now, if you too, who understand these matters so well, agree with these stories, then it seems I must go along with them as well. What else can we say, we who admit we know nothing about such things ourselves? But tell me, in the name of Zeus Philios, do you truly believe these things happened as told? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, and things even more astonishing than these, Socrates, which most people don't know about. SOCRATES: And do you also believe there is actual warfare among the gods against one another, and terrible hatreds and battles and other such things, of the kind the poets tell of, and which good painters have depicted in our temples -- and indeed at the Great Panathenaea, the robe carried up to the Acropolis is full of just such embroidered scenes? Shall we say these things are true, Euthyphro? EUTHYPHRO: Not only these, Socrates, but as I just said, I can tell you many other things about the gods, if you like, which I'm sure will astonish you to hear. SOCRATES: I wouldn't be surprised. But you can tell me those some other time, at leisure. For now, try to give a clearer answer to what I just asked you. You didn't adequately teach me before, my friend, when I asked what the holy actually is -- you only told me that what you're doing now happens to be holy, prosecuting your father for murder. EUTHYPHRO: And I was telling the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Perhaps. But you also say, Euthyphro, that many other things are holy. EUTHYPHRO: Well, they are. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, that I wasn't asking you to teach me one or two of the many holy things, but that very form itself by which all holy things are holy? You said, I believe, that there is one single form by which unholy things are unholy, and holy things holy -- or don't you recall? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Then teach me this very form, whatever it may be, so that I can look to it and use it as a model -- so that whatever action, whether yours or anyone else's, resembles it, I can call holy, and whatever doesn't, I won't. EUTHYPHRO: Well, if that's what you want, Socrates, I'll tell you that too. SOCRATES: That is indeed what I want.
EUTHYPHRO: Well then, what's dear to the gods is pious, and what's not dear to them is impious. SOCRATES: Excellent, Euthyphro -- you've now answered just the way I was hoping you would. Whether it's true, though, I don't yet know -- but no doubt you'll go on to show me that what you say is true. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come then, let's look at what we're saying. What's dear to god, and the person who's dear to god, is pious; what's hateful to god, and the person who's hateful to god, is impious. And these aren't the same -- they're exact opposites, the pious and the impious. Isn't that right? EUTHYPHRO: That's right. SOCRATES: And that seems well put? EUTHYPHRO: I think so, Socrates. It's been said. SOCRATES: And hasn't it also been said, Euthyphro, that the gods quarrel and disagree with one another, and that there's enmity among them toward one another? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that's been said. SOCRATES: And what kind of disagreement, my good man, produces enmity and anger? Let's look at it this way. If you and I disagreed about which of two numbers was greater, would that disagreement make us enemies and angry with each other, or would we go straight to arithmetic and quickly settle a dispute of that kind? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if we disagreed about which of two things was bigger, we'd go to measuring and quickly put an end to the disagreement? EUTHYPHRO: That's so. SOCRATES: And by resorting to weighing, I imagine, we'd settle a question about which of two things was heavier or lighter? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then what sort of disagreement -- one we couldn't reach a verdict on -- would make us enemies and angry at each other? Maybe it doesn't come to you readily, but consider, as I say it, whether it's these: the just and the unjust, the noble and the shameful, the good and the bad. Isn't it disagreements about these things, when we can't reach a satisfactory verdict about them, that make us enemies of one another -- whenever we do become enemies -- you and I and everyone else? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, that is the kind of disagreement, and it's about those things. SOCRATES: And what about the gods, Euthyphro? If they disagree about anything, wouldn't it be over these very things? EUTHYPHRO: That's quite necessary. SOCRATES: Then, noble Euthyphro, by your account, different gods consider different things just, and noble, and shameful, and good, and bad -- since surely they wouldn't quarrel with one another if they didn't disagree about these things. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: You're right. SOCRATES: And whatever each group of them considers noble and good and just, that's what they love, and the opposite of these is what they hate? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But the very same things, as you say, some consider just and others consider unjust -- things about which they dispute and so quarrel and make war on each other. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: It is. SOCRATES: Then the same things, it seems, are both hated and loved by the gods, and the same things would be both hateful to god and dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then the same things would be both pious and impious, Euthyphro, by this account. EUTHYPHRO: It looks that way. SOCRATES: So you haven't answered what I asked, my remarkable friend. I wasn't asking what happens to be both pious and impious at once -- yet what's dear to god turns out also to be hateful to god, it seems. So, Euthyphro, when you're punishing your father as you're now doing, it wouldn't be at all surprising if this act is pleasing to Zeus but hateful to Cronus and Ouranos, dear to Hephaestus but hateful to Hera, and if it differs among any other gods too, each disagreeing with another over it, in the same way. EUTHYPHRO: But I think, Socrates, that on this point at least no god disagrees with another -- that whoever kills someone unjustly must pay the penalty. SOCRATES: Really? But have you ever heard any human being, Euthyphro, dispute that the one who kills unjustly, or does any other unjust thing, shouldn't pay the penalty? EUTHYPHRO: No, people never stop disputing that, both elsewhere and in the courts -- for having done a great many unjust things, they do and say everything to escape justice. SOCRATES: But do they actually admit, Euthyphro, that they've acted unjustly, and, admitting it, still say they shouldn't pay the penalty? EUTHYPHRO: No, not that at all. SOCRATES: So they don't do and say everything -- for I don't think they'd dare to say or dispute that if they really have acted unjustly, they shouldn't pay the penalty; instead, I think they deny having acted unjustly at all. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: True. SOCRATES: So they don't dispute that whoever acts unjustly must pay the penalty; rather, what they perhaps dispute is who is acting unjustly, and doing what, and when. EUTHYPHRO: True. SOCRATES: And don't the gods experience this very same thing, if indeed they quarrel about just and unjust things as your account has it -- some claiming the others act unjustly, others denying it? Since surely, my friend, neither god nor man dares to say that the one who acts unjustly shouldn't pay the penalty. EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that's true, Socrates, on the whole. SOCRATES: But I think, Euthyphro, that those who dispute -- whether men or gods, if gods do dispute -- dispute over each particular deed. Disagreeing about some action, one side says it was done justly, the other unjustly. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Come then, dear Euthyphro, teach me too, so I may become wiser -- what proof do you have that all the gods consider it unjust for a man to die the way this one did: a hired laborer who became a murderer, was bound by the master of the man he'd killed, and died from the binding before the one who'd bound him could find out from the religious experts what should be done about him -- and that it's right, on behalf of such a man, for a son to prosecute his own father and charge him with murder? Come, try to show me clearly that on this matter, above all, all the gods surely consider this act right. If you can show me that satisfactorily, I'll never stop praising your wisdom. EUTHYPHRO: Well, that's perhaps no small task, Socrates -- though I could show it to you quite clearly. SOCRATES: I understand -- you think I'm a slower learner than the jurors, since you'll obviously show them that these things are unjust and that all the gods hate such conduct. EUTHYPHRO: Quite clearly, Socrates -- provided they'll actually listen to what I say. SOCRATES: Oh, they'll listen -- as long as you seem to speak well. But here's something that occurred to me while you were speaking, and I'm turning it over in my mind: even if Euthyphro were to teach me as thoroughly as possible that all the gods consider such a death unjust, what more would I have learned from Euthyphro about what the pious and the impious actually are? For this deed might well be hateful to god -- but we just saw that the pious and the impious aren't defined by that; for what's hateful to god turned out to be dear to god as well. So I'll let you off that point, Euthyphro -- if you like, let all the gods consider it unjust, and let all of them hate it. But is this the correction we're now making in our discussion -- that whatever all the gods hate is impious, and whatever they all love is pious, while whatever some love and some hate is neither, or both? Is that how you want us to define the pious and the impious now? EUTHYPHRO: What's stopping us, Socrates? SOCRATES: Nothing on my side, Euthyphro -- but you consider your own position, whether by assuming this you'll most easily teach me what you promised. EUTHYPHRO: Well, I would say that the pious is what all the gods love, and its opposite, what all the gods hate, is impious. SOCRATES: Then shall we examine this in turn, Euthyphro, to see whether it's well said, or shall we let it be and accept it from ourselves and from others, agreeing that something is so simply because someone says it is? Or should we look into what the speaker means? EUTHYPHRO: We should look into it -- though for my part I think this is well said now.
SOCRATES: We'll soon know better, my good man. Think of it this way: is the pious loved by the gods because it's pious, or is it pious because it's loved? EUTHYPHRO: I don't know what you mean, Socrates. SOCRATES: Let me try to put it more clearly. We speak of something being carried and something carrying, something being led and something leading, something being seen and something seeing -- and you understand that all such pairs are different from each other, and how they're different? EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I think I understand. SOCRATES: And isn't there also something being loved, and, different from that, the thing loving it? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then tell me: is the thing being carried a thing-being-carried because it's carried, or for some other reason? EUTHYPHRO: No, it's for that reason. SOCRATES: And the thing being led, because it's led, and the thing being seen, because it's seen? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it's not because something is a thing-being-seen that it's seen, but rather the reverse -- because it's seen, it's a thing-being-seen; and not because it's a thing-being-led that it's led, but because it's led, it's a thing-being-led; nor because it's a thing-being-carried does it get carried, but because it's carried, it's a thing-being-carried. Is it clear what I mean, Euthyphro? I mean this: if something comes to be or undergoes something, it's not that it comes to be because it's a thing-coming-to-be, but rather it's a thing-coming-to-be because it comes to be; nor does it undergo something because it's a thing-undergoing, but it's a thing-undergoing because it undergoes. Don't you agree? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: And isn't the thing being loved either something coming to be or something undergoing something at another's hands? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then this case is just like the earlier ones -- it's not because it's a thing-being-loved that it's loved by those who love it, but because it's loved, it's a thing-being-loved. EUTHYPHRO: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So what are we to say about the pious, Euthyphro? Isn't it loved by all the gods, as your account has it? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Is it loved for this reason -- because it's pious -- or for some other reason? EUTHYPHRO: No, for that reason. SOCRATES: So it's loved because it's pious, not pious because it's loved? EUTHYPHRO: So it seems. SOCRATES: But then what's dear to god, because it's loved by the gods, is by that very fact a thing-being-loved and dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then what's dear to god isn't the same as the pious, Euthyphro, nor is the pious the same as what's dear to god, as you claim -- they're two different things. EUTHYPHRO: How do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Because we've agreed that the pious is loved because it's pious, not that it's pious because it's loved. Isn't that right? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Whereas what's dear to god is dear to god by the very fact of being loved by the gods, through this loving itself -- not that it's loved because it's dear to god. EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: But look, my dear Euthyphro—if what is loved by the gods and what is holy were the same thing, then if the holy were loved because it is holy, what is loved by the gods would also be loved because it is loved by the gods. And if what is loved by the gods were loved by the gods because it is loved by them, then the holy too would be holy because it is loved. But as it stands you can see the two are opposite—they are entirely different from each other. One of them, being loved, is the sort of thing that gets loved; the other, being the sort of thing that gets loved, is for that reason loved. It looks, Euthyphro, as though when I asked you what the holy actually is, you weren't willing to show me its essence, but only told me something that happens to it—that the holy has this property of being loved by all the gods. What it is in itself, you still haven't said. So if you don't mind, don't hold back—tell me again from the beginning what the holy really is, whether it's loved by the gods or undergoes whatever else it undergoes—we won't argue about that—but tell me eagerly: what is the holy, and what is the unholy? EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, I really don't know how to tell you what I have in mind. Whatever we put forward keeps somehow wandering off on us and refuses to stay put where we set it down. SOCRATES: What you're saying sounds like the work of our ancestor Daedalus, Euthyphro. And if I were the one saying these things and setting them down, you might make fun of me, saying that because I'm related to him, my arguments run away too and won't stay where they're put. But as it is, these are your premises, so some other joke is needed—they won't stay put for you, as you yourself admit. EUTHYPHRO: Well, it seems to me, Socrates, that pretty much the same joke applies to what's being said. I'm not the one making them wander around and refuse to stay in place—you seem to me to be the Daedalus here, since as far as I'm concerned they would have stayed put just as they were. SOCRATES: Then it seems, my friend, I've become even more skilled at that craft than that man was, in this respect: he could only make his own works refuse to stay still, whereas I, it seems, do that to other people's as well as my own. And in fact this is the cleverest part of my skill—that I'm wise without meaning to be. I'd much rather have my arguments stay put and stand fixed than possess both the wisdom of Daedalus and the wealth of Tantalus. But enough of that. Since you seem to be indulging yourself, I'll join you eagerly in trying to help you teach me about the holy. And don't give up beforehand—look, doesn't it seem necessary to you that everything holy is just? EUTHYPHRO: It does to me.
SOCRATES: Then is everything just also holy? Or is everything holy just, while not everything just is holy, but part of it is holy and part is something else? EUTHYPHRO: I'm not following what you're saying, Socrates. SOCRATES: And yet you're younger than me by no less than you're wiser—but as I say, you're growing lazy from the wealth of your wisdom. Come, my good man, exert yourself—what I'm saying isn't hard to grasp. I mean the opposite of what the poet said who wrote: 'Zeus, who made all this and brought it to pass, him he is unwilling to blame; for where there is fear, there too is shame.' I disagree with that poet. Shall I tell you how? EUTHYPHRO: Please do. SOCRATES: It doesn't seem right to me that where there is fear, there is also shame. Plenty of people, I think, fear disease and poverty and many other such things, and yet feel no shame at all about the things they fear. Don't you agree? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: But where there is shame, there is also fear. Is there anyone who feels shame and embarrassment about some act who does not also feel afraid and fearful of a reputation for wickedness? EUTHYPHRO: He certainly does feel fear. SOCRATES: Then it's not right to say that where there is fear, there is also shame—rather, where there is shame, there is also fear, but not everywhere that there is fear is there shame, since fear covers more ground than shame does. Shame is a part of fear, just as odd is a part of number, so that it isn't true that wherever there is number there is also odd, but wherever there is odd, there is also number. You follow me now, I take it? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: That's the sort of thing I was asking about back there too—is it that wherever there is just, there is also holy? Or wherever there is holy, there is also just, but not everywhere that there is just is there holy—since the holy is a part of the just? Shall we put it that way, or does it look different to you? EUTHYPHRO: No, that way. You seem to me to be right. SOCRATES: Then look at what comes next. If the holy is a part of the just, we need, it seems, to find out what part of the just the holy is. Now if you had asked me one of the things I mentioned just now—what part of number the even is, and what number that happens to be—I would have said: whichever number is not scalene but isosceles. Or doesn't that seem right to you? EUTHYPHRO: It does to me. SOCRATES: Try, then, to teach me in that same way what part of the just is holy, so that we can tell Meletus to stop wronging us and indicting us for impiety, since we've now learned thoroughly from you what things are pious and holy and what are not. EUTHYPHRO: Well then, this is what seems to me to be the case, Socrates: the part of the just that is pious and holy is the part concerned with attending to the gods, while the remaining part of the just is concerned with attending to human beings.
SOCRATES: And what you say seems fine to me, Euthyphro, but I still need one small thing—I don't yet understand what you mean by this 'attending to.' You surely don't mean that our attending to the gods is like the other kinds of attending to things—for we do say, don't we, that not everyone knows how to attend to horses, but only the horseman does. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: For horsemanship is presumably the attending to horses. EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Nor does everyone know how to attend to dogs, but only the huntsman. EUTHYPHRO: Just so. SOCRATES: For huntsmanship is presumably the attending to dogs. EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: And cattle-herding is the attending to cattle. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And holiness and piety is the attending to the gods, Euthyphro—is that what you mean? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Now doesn't all attending accomplish the same thing? I mean something like this: it aims at some good and benefit for the thing being attended to, just as you see that horses attended to by horsemanship are benefited and become better. Or don't you think so? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: And dogs, presumably, by huntsmanship, and cattle by cattle-herding, and all the rest the same way—or do you think attending aims at harming the thing attended to? EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: But at benefiting it? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: Then is holiness too, being an attending to the gods, a benefit to the gods, and does it make the gods better? And would you agree to this—that whenever you do something holy, you're making one of the gods better? EUTHYPHRO: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: Nor do I think you mean that, Euthyphro—far from it—but that's exactly why I asked what sort of attending to the gods you meant, since I didn't think you meant that kind. EUTHYPHRO: And rightly so, Socrates—that isn't what I mean. SOCRATES: Very well—then what sort of attending to the gods would holiness be? EUTHYPHRO: The sort, Socrates, that slaves give their masters. SOCRATES: I understand—it would be a kind of service to the gods, it seems. EUTHYPHRO: Exactly. SOCRATES: Now could you tell me—service to doctors is service aimed at producing what result? Isn't it health, do you think? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: What about service to shipbuilders? What result is it service aimed at producing? EUTHYPHRO: Clearly, Socrates, a ship. SOCRATES: And service to builders is aimed at a house, presumably? EUTHYPHRO: Yes. SOCRATES: Then tell me, my excellent friend—service to the gods would be service aimed at producing what result? For clearly you know, since you claim to know the affairs of the gods better than any man. EUTHYPHRO: And I speak the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then tell me, by Zeus, what is that altogether beautiful work which the gods produce, using us as their servants?
EUTHYPHRO: Many beautiful things, Socrates. SOCRATES: So do generals, my friend—yet you could easily state the main point of their work, that they produce victory in war. Isn't that so? EUTHYPHRO: Of course. SOCRATES: And farmers too, I think, produce many beautiful things—yet the main point of their production is the food that comes from the earth. EUTHYPHRO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, of the many beautiful things the gods produce, what is the main point of their work? EUTHYPHRO: I told you a little while ago, Socrates, that it's a considerable task to learn precisely how all these things stand. But I'll put it simply for you like this: if someone knows how to say and do what is pleasing to the gods in prayer and sacrifice, that is what is holy, and such things preserve both private households and the common affairs of cities. But the opposite of what is pleasing is impious, and that in turn overturns and destroys everything. SOCRATES: You could have told me the main point of what I was asking much more briefly, Euthyphro, if you'd wanted to—but clearly you're not eager to teach me. In fact just now, when you were right at the edge of it, you turned away—if you'd answered, I would already have learned enough about holiness from you. But as it is, the lover must follow the beloved wherever he leads, so tell me again: what do you say the holy is, and holiness? Isn't it some kind of knowledge of how to sacrifice and pray? EUTHYPHRO: I do say that. SOCRATES: And isn't sacrificing giving gifts to the gods, and praying asking things of them? EUTHYPHRO: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then on this account, holiness would be a knowledge of asking from the gods and giving to them. EUTHYPHRO: You've grasped exactly what I meant, Socrates. SOCRATES: That's because I'm eager for your wisdom, my friend, and I pay close attention to it, so that nothing you say will fall to the ground unheeded. But tell me, what is this service to the gods? You say it consists in asking things from them and giving things to them? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't asking correctly mean asking them for the things we actually need from them? EUTHYPHRO: What else would it be? SOCRATES: And giving correctly, in turn, would mean giving back to them whatever they happen to need from us? For it wouldn't be very skillful to bring someone gifts he has no need of at all. EUTHYPHRO: True, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then holiness, Euthyphro, would be a kind of trading skill between gods and men. EUTHYPHRO: Trading, if you'd rather call it that.
SOCRATES: But it's no more pleasant to me, if it doesn't happen to be true. Tell me, what benefit do the gods actually get from the gifts they receive from us? What they give us is obvious to everyone — we have no good thing that they didn't give. But what do they get out of what they receive from us? Or do we come out so far ahead of them in this trade that we get all the good things from them and they get nothing at all from us? EUTHYPHRO: But Socrates, do you really think the gods benefit from what they receive from us? SOCRATES: Well, whatever could these gifts to the gods from us be, Euthyphro? EUTHYPHRO: What else do you suppose, besides honor and privilege — and, as I said just now, gratitude? SOCRATES: So the pious is what's pleasing, Euthyphro, but not beneficial or dear to the gods? EUTHYPHRO: I should think it's the most dear thing of all. SOCRATES: Then this, it seems, is once again what the pious is — what's dear to the gods. EUTHYPHRO: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Will you be surprised, then, saying these things, if your arguments turn out not to stand still but to walk around, and you blame me as the Daedalus who makes them walk, when you yourself are far more skilled than Daedalus, since you're the one making them go in a circle? Don't you notice that our argument has circled around and come back to the same place? Surely you remember that earlier the pious and the god-loved appeared to us not the same thing but different from each other — or don't you remember? EUTHYPHRO: I do. SOCRATES: So don't you realize now that you're saying the pious is what's dear to the gods? And isn't that the same as god-loved? Or isn't it? EUTHYPHRO: Certainly it is. SOCRATES: So either we weren't agreeing correctly just now, or if we were right then, we're setting things up wrong now. EUTHYPHRO: It seems so. SOCRATES: Then we must start again from the beginning and examine what the pious is, since I, for my part, won't willingly back down before I learn. Please don't look down on me — turn your mind to it in every way you can, and tell me the truth now, if ever. For you know it, if any man does, and you mustn't be let go, like Proteus, until you speak. If you hadn't known clearly what the pious and the impious are, there's no way you would ever have undertaken to prosecute your own elderly father for murder on behalf of a hired hand — you'd have been afraid of the gods, afraid of risking that you might not be doing it rightly, and ashamed before men. But as it is, I know well that you think you know clearly what's pious and what isn't. So tell me, excellent Euthyphro, and don't hide what you take it to be. EUTHYPHRO: Some other time, then, Socrates. Right now I'm in a hurry to get somewhere, and it's time for me to go.
SOCRATES: What a thing to do, my friend! You're leaving and knocking down the great hope I had — that I would learn from you what's pious and what isn't, and be rid of Meletus's indictment, by showing him that I've now become wise in matters of religion thanks to Euthyphro, and that I'm no longer improvising out of ignorance or making up novelties about these things, and that from now on I'll live the rest of my life better.
What effect my accusers have had on you, men of Athens, I cannot say. As for me, I nearly forgot who I was, listening to them — they were that persuasive. And yet, hardly a word they said was true. Of all the many lies they told, one amazed me most: their claim that you should be on guard against being taken in by me, since I am supposedly a clever speaker. That they were not ashamed to say this, when they are about to be refuted by the plain fact that I am nothing of the sort — that struck me as their most shameless move, unless of course what they mean by "clever speaker" is someone who speaks the truth. If that is what they mean, then yes, I would admit to being an orator — though not of their kind. In any case, these men have said little or nothing true, while from me you will hear the whole truth — not, by Zeus, dressed up in fine phrases and fancy words like theirs, but spoken plainly, in whatever words come to me, because I trust that what I say is right. None of you should expect anything else from me; it would hardly suit a man my age to come before you crafting speeches like a schoolboy. And there is one thing I must ask of you, men of Athens: if you hear me defending myself in the same style I generally use in the marketplace, at the money-changers' tables — where many of you have heard me — and elsewhere, please don't be surprised or make a disturbance over it. Here is the situation: this is the first time in my seventy years that I have ever stood before a court, so I am simply a stranger to the way people speak here.
Just as you would forgive a real foreigner for speaking in the accent and manner he was raised with, so now I ask this fair concession of you: set aside my style of speaking — it may be worse, it may be better — and instead pay attention to this alone, whether what I say is just or not. That is the excellence proper to a judge, while a speaker's job is to tell the truth. So first, men of Athens, it is right that I answer the earliest false charges against me, and my earliest accusers, before turning to the later ones and their accusers. For I have had many accusers before you, going back many years now, none of them saying anything true, and I fear them more than I fear Anytus and his group, formidable as those men are. No, the others are more dangerous still — the ones who got hold of most of you since childhood and, without any truth behind them, persuaded you and accused me: that there is a certain Socrates, a wise man, a ponderer of things in the sky, an investigator of everything under the earth, and one who makes the weaker argument the stronger. These men, Athenians, the ones who have spread this rumor around, are my truly dangerous accusers, because their listeners assume that anyone who studies such things doesn't believe in the gods at all. Besides, there are many of them, and they've been at it a long time now, and they spoke to you at just the age when you would have believed them most readily — some of you were children or young boys — and they made their accusations by default, with no one there to answer them. And the most absurd part of it is that I cannot even learn their names and tell you who they are, except perhaps some comic playwright. As for those who worked on you out of envy and malice, and those who were themselves convinced and passed it along to others — all of these are hardest to deal with, since I cannot bring a single one of them here to cross-examine. I simply have to fight shadows, so to speak, defending myself and refuting charges with no one there to answer. So I ask you to accept, as I've said, that I have had two sets of accusers: those who have just now brought charges, and those older ones I've been describing — and to think it right that I answer the older ones first. After all, you heard them accusing me earlier, and far more than you heard these recent ones.
Well then — I must make my defense, men of Athens, and try to clear away in this short time a prejudice you have held for so long. I would certainly wish this could turn out well, both for you and for me, and that my defense might actually accomplish something — but I suspect it's a hard task, and I'm not blind to what it involves. Still, let that go however the god wishes; the law must be obeyed, and the defense must be made. So let us go back to the beginning and ask what the charge is that has produced the slander against me — the very slander Meletus relied on when he wrote this indictment. Well then, what exactly did my slanderers say to slander me? I should read out something like a sworn deposition of theirs: "Socrates does wrong and oversteps himself, inquiring into things beneath the earth and in the heavens, making the weaker argument the stronger, and teaching others these same things." That's the substance of it — and indeed you have seen this for yourselves in Aristophanes' comedy, some "Socrates" being carried around on stage, claiming to walk on air and spouting a great deal of other nonsense, none of which I understand in the slightest, great or small. I don't say this to belittle that kind of knowledge, if anyone is in fact wise about such things — heaven forbid Meletus should hit me with yet another lawsuit — but the truth is, Athenians, I have no part in any of it. I call most of you yourselves as witnesses, and I ask you to inform and tell one another, all of you who have ever heard me in conversation — and many of you have — tell each other whether any of you ever heard me discussing such things, great or small. From that you will see that the rest of what people say about me is of the same quality. None of it is true. And if you have heard that I undertake to educate people and charge money for it, that isn't true either — though I do think it would be a fine thing if someone were capable of teaching people, the way Gorgias of Leontini can, or Prodicus of Ceos, or Hippias of Elis.
Each of these men, gentlemen, is able to go into any city and persuade the young — who could associate for free with any of their own fellow citizens they wished — to leave that company and join theirs instead, paying money for it and being grateful besides. In fact there's another one here in town right now, a wise man from Paros, whose presence I happened to learn of. I ran into a man who has paid more money to sophists than everyone else put together, Callias, son of Hipponicus. So I asked him — since he has two sons — "Callias," I said, "if your two sons had been born colts or calves, we would have no trouble finding and hiring a supervisor for them, someone to make them excellent at the qualities proper to their kind — some horse-trainer or farmer. But as it is, since they are human beings, whom do you have in mind to put in charge of them? Who understands this kind of excellence, the human and political kind? I assume you've given this thought, given that you have sons. Is there such a person, or not?" "Certainly," he said. "Who is he," I said, "and where's he from, and what does he charge?" "Evenus," he said, "Socrates, from Paros, five minas." And I thought Evenus a lucky man, if he really has this skill and teaches it at so reasonable a rate. I myself would preen and put on airs if I knew such things — but I don't, Athenians. Now perhaps one of you will object: "But Socrates, what exactly is your situation? Where have these slanders against you come from? Surely if you weren't doing something out of the ordinary, all this talk and rumor wouldn't have arisen, unless you were up to something different from most people. So tell us what it is, so we don't have to guess." Whoever says this seems to me to have a fair point, and I will try to show you what exactly it is that has given me this reputation and this slander. Listen, then. Some of you may think I am joking, but I promise you, I will tell you the whole truth. I have gotten this reputation, Athenians, for nothing other than a certain kind of wisdom. What kind of wisdom is that? Just the kind, perhaps, that is available to a human being — for in that sense I may really be wise. The men I mentioned a moment ago are wise, perhaps, with a wisdom greater than human wisdom — I don't know how else to describe it, since I certainly don't have it myself, and whoever says I do is lying and speaking to slander me. Now please, Athenians, don't make a disturbance, even if I seem to be saying something rather grand — for the account I'm about to give is not my own; I will point you to a source you'll consider trustworthy. As evidence for my wisdom, if it is wisdom at all and of whatever kind, I will call as witness the god at Delphi. You know Chaerephon, I imagine.
He was a friend of mine from youth, and a friend of your democratic party as well, sharing your recent exile and returning with you. And you know what Chaerephon was like, how impulsive he was in whatever he set out to do. Well, once he went to Delphi and had the nerve to ask this question of the oracle — and please, as I said, don't make a disturbance, gentlemen — he asked whether there was anyone wiser than I was. The Pythia answered that no one was wiser. Chaerephon has since died, but his brother here can testify to this before you. Now consider why I bring this up: I want to explain to you where this slander against me has come from. When I heard this, I thought to myself: what can the god mean? What is he hinting at? I am certainly not aware of being wise in anything, great or small. So what can he mean by declaring me the wisest? He can't be lying — that isn't permitted him. For a long time I was at a loss over what he meant; then, very reluctantly, I turned to something like the following approach to investigate it. I went to one of the men reputed to be wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle's pronouncement and say to it, "Here is a man wiser than I am, and yet you said I was the wisest." So I examined this man — there's no need to name him, only that he was one of our politicians — and in examining him and talking with him, I had roughly this experience, Athenians: it seemed to me that this man appeared wise to many other people, and above all to himself, but was not. So I tried to show him that he thought himself wise but wasn't. As a result, I became hateful to him, and to many of the people present. So as I walked away, I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man, at least — it's likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he doesn't, whereas I, since I don't in fact know, don't think that I do either. So it seems I am wiser than he is in just this one small way: that what I do not know, I do not think I know. From there I went on to another man, one thought even wiser than the first, and got exactly the same impression, and I became hateful to him too, and to many others besides. After that I kept going, one after another, aware of it and troubled by it, and afraid of the hostility I was creating, but it still seemed necessary to put the god's business first. So I had to go on, examining the meaning of the oracle, to everyone who seemed to know anything at all.
And by the dog, men of Athens—I have to tell you the truth—this is really what happened to me: those with the highest reputations seemed to me, when I examined them in the god's service, to be nearly the most lacking, while others thought inferior turned out to be sounder in their thinking. I need to show you my wanderings as a kind of labor I undertook, so that the oracle would end up unrefuted. After the politicians, I went to the poets—the tragedians, the dithyrambic poets, and the rest—thinking that there I would catch myself red-handed being more ignorant than they were. So I picked up the poems they seemed to have worked hardest on, and I questioned them about what they meant, hoping to learn something from them in the process. I'm ashamed to tell you the truth, men, but it must be told: pretty much anyone standing nearby could have explained their own poems better than the poets themselves did. So I soon realized about the poets, too, that it isn't wisdom that lets them write what they write, but some kind of natural gift, an inspiration, like seers and prophets who say many fine things but understand none of what they say. The poets struck me as being in that same condition. And at the same time I noticed that, because of their poetry, they believed themselves the wisest of people in other matters too, which they were not. So I left there thinking I had come out ahead of them in the very same way I had with the politicians. Finally I went to the craftsmen. I knew perfectly well that I understood practically nothing myself, but I was certain I'd find that they knew a great many fine things. And in this I wasn't wrong: they knew things I didn't, and in that way they were wiser than I was. But, men of Athens, the good craftsmen seemed to me to have fallen into the very same error as the poets: because each of them did his own craft well, he thought himself the wisest man alive in the biggest matters too—and this flaw of theirs cast a shadow over the wisdom they did have. So I asked myself, on the oracle's behalf, whether I would rather be as I am—wise in neither their wisdom nor their ignorance—or have both, the way they do. And I answered myself, and the oracle, that it was better for me to be just as I am.
Out of this examination, men of Athens, I've earned a great many hatreds, the harshest and heaviest kind, which have given rise to a lot of slander, and to this label people attach to me: 'wise.' Because each time, the bystanders think that whatever I show someone else lacks, I myself must possess. But really, men, it looks like the god is the only one who's actually wise, and that in this oracle he's saying that human wisdom is worth little or nothing. And it seems he isn't really talking about me, Socrates—he's just using my name as an example, as if he were saying: 'The wisest of you, people, is whoever has realized, like Socrates, that he is truly worthless when it comes to wisdom.' That's why I still go around even now, searching and investigating, at the god's bidding, anyone—citizen or foreigner—I think might be wise; and whenever he isn't, I come to the god's aid by showing him that he isn't wise. This occupation has left me no free time worth mentioning, either for public affairs or my own household—I live in utter poverty because of my service to the god. On top of that, the young men who have the most free time, the sons of the wealthiest families, follow me around on their own, and they enjoy hearing people cross-examined; and often they imitate me themselves and set about examining others too. Then, I imagine, they find no shortage of people who think they know something but know little or nothing. And so the people they examine get angry at me, not at themselves, and they say that this Socrates fellow is a thoroughly rotten character who corrupts the young. And whenever someone asks them exactly what I do and what I teach, they have nothing to say—they don't know—but so as not to look at a loss, they trot out the stock charges against all philosophers: that he studies things in the sky and under the earth, doesn't believe in the gods, and makes the weaker argument the stronger. Because, I think, they'd rather not say the truth: that they've been caught pretending to know when they know nothing. So, being ambitious, fierce, and numerous, and speaking about me forcefully and persuasively, they have filled your ears, slandering me both for a long time now and vehemently.
This is why Meletus went after me, along with Anytus and Lycon—Meletus aggrieved on behalf of the poets, Anytus on behalf of the craftsmen and politicians, Lycon on behalf of the orators. So, as I said at the start, I would be amazed if I could clear away this slander from your minds in such a short time, when it has grown so large. This is the truth for you, men of Athens, and I'm telling it to you hiding nothing, great or small, and holding nothing back. Yet I know well enough that this very frankness earns me hatred, which is itself proof that I'm telling the truth, that this is the slander against me, and these are its causes. And whether you look into this now or later, this is what you'll find. So, concerning the charges my first accusers made, let this be a sufficient defense before you. Now I'll try to defend myself against Meletus, that good man, that lover of his city, as he calls himself, and against those who came after. So then, as if these were different accusers, let's take up their sworn charge again. It runs something like this: it says Socrates does wrong by corrupting the young and by not believing in the gods the city believes in, but in other new divine things instead. That's the charge—let's examine it point by point. He says I do wrong by corrupting the young. But I say, men of Athens, that Meletus does wrong, because he treats a serious matter as a joke, easily hauling people into court, pretending to be earnest and concerned about things he has never cared about at all. That this is so, I'll try to show you as well. Come here, Meletus, tell me: isn't it true that you care above all that the young become as good as possible? Yes. Well then, tell these men here, who makes them better? Clearly you know, since you care about it. You've found the one who corrupts them, so you say—me—and you're bringing me before these men and accusing me. So come, name the one who makes them better, and tell them who he is. You see, Meletus, that you're silent and have nothing to say? Doesn't that strike you as shameful, and sufficient proof of exactly what I'm saying, that you've never cared at all? Come, tell us, my good man, who makes them better? The laws. But that's not what I'm asking, my excellent fellow—I'm asking what person, who knows the laws themselves to begin with. These men here, Socrates, the jurors. What are you saying, Meletus? These men here are able to educate the young and make them better? Certainly. All of them, or only some and not others? All of them. Well said, by Hera—what an abundance of people doing good!
And what about this: do the audience members at the assembly make them better, or not? Those too. What about the councilmen? The councilmen too. But then, Meletus, surely the men in the assembly, the assemblymen, don't corrupt the younger generation? Or do all of them make them better too? Those too. So it seems all the Athenians make the young fine and good, except me—I alone corrupt them. Is that what you're saying? That's exactly what I'm saying. You've condemned me to quite a misfortune. Now answer me this: does the same hold for horses, do you think? Do all people make them better, and only one person ruins them? Or is it the complete opposite—one person, or very few, the horse-trainers, are able to make them better, while the majority, if they handle and use horses, ruin them? Isn't that how it works, Meletus, both with horses and with every other animal? Surely it is, whether you and Anytus say so or not—it would be a wonderful stroke of luck for the young if only one person corrupted them while everyone else benefited them. But in fact, Meletus, you show clearly enough that you have never given the young a moment's thought, and you plainly reveal your own carelessness—that you have never cared at all about the very things you're bringing me to court over. Tell us further, Meletus, in Zeus's name: is it better to live among decent citizens or wicked ones? My friend, answer—I'm not asking anything difficult. Don't the wicked do some harm to whoever is closest to them, and the good do some benefit? Certainly. Now, is there anyone who would want to be harmed by those around him rather than benefited? Answer, my good man—the law requires you to answer. Is there anyone who wants to be harmed? Of course not. Come, then—are you bringing me here on the charge that I corrupt the young and make them worse, willingly or unwillingly? Willingly, I say. Well then, Meletus? Are you, at your age, so much wiser than I am at mine, that you have grasped that the bad always do some harm to those nearest them, and the good some benefit, while I have sunk into such ignorance that I don't even know this—that if I make one of my companions rotten, I risk suffering some harm from him myself—so that I do this great evil on purpose, as you claim?
I don't believe you in this, Meletus, and I don't think anyone else does either: either I don't corrupt anyone, or if I do, it's unwillingly, so that either way you're lying. And if I corrupt people unwillingly, the law doesn't call for hauling someone into court for mistakes of that unwilling kind—it calls for taking him aside privately to teach and admonish him. For clearly, if I learn better, I'll stop doing what I do unintentionally. But you avoided spending time with me and teaching me—you were unwilling—and instead you bring me here, where the law says to bring those who need punishment, not instruction. But it's already clear enough, men of Athens, what I was saying: that Meletus has never cared about these matters at all, great or small. Still, tell us, Meletus, how do you say I corrupt the younger generation? Or is it obvious, given the indictment you filed, that it's by teaching them not to believe in the gods the city believes in, but in other new divine things instead? Isn't that what you're saying I corrupt them by teaching? That is exactly, precisely what I'm saying. Then, Meletus, by those very gods we're now discussing, explain yourself more clearly, to me and to these men here. Because I can't tell whether you mean that I teach people to believe some gods exist—in which case I myself believe gods exist, and I'm not a complete atheist, and I'm not guilty on that score—only not the ones the city believes in, but different ones, and that's your charge against me, that they're different; or whether you mean that I don't believe in gods at all myself, and that I teach others the same. That's what I mean—that you don't believe in gods at all. That's astonishing, Meletus—why do you say that? Do you mean I don't even think the sun or the moon are gods, the way other people do? No, by Zeus, jurymen, since he says the sun is a stone and the moon is earth. Do you think you're prosecuting Anaxagoras, my dear Meletus? Do you hold these men in such contempt, and think them so illiterate, that they don't know Anaxagoras of Clazomenae's books are full of exactly these claims? And are the young supposed to be learning this from me, when they can buy it for a drachma at most, in the theater, and laugh at Socrates for pretending it's his own—especially since it's so absurd? But tell me, in Zeus's name, is that really what you think of me? That I believe in no god at all? None whatsoever, by Zeus. You're not to be believed, Meletus, and what's more, I think, not even by yourself. Because to me, men of Athens, this man seems thoroughly insolent and unrestrained, and to have brought this indictment out of sheer insolence, license, and youthful recklessness.
It's like a riddle he's put together to test whether Socrates the wise will notice that he's joking and contradicting himself, or whether he'll fool me and everyone else listening. Because it looks to me like he's saying opposite things in his own indictment, as if he'd said: Socrates does wrong by not believing in gods, but believing in gods. And that's just playing games. Look at this together with me, gentlemen, and see why I say he's saying this. You answer us, Meletus. And you, remember what I asked at the start — don't make an uproar if I argue in my usual way. Is there any human being, Meletus, who believes that human affairs exist but doesn't believe there are humans? Let him answer, gentlemen, and stop dodging from one thing to another. Is there anyone who doesn't believe there are horses, but believes there are horse-affairs? Or who doesn't believe there are flute-players, but believes there is flute-playing? There isn't, best of men — if you don't want to answer, I'll tell you and everyone else here. But answer this next one at least: is there anyone who believes there are divine things but doesn't believe there are divine beings? — There isn't. How good of you to finally answer, even though these gentlemen had to force it out of you. So you say I believe in and teach divine things — whether new or old, it doesn't matter — but in any case I believe in divine things by your own account, and you swore to that in your written charge. But if I believe in divine things, then surely I must also believe in divine beings — isn't that so? It is so — I'll take it that you agree, since you won't answer. And don't we think of divine beings as either gods or children of gods? Yes or no? — Certainly. So if I believe in divine beings, as you say, and if these divine beings are a kind of god, then this is exactly what I say you're joking about and hinting at riddles over — claiming I don't believe in gods and then that I do believe in gods after all, since I believe in divine beings. But if, on the other hand, these divine beings are children of gods, some sort of bastard offspring from nymphs or whatever else they're said to come from, then who on earth would think there are children of gods but no gods? That would be as absurd as thinking there are children of horses and donkeys — mules — but no horses or donkeys. No, Meletus, there's no way you wrote this charge except to test us, or because you were at a loss for some real wrongdoing to pin on me. There's no way on earth you could persuade anyone with even a grain of sense that the same person can believe in divine and daimonic things while not believing in divine beings, gods, or heroes.
But truly, men of Athens, I don't think it takes much of a defense to show that I'm not guilty under Meletus's charge — what I've said is enough. But what I said earlier, that I've earned a great deal of hostility from a great many people — know that this is true. And this is what will bring me down, if anything does — not Meletus, not Anytus, but the slander and envy of the crowd. This has brought down many other good men before, and I expect it will keep doing so; there's no danger it will stop with me. Now someone might say: Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to have followed a way of life that now puts you in danger of dying for it? I would answer him fairly: you're not speaking well, friend, if you think a man of even the slightest worth ought to calculate his risk of living or dying, rather than looking only at this when he acts — whether what he does is just or unjust, the work of a good man or a bad one. By your reasoning, all the demigods who died at Troy would turn out to be worthless — including the son of Thetis, who cared so little about danger next to enduring something shameful that when his mother, a goddess, told him — eager as he was to kill Hector — something like this: my son, if you avenge your friend Patroclus's murder and kill Hector, you yourself will die, for your fate is fixed to follow right after Hector's — he heard this and gave no weight to death or danger, fearing far more to live as a coward who failed to avenge his friends. Let me die at once, he said, once I've punished the wrongdoer, rather than stay here by the curved ships, a laughingstock, a burden on the earth. Do you think he gave a thought to death and danger? That's how it truly is, men of Athens: wherever a man has stationed himself because he judged it best, or has been stationed by his commander, there he must stay and face the danger, I think, giving no weight to death or anything else, next to disgrace. So I would have been acting terribly, men of Athens, if, when the commanders you chose to command me stationed me at Potidaea, at Amphipolis, and at Delium, I stayed then where they stationed me, like anyone else, and risked death — but when the god stationed me, as I believed and understood it, to live philosophizing, examining myself and others, I then deserted my post out of fear of death or anything else.
That would be terrible, and then someone really would be right to bring me to court for not believing there are gods, since I'd be disobeying the oracle, fearing death, and thinking myself wise when I'm not. Fearing death, gentlemen, is nothing other than seeming to be wise when you're not — it's seeming to know what you don't know. No one knows whether death might actually be the greatest of all goods for a human being, yet people fear it as if they knew for certain it's the worst of evils. And isn't this the most blameworthy kind of ignorance, thinking you know what you don't know? I, gentlemen, may differ from most people precisely in this — and if I were to claim to be wiser than anyone in any way, it would be in this: that not knowing enough about the world below, I also don't think I know. But I do know that doing wrong and disobeying one's better — whether god or human — is bad and shameful. So I will never fear or run from things that, for all I know, might be good, in preference to things I know to be bad. So even if you acquitted me now, disregarding Anytus, who said that either I shouldn't have come to trial in the first place, or that since I had, there was no way to avoid putting me to death — telling you that if I got off, your sons would all be thoroughly corrupted by practicing what Socrates teaches — if you said to me in response to that: Socrates, this time we won't listen to Anytus, we'll acquit you, but on this condition, that you no longer spend your time on this inquiry or practice philosophy; and if you're caught doing it again, you'll die — if you acquitted me on those terms, as I said, I would tell you: men of Athens, I respect and love you, but I will obey the god rather than you, and as long as I have breath and the strength for it, I will not stop philosophizing, urging you on, and pointing things out to whichever of you I happen to meet, saying just what I always say: best of men, you're an Athenian, from the greatest city, famous above all for wisdom and power — aren't you ashamed to care so much about piling up as much money as possible, and reputation and honor, while giving no thought or care to wisdom and truth and how your soul can be as good as possible?
And if any of you disputes this and says he does care, I won't let him off right away or walk away — I'll question him, examine him, and test him, and if it seems to me he doesn't actually possess virtue but only claims to, I'll reproach him for placing the least value on what matters most and greater value on lesser things. I'll do this to anyone I meet, young or old, foreigner or citizen, but especially to citizens, since you're closer to me in kinship. This is what the god commands, understand that well, and I believe no greater good has ever come to you in this city than my service to the god. For I do nothing but go around persuading you, young and old alike, to care not for your bodies or your money first and foremost, nor as intensely, but for your soul, that it may be as good as possible — telling you that wealth doesn't produce virtue, but virtue produces wealth and everything else good for human beings, both privately and publicly. If saying this corrupts the young, then this teaching would be harmful — but if anyone says I teach something other than this, he's talking nonsense. Given this, men of Athens, I say: either listen to Anytus or don't, either acquit me or don't, since I won't act otherwise, not even if I have to die many times over. Don't make an uproar, men of Athens, but hold to what I asked of you — not to shout at what I say, but to listen. In fact, I think you'll benefit from listening. I'm about to tell you some other things that may make you want to shout, but please don't. Understand this well: if you kill me, being the kind of man I say I am, you won't harm me so much as you'll harm yourselves. Neither Meletus nor Anytus could harm me at all — they have no power to — since I don't think it's permitted by divine law for a worse man to harm a better one. He might kill me, or banish me, or strip me of my rights; he and others may think these are great evils, but I don't think so — I think it's a far greater evil to do what this man is doing now, trying to put a man to death unjustly. So now, men of Athens, I am far from making my defense on my own behalf, as one might think, but on yours, so that you don't make a mistake concerning the god's gift to you by condemning me. If you kill me, you won't easily find another like me — to put it rather comically, someone literally attached to the city by the god, like a gadfly to a large, well-bred horse that's grown sluggish from its size and needs stirring up. It seems to me the god has attached me to the city as just such a creature — one who never stops all day long, settling everywhere, waking you, persuading you, and reproaching each and every one of you.
Someone like me won't easily come your way again, gentlemen, and if you'll take my advice, you'll spare me. But you'll probably be annoyed—like people woken from a doze—and slap at me, and following Anytus's lead, kill me without a second thought, and then spend the rest of your lives asleep, unless god in his care for you sends someone else your way. That I am, in fact, just such a person given to the city by god, you can see from this: it isn't natural for a human being to have neglected all his own affairs, to have put up with the neglect of his household's interests for so many years now, and all the while to keep doing your business, going to each of you privately like a father or an elder brother, urging you to care about excellence. And if I got something out of it—if I collected fees for these exhortations—there would be some sense to it. But as it is, you can see for yourselves that even my accusers, shameless as they've been in leveling every other charge, couldn't bring themselves to be shameless enough to produce a witness claiming I ever took a fee or asked for one. I offer a witness sufficient, I think, to show I'm telling the truth: my poverty. Now it might seem odd that I go around giving this advice privately, meddling in everyone's business, and yet don't dare come before your assembly and advise the city in public. The reason is one you've heard me give many times, in many places: something divine and spirit-like comes to me—a voice—which is exactly what Meletus mocked in his indictment. It's been with me since childhood, this voice; whenever it comes, it always turns me away from something I'm about to do, but it never urges me forward. This is what stands in the way of my taking part in politics, and I think it's dead right to stand in the way. Because you should know well, men of Athens, that if I had tried long ago to engage in political affairs, I would have been destroyed long ago, and would have done no good either to you or to myself. And don't be annoyed with me for telling the truth: no man on earth will survive who genuinely opposes either you or any other mass of people, and tries to stop the many unjust and illegal things that happen in a city. The man who truly fights for justice, if he's going to survive even a little while, must live a private life, not a public one.
I'll give you strong proof of this—not words, but what you value: deeds. Listen to what happened to me, so you'll know that I would not have given way to anyone, against justice, out of fear of death—that not giving way, I'd have destroyed myself instead. What I'm about to tell you is crude and courtroom-ish, but true. I, men of Athens, never held any other office in the city, but I did serve on the Council. It happened that my tribe, Antiochis, held the presidency when you decided to try the ten generals who had failed to gather the dead from the sea battle, all together as a group—which was illegal, as you all came to recognize later. At that time I alone of the presiding officers opposed doing anything against the laws, and I voted against it. And though the public speakers were ready to have me indicted and hauled off, and though you were shouting and urging it on, I thought I ought to run the risk with law and justice on my side, rather than side with you in an unjust decision, out of fear of prison or death. That was while the city was still a democracy. Then, when the oligarchy came, the Thirty summoned me, along with four others, to the Rotunda and ordered us to bring in Leon of Salamis from Salamis, to be put to death—the sort of order they gave to many others too, wanting to implicate as many people as possible in their guilt. But then, too, I showed, not in word but in deed, that death—if it isn't too blunt to say—means nothing at all to me, but that doing nothing unjust or unholy means everything. That government, powerful as it was, didn't frighten me into doing anything unjust: when we came out of the Rotunda, the other four went to Salamis and brought back Leon, but I went home. And I might well have been put to death for it, if the government hadn't been overthrown shortly afterward. There are many who can witness to this for you. Do you think, then, that I would have survived all these years if I had been active in public life, and had acted as a good man should, coming to the aid of justice, and had counted that, as one must, the most important thing? Far from it, men of Athens—nor would any other man.
But throughout my whole life, in anything I've done publicly, I'll be shown to be the same, and privately the same as well—never having yielded to anyone on any point against justice, not to anyone else, and not to any of these people whom my slanderers claim are my students. I have never at any time been anyone's teacher. But if anyone wanted to listen to me talking and going about my own business, whether younger or older, I never begrudged that to anyone, and I don't converse only with those who pay me and refuse those who don't—I offer myself equally to rich and poor to question me, and if anyone wants to answer and hear what I have to say, he may. And whether any of these people turns out good or bad, I couldn't fairly be held responsible, since I never promised any of them any instruction and never taught them anything. And if anyone claims to have learned or heard anything from me privately that everyone else didn't also hear, be assured he isn't telling the truth. But then why do some people enjoy spending a great deal of time with me? You've heard, men of Athens—I've told you the whole truth: they enjoy listening to people being examined who think they're wise but aren't. It isn't unpleasant, after all. This task, as I say, has been assigned to me by the god, through oracles and dreams and every other means by which divine providence has ever assigned a man any task at all. This is true, men of Athens, and easily tested. For if I really am corrupting some of the young and have already corrupted others, then surely, if some of them, now grown older, came to realize that I had once given them bad advice when they were young, they ought now to come forward themselves to accuse me and get their revenge. Or if they weren't willing to do it themselves, some of their relatives—fathers, brothers, other kinsmen—ought now, if their own people had suffered some harm from me, to remember it and seek redress. Well, there are plenty of them here, whom I see: first Crito here, my contemporary and fellow demesman, father of Critobulus here; then Lysanias of Sphettus, father of Aeschines here; then also Antiphon of Cephisia here, father of Epigenes. And here are others whose brothers have spent time in this same pursuit with me: Nicostratus, son of Theozotides, brother of Theodotus—and Theodotus has died, so he at least couldn't plead with his brother not to testify—and Paralius here, son of Demodocus, whose brother was Theages; and here is Adeimantus, son of Ariston, whose brother is Plato here; and Aeantodorus, whose brother Apollodorus is right here.
And I can name many others for you, one of whom Meletus certainly ought to have produced as a witness in his own speech. If he forgot to then, let him do it now—I yield the floor—and let him say if he has any such witness. But you'll find quite the opposite is true, gentlemen: all of them are ready to help me, the corrupter, the one doing harm to their own kin, as Meletus and Anytus put it. Now the corrupted ones themselves might have some reason to help me. But the uncorrupted ones, older men now, relatives of these young men—what reason could they have to help me, except the right and just one: that they know Meletus is lying and I am telling the truth? Well then, gentlemen. What I have to say in my defense is more or less this, and perhaps other things of the same kind. But maybe one of you will be indignant, remembering his own case, if he, in facing a lesser contest than this one, begged and pleaded with the jurors with many tears, bringing forward his children so as to be pitied as much as possible, along with many other relatives and friends—while I will do none of these things, even though, as it might seem, I'm facing the ultimate risk. Perhaps someone thinking about this will be harder on me, and getting angry at just this, will cast his vote in anger. Now if any of you is inclined that way—I don't expect it, but if so—I think it would be fair for me to say to him: my good man, I do have relatives too; as Homer puts it, I too was not born of oak or rock but of human beings, so I have relatives, and sons too, men of Athens, three of them, one already a young man and two still children. But even so I won't bring any of them forward here to beg you for acquittal. Why won't I do any of this? Not out of stubbornness, men of Athens, nor out of disrespect for you—whether I face death bravely or not is another matter—but for the sake of my reputation, and yours, and the whole city's, it doesn't seem right to me to do any of that, given my age and the name I bear, whether truly or falsely, since it's been decided, at any rate, that Socrates is different from most people.
If those of you who are thought to excel in wisdom or courage or any other excellence are going to behave this way, it would be shameful—the sort of thing I've often seen: men who are thought to be something doing astonishing things when on trial, as though they expected something terrible to happen to them if they die, as if they'd be immortal if you didn't kill them. Such men seem to me to bring shame on the city, so that a foreigner might well conclude that those Athenians who excel in virtue, whom the Athenians themselves pick out for offices and other honors, are no better than women. These are things, men of Athens, that those of us thought to be worth anything ought not to do, and you ought not to permit us to do, if we try—you should show, instead, that you'll vote to convict far more readily the man who stages these pitiful scenes and makes the city a laughingstock than the man who keeps quiet. But apart from reputation, gentlemen, it doesn't seem right to me to beg the juror, or to get off by begging—rather, one should instruct and persuade him. The juror isn't sitting there to hand out justice as a favor, but to judge where justice lies; and he has sworn not to favor whomever he pleases, but to judge according to the laws. So we shouldn't get you into the habit of breaking your oath, nor should you fall into that habit—neither of us would be acting piously. So don't expect me, men of Athens, to do things toward you that I neither think good nor just nor holy—especially, by Zeus, when I'm being prosecuted for impiety by this man Meletus here. For clearly, if I were to persuade you by begging, and force you against your oath, I would be teaching you not to believe there are gods, and in defending myself I would in effect be accusing myself of not believing in gods. But that's far from the truth: I do believe, men of Athens, as none of my accusers does, and I leave it to you and to the god to judge about me in whatever way will be best both for me and for you.
That I'm not distressed, men of Athens, at what has happened -- that you voted to convict me -- that's due to a number of things, and above all this: the result was not unexpected. What does astonish me is the count on each side of the vote. I never thought it would be so close -- I expected a wide margin, not a narrow one. As it turns out, if a mere thirty votes had gone the other way, I would have been acquitted. Against Meletus, as I see it, I've already been acquitted, and not just that -- it's plain to everyone that if Anytus and Lycon hadn't come forward to accuse me alongside him, he would have owed a fine of a thousand drachmas, for failing to win a fifth of the votes. So the man proposes death as my penalty. Very well. And what counterproposal shall I make to you, men of Athens? Clearly, whatever I deserve. Then what is that? What do I deserve to suffer or to pay, given that I refused to live quietly, and instead, neglecting the things most people care about -- making money, managing a household, holding military commands, giving speeches in the assembly, and all the other offices, factions, and political cliques that exist in our city -- because I considered myself too honest a man to survive if I went in for that sort of thing, I didn't go where going would have done no good either to you or to me. Instead I went to each of you privately and tried to do you what I call the greatest service: I set about persuading each one of you not to care for any of his own affairs before caring that he himself become as good and as thoughtful as possible, nor to care for the city's affairs before caring for the city itself, and to care for everything else in the same way. So given that this is who I am, what do I deserve to suffer? Something good, men of Athens, if the penalty is to be truly fitted to what I deserve -- and good of the kind that would actually suit me. What suits a poor man who has done you good and who needs the leisure to keep exhorting you? Nothing suits him better, men of Athens, than for such a man to be given his meals in the Prytaneum -- far more so than if one of you had won a race at Olympia with a horse, a pair, or a four-horse team. That man makes you seem happy; I make you actually happy. And he has no need of food, while I do.
So if I'm to propose what I truly deserve as a matter of justice, this is it: to be fed at public expense in the Prytaneum. Perhaps in saying this I sound to you much as I did about pity and pleading, as though I'm being stubborn out of arrogance. But that isn't so, men of Athens -- rather this is the case. I'm convinced that I never wrong anyone intentionally, but I can't convince you of that, because we've had too little time to talk with one another. If you had a law, as other peoples do, that a capital case be judged not in a single day but over many, you would be convinced. As it is, it isn't easy to clear oneself of grave slanders in so little time. So being convinced that I wrong no one, I am far from wronging myself -- from saying against myself that I deserve some evil, and proposing any such penalty for myself. Why should I fear that? That I might suffer the very thing Meletus proposes for me, which I say I don't know whether it's good or bad? Should I choose instead, in place of that, something I know for certain to be bad, and propose that as my penalty? Imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, enslaved to whatever board of officials happens to be in charge, the Eleven? A fine, then, and imprisonment until I pay it? But that comes to the same thing I just said, since I have no money to pay with. Exile, then? Perhaps you'd accept that as my proposal. I would have to love my life very dearly, men of Athens, to be so unreasonable as not to work out that if you, my own fellow citizens, couldn't bear my conversations and arguments -- if they've grown so burdensome and so hateful to you that you're now trying to be rid of them -- others are hardly going to put up with them easily. Far from it, men of Athens. What a fine life it would be for a man my age to leave here and spend the rest of it drifting from city to city, always being driven out. I know very well that wherever I go, the young will listen to me talking, just as they do here. If I drive them away, they themselves will get their elders to drive me out; if I don't drive them away, their fathers and families will do it on their account. Someone might say, 'Socrates, can't you just go away and live quietly, saying nothing?' This is the hardest point of all to make some of you believe.
If I say that doing so would mean disobeying the god, and that this is why I can't keep quiet, you won't believe I'm serious -- you'll think I'm being ironic. And if I say again that it is, in fact, the greatest good for a human being to spend every day discussing virtue and the other things you've heard me discuss, examining myself and others -- and that the unexamined life isn't worth living for a human being -- you'll believe that even less. That's how it is, men, as I say, though it isn't easy to make you believe it. And I'm not in the habit of thinking I deserve anything bad. If I had money, I would propose a fine of as much as I could pay, since that would cost me nothing. But I don't have it -- unless you want to set the fine at whatever amount I'm actually able to pay. Perhaps I could pay you as much as a mina of silver. So I propose that as my penalty. But Plato here, men of Athens, and Crito and Critobulus and Apollodorus urge me to propose thirty minas, and they will stand as guarantors. So I propose that amount, and these men will be your reliable guarantors for the money. Well, men of Athens, for the sake of a little time you will earn yourselves a name and the blame, from those who want to disparage the city, of having killed Socrates, a wise man -- for those who want to find fault with you will say I was wise, even though I'm not. If you had just waited a little while, this would have come about for you on its own; you can see how far along in life I already am, close to death. I say this not to all of you, but to those who voted for my death. And I have this to say as well to those very same men. Perhaps you think I was convicted for lack of the kind of arguments that might have won you over, if I'd thought it right to do and say anything at all to escape the charge. Far from it. I was convicted for a lack, but not a lack of arguments -- rather a lack of shamelessness and impudence, and my unwillingness to say to you the things you would have most enjoyed hearing -- to wail and grieve, and do and say many other things unworthy of me, as I maintain, the sort of things you're used to hearing from others. But I didn't think then that I should do anything unworthy of a free man because of the danger, and I don't regret now having defended myself as I did. I would much rather die having defended myself this way than live having defended myself the other way.
For neither in a court of law nor in war should I or anyone else scheme to escape death by any means possible. In battles too it often becomes clear that a man could escape death by throwing down his weapons and turning to beg his pursuers for mercy; and in every kind of danger there are many other ways to dodge death, if a man is willing to say and do anything at all. But I suspect, men, that the hard thing isn't escaping death, but escaping wickedness -- for wickedness outruns death. And now I, being slow and old, have been overtaken by the slower of the two, death, while my accusers, being clever and quick, have been overtaken by the faster one, wickedness. And now I go away condemned by you to death, while they go away condemned by truth to depravity and injustice. I stand by my penalty, and so do they. Perhaps this was bound to turn out this way, and I think it's fitting enough. But after this I want to prophesy to you, you who voted to condemn me -- for I am now at the point where people are most given to prophecy, when they're about to die. I tell you, men who have killed me, that punishment will come upon you right after my death, and a far harsher one, by Zeus, than the one you've inflicted on me. You've done this now thinking you would be rid of having to give an account of your lives, but it will turn out quite the opposite for you, I tell you. There will be more people to test you, whom I've been holding back until now without your noticing, and they will be harder on you, since they're younger, and you will resent it more. If you think that by killing people you'll stop anyone from reproaching you for not living rightly, you're not thinking straight -- that escape isn't at all workable, nor is it honorable. The best and easiest escape isn't to silence others, but to prepare yourself to be as good as possible. This is my prophecy to you who voted against me, and with it I take my leave. As for those who voted to acquit me, I'd be glad to talk with you about what has just happened, while the officials are busy and I haven't yet gone to the place where I must die. So stay with me a while longer, men -- there's nothing stopping us from talking with one another while we still can.
Since you're my friends, I want to show you what this thing that's happened to me actually means. Men of the jury -- for you I could rightly call judges -- something remarkable has happened to me. The customary prophetic sign, the divine voice, in all the time before now was always extremely frequent, opposing me even over small matters whenever I was about to do something wrong. But now this has happened to me, as you can see for yourselves, the very thing one might suppose and generally consider the worst of evils. Yet the divine sign didn't oppose me this morning when I left home, nor when I came up here to the court, nor at any point in my speech when I was about to say something. Yet in other speeches it has often stopped me in the middle of talking; but this time, in this whole affair, it has opposed me in nothing I did or said. What do I take to be the reason? I'll tell you: it's likely that what has happened to me is a good thing, and that those of us who suppose death is an evil must be mistaken. I have strong proof of this -- there's no way my usual sign would have failed to oppose me if I weren't about to do something good. Let us consider it also this way, how much reason there is to hope it is a good thing. Death is one of two things: either it's like being nothing, with no awareness of anything at all, or, as some say, it's a kind of change, a migration of the soul from this place to another. If it is the absence of all awareness, like a sleep in which the sleeper doesn't even dream, then death would be an extraordinary gain. I think that if someone had to pick out that night in which he slept so soundly that he didn't even dream, and set it beside all the other nights and days of his life, and then, on consideration, say how many days and nights of his life he had spent better and more pleasantly than that night, I think that even the Great King himself, let alone some ordinary person, would find them easy to count against all the other days and nights. So if death is like that, I call it a gain -- for in that case the whole of time seems no longer than a single night. But if death is like a journey from here to another place, and what's said is true, that all the dead are there, what greater good could there be than this, men of the jury?
Consider: if someone arrives in Hades, set free from these people here who claim to be judges, and finds the ones who are truly judges — the very ones who are said to sit in judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthys and Aeacus and Triptolemus, and all the other demigods who lived just lives — would that journey be a bad one? Or again, to keep company with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer — what wouldn't any of you give for that? I myself would be willing to die many times over if this is true. As for me, it would be a wonderful way to spend my time there, whenever I met Palamedes or Ajax son of Telamon, or any other figure of old who died through an unjust verdict, comparing my own experience with theirs — that, I think, would not be unpleasant. And best of all, I could go on doing there what I do here: examining and searching people out, asking which of them is wise, and which only thinks he is but isn't. What wouldn't a person give, gentlemen of the jury, to examine the man who led that great army against Troy, or Odysseus, or Sisyphus, or the countless others one could name, men and women both — to talk with them, to keep company with them, to question them, would be happiness beyond imagining. And surely it isn't for that reason that they put people to death there. In every other respect, too, those there are happier than we are here, and from now on they are immortal for the rest of time, if indeed what is said is true. So you too, gentlemen of the jury, must be hopeful in the face of death, and hold on to this one truth: nothing bad can happen to a good man, whether alive or dead, and the gods do not neglect his fortunes. What has happened to me now did not happen by accident. It's clear to me that it was better for me to die now and be free of my troubles. That is why the sign never turned me back, and why I feel no real anger toward those who condemned me or accused me. Of course they didn't condemn and accuse me with this in mind — they thought they were harming me, and for that they deserve blame. Still, I ask this one thing of them: when my sons grow up, gentlemen, punish them by giving them the same trouble I gave you, if they seem to you to care more for money or anything else than for goodness, and if they think they're something when they're nothing — reproach them just as I reproached you, for not caring about what they should, and for thinking they amount to something when they're worth nothing.
If you do this, I will have received justice from you, both I myself and my sons. But now it's time to go — I to die, and you to live. Which of us goes to the better fate is unclear to everyone except god.
SOCRATES: What brings you here at such an hour, Crito? Isn't it still early?
CRITO: Very early indeed.
SOCRATES: About what time?
CRITO: Just before dawn.
SOCRATES: I'm surprised the prison guard was willing to let you in.
CRITO: He knows me by now, Socrates, because I come here so often — and besides, he's had a favor or two from me.
SOCRATES: Did you just arrive, or have you been here a while?
CRITO: Quite a while.
SOCRATES: Then why didn't you wake me right away, instead of sitting beside me in silence?
CRITO: By Zeus, Socrates, no — I wouldn't want to be lying awake in such grief myself, and I've been marveling at you for some time, seeing how sweetly you sleep. I deliberately didn't wake you, so you could pass the time as pleasantly as possible. Often before, all through your life, I've counted you happy for your temperament, but never more than in this present misfortune — you bear it so easily and calmly.
SOCRATES: Well, Crito, it would be out of tune for a man my age to resent it if he now has to die.
CRITO: Other men your age, Socrates, get caught in misfortunes like this, and their age doesn't release them one bit from resenting the fate in front of them.
SOCRATES: That's true. But why have you come so early?
CRITO: I bring hard news, Socrates — not hard for you, it seems to me, but for me and all your friends, hard and heavy; and I think I will bear it as heavily as anyone.
SOCRATES: What news? Has the ship come from Delos, the one whose arrival means I must die?
CRITO: It hasn't arrived yet, but I think it will come today, judging from the report of some men who came from Sounion and left it there. From these messengers it's clear it will come today, and then tomorrow, Socrates, your life must end.
SOCRATES: Well, Crito, may it be for the best. If this is what pleases the gods, so be it. Still, I don't think it will come today.
CRITO: What's your evidence for that?
SOCRATES: I'll tell you. I have to die, I suppose, on the day after the ship arrives.
CRITO: So say the men in charge of these things, anyway.
SOCRATES: Then I don't think it will come during the day now dawning, but the day after. I judge from a dream I saw a little earlier this night — and it may be a lucky thing you didn't wake me.
CRITO: What was the dream?
SOCRATES: A woman seemed to come to me, beautiful and fair to look at, wearing white robes; she called me and said: "Socrates, on the third day you would reach fertile Phthia."
CRITO: A strange dream, Socrates.
SOCRATES: A clear one, though, as it seems to me, Crito.
CRITO: Too clear, apparently. But, Socrates, you extraordinary man, even now listen to me and save yourself. For me, if you die, it isn't one misfortune only: apart from losing a friend such as I will never find again, many people who don't know you and me well will think that I could have saved you if I'd been willing to spend money, and that I didn't bother. And what reputation could be more shameful than that — to be thought to value money above friends? The many won't believe that you yourself refused to leave this place, though we were eager to help.
SOCRATES: But Crito, my friend, why should the opinion of the many matter so much to us? The most reasonable people, whose opinion is more worth our attention, will believe things were done exactly as they were done.
CRITO: But you can see, Socrates, that one must care about the opinion of the many too. The present situation itself makes it plain that the many can inflict not the smallest of evils but just about the greatest, when someone has been slandered before them.
SOCRATES: If only, Crito, the many were able to do the greatest evils, so that they were also able to do the greatest goods — that would be fine. But as it is, they can do neither: they can't make a man wise or foolish; they just do whatever they happen to do.
CRITO: Have it that way, then. But tell me this, Socrates. Surely you're not worrying about me and your other friends — afraid that if you leave this place, the informers will make trouble for us for having smuggled you out, and we'll be forced to lose our whole estate, or a great deal of money, or suffer something else on top of that?
If you're afraid of anything like that, forget it. We are surely right to run this risk in saving you, and a greater one still, if need be. Trust me and don't do otherwise.
SOCRATES: I am worrying about that, Crito, and about much else.
CRITO: Then don't fear it. In fact it isn't even much money that certain men will take to save you and get you out of here. And besides, don't you see how cheap these informers are — it wouldn't take much money to deal with them? My money is at your disposal, and it's enough, I think. And then, if out of concern for me you think you shouldn't spend mine, there are foreigners here ready to spend theirs. One of them has actually brought enough money for this very purpose — Simmias of Thebes; and Cebes is ready too, and a great many others. So, as I say, don't let fear of that make you give up on saving yourself; and don't let what you said in court trouble you either — that if you went into exile you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. In many places, wherever you go, people will welcome you gladly; and if you want to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will make much of you and keep you safe, so that no one in Thessaly will give you any grief.
Besides, Socrates, I don't think what you're attempting is even just — to betray yourself when you could be saved, and to hurry along for yourself exactly what your enemies would hurry along, and did hurry along, in their desire to destroy you. On top of that, I think you're betraying your own sons too: when you could bring them up and educate them, you'll go off and abandon them, and as far as you're concerned they'll fare however they happen to fare — and they'll likely meet the sort of things that usually happen to orphans in their orphanhood. Either a man shouldn't have children, or he should stay and share the labor of raising and educating them; but you seem to me to be choosing the laziest course. You ought to choose what a good and brave man would choose — you, who claim to have cared about virtue all your life. For my part, I'm ashamed both for you and for us, your friends, that this whole affair of yours may seem to have been carried through by a kind of cowardice on our part: the way the case came into court when it could have been kept out; the way the trial itself was conducted; and now this final scene, like the farce that caps the whole business — that we seem to have let the chance slip through some baseness and cowardice of ours, we who didn't save you, and you who didn't save yourself, though it was possible and feasible if we had been of even a little use. CRITO: So watch out, Socrates, that these things are not shameful, on top of the harm, both for you and for us. Think it over — or rather, it is no longer time to be thinking it over, but to have finished thinking; and there is only one plan. Everything has to be done this coming night. If we wait any longer, it becomes impossible — it can't be done anymore. So by every means, Socrates, listen to me, and do not do anything else.
SOCRATES: My dear Crito, your eagerness would be worth a great deal if it had some rightness to it; but if not, then the greater it is, the harder it is to deal with. So we have to consider whether we should do this or not. Because I am the kind of man — not just now, but always — who obeys nothing in me except the argument that seems best to me when I reason it through. And the arguments I used to make in the past I cannot throw out now, just because this fortune has come upon me. They look pretty much the same to me, and I respect and honor the very same ones as before. If we have nothing better to say in the present situation, be assured that I will not give in to you — not even if the power of the many scares us like children with even more bogeymen than the ones here now, sending chains and deaths and confiscations of money against us. So how could we examine this most reasonably? Suppose we first take up this argument of yours about opinions. Was it well said, each time we said it, or not — that one should pay attention to some opinions and not to others? Or was it well said before I had to die, while now it has turned out to be obvious that it was said idly, for the sake of talking, and was really just play and nonsense? For my part, Crito, I want to look into it together with you: whether it will seem any different to me now that I am in this position, or the same; and whether we will let it go or obey it. It used to be said, I think, each time, by those who thought they were saying something — just as I was saying a moment ago — that of the opinions people hold, one ought to value some highly and others not. In the name of the gods, Crito, doesn't that seem to you well said?
SOCRATES: — for you, as far as human affairs go, are in no danger of dying tomorrow, and the present disaster shouldn't be throwing off your judgment. So consider: doesn't it seem adequately said to you that one should not honor all the opinions of men, but some and not others, and not the opinions of everyone, but of some and not of others? What do you say? Isn't that well said?
CRITO: It is.
SOCRATES: So we should honor the good opinions and not the bad ones?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the good ones are those of the wise, and the bad ones those of the foolish?
CRITO: How could it be otherwise?
SOCRATES: Come then, how did we put this sort of thing? A man in training, who takes it seriously — does he attend to the praise, the criticism, the judgment of just anyone, or only to that one man who happens to be a doctor or a trainer?
CRITO: Of that one only.
SOCRATES: Then he should fear the blame and welcome the praise of that one man, and not those of the many.
CRITO: Clearly.
SOCRATES: So he should act, exercise, eat, and drink exactly as the one — the man in charge, the one who understands — rather than in the way that seems right to all the rest together.
CRITO: That's so.
SOCRATES: Very well. But if he disobeys the one, and slights his opinion and his praises, and honors instead the words of the many who understand nothing, won't he suffer some harm?
CRITO: Of course he will.
SOCRATES: And what is this harm, and where does it lead — into what part of the man who disobeys?
CRITO: Into his body, obviously; that's what it ruins.
SOCRATES: Well said. And isn't it the same with everything else, Crito — so that we don't have to go through every case — and in particular with just and unjust things, shameful and fine, good and bad, the things our deliberation is now about? Should we follow the opinion of the many and fear it, or the opinion of the one, if there is anyone who understands — the one before whom we ought to feel shame and fear more than before all the others put together? And if we do not follow him, we will ruin and maim that thing which becomes better by justice and is destroyed by injustice. Or is that nothing?
CRITO: I think it is something, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Come then. If we destroy the thing that is made better by what is healthy and ruined by what is diseased, because we obey the opinion of those who do not understand, is life worth living for us once it has been ruined? And that thing is, of course, the body — isn't it?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: So is life worth living for us with a wretched, ruined body?
CRITO: Not at all.
SOCRATES: But then is life worth living for us when that thing has been ruined which injustice maims and justice benefits? Or do we think that thing — whichever part of us it is that injustice and justice concern — is of less account than the body? CRITO: Not at all.
SOCRATES: But more valuable?
CRITO: Much more.
SOCRATES: Then, my good friend, we shouldn't care so much about what the many will say about us, but about what the one who understands justice and injustice will say — that one man, and the truth itself. So in the first place you are wrong to propose that we should care about the opinion of the many concerning what is just and noble and good, and their opposites. "But still," someone might say, "the many are able to put us to death."
CRITO: That's obvious too — someone would say it, Socrates. You're right.
SOCRATES: And yet, my remarkable friend, the argument we've just gone through still seems to me the same as it was before. And consider this one too, whether it still holds for us or not: that it is not living that should be valued most, but living well.
CRITO: It holds.
SOCRATES: And that living well and living nobly and living justly are the same thing — does that hold, or does it not?
CRITO: It holds.
SOCRATES: Then from what we have agreed, this is what we must examine: whether it is just for me to try to get out of here without the Athenians' release, or not just. If it appears just, let us try; if not, let us drop it. As for the considerations you raise about spending money, and reputation, and raising children — the truth is, Crito, these are the reflections of those people who lightly put men to death and would bring them back to life again, if they could, with no sense at all: the many. But for us, since the argument compels it this way, there may be nothing else to examine but the question we were just raising: whether we will be acting justly — paying money and owing favors to the men who will get me out of here, ourselves both leading the escape and being led out — or whether in truth we will be doing wrong in doing all this. And if it becomes clear that we would be committing injustice, then perhaps we need not weigh at all whether we must die by staying here and keeping quiet, or suffer anything else whatsoever, rather than do wrong.
CRITO: I think you put that well, Socrates. But see what we should do.
SOCRATES: Let us examine it together, my good man, and if you can contradict anything I say, contradict it, and I will listen to you. But if not, then stop, my dear friend, telling me the same thing over and over — that I ought to leave here against the will of the Athenians. I set great store on acting in this with your consent, not against your will. Now look at the starting point of our inquiry, whether it is stated to your satisfaction, and try to answer what is asked as you truly believe.
CRITO: I'll try.
SOCRATES: Do we say that one must never willingly do wrong, or that one may do wrong in some circumstances but not in others? Or is doing wrong never good or noble in any way, as we have often agreed in the past? Or have all those former agreements of ours been poured out in these last few days, and have we, Crito — old men of our age, conversing seriously with one another all this time — failed to notice that we are no different from children? Or does it stand exactly as we said then: whether the many say so or not, and whether we must suffer things still harder than these or things milder, all the same, doing wrong is in every way both bad and shameful for the one who does it? Do we say so or not?
CRITO: We do.
SOCRATES: Then one must never do wrong.
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor, then, when wronged should one do wrong in return, as the many think — since one must never do wrong at all.
CRITO: Apparently not.
SOCRATES: And what about this? Should one do harm, Crito, or not?
CRITO: Surely not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: What then? Is it just to do harm in return when one is harmed, as the many say, or not just?
CRITO: Not at all.
SOCRATES: For doing harm to people, I suppose, is no different from doing wrong.
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: Then one must neither do wrong in return nor do harm to any human being, no matter what one suffers at their hands. And take care, Crito, in agreeing to this, that you don't agree contrary to your real opinion. For I know that only a few people believe this, or ever will. And between those who hold this view and those who don't, there is no common ground for deliberation; each side necessarily despises the other when they see each other's counsels. So consider very carefully whether you share this view and agree with me, and whether we may begin our deliberation from this point — that it is never right either to do wrong, or to do wrong in return, or, when one is treated badly, to defend oneself by doing bad in return — or whether you dissent and do not share the starting point. For I have long believed this and believe it still; but if you have come to think otherwise in any way, speak up and instruct me. If, however, you stand by what we said before, then hear what comes next.
CRITO: I do stand by it, and I agree with you. Go on.
SOCRATES: Then I'll state the next point — or rather, ask it: should a man do what he has agreed with someone to do, provided it is just, or should he cheat?
CRITO: He should do it. SOCRATES: Then look at it from this angle. If we leave this place without persuading the city, are we treating some people badly — and the very people we should least of all treat that way — or not? And are we standing by the agreements we made, which were just, or not?
CRITO: I can't answer what you're asking, Socrates. I don't follow it.
SOCRATES: Then consider it this way. Suppose that as we were about to run away from here — or whatever we ought to call it — the laws and the community of the city came and stood over us and asked: "Tell me, Socrates, what do you have in mind to do? By this act you're attempting, do you intend anything other than to destroy us, the laws, and the whole city, so far as it lies in you? Or does it seem possible to you that a city can still exist and not be overturned when the verdicts reached in it have no force, but are made void and destroyed by private individuals?" What will we say, Crito, to that and other questions like it? For someone — especially an orator — could say a great deal on behalf of this law that is being destroyed, the one that requires the verdicts of the courts to stand. Or shall we tell them, "Yes — because the city wronged us and did not judge the case correctly"? Shall we say that, or what?
CRITO: That, by Zeus, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then what if the laws say: "Socrates, was that really the agreement between us and you — or was it to abide by whatever verdicts the city delivers?" And if we were surprised at their saying this, they might well say: "Socrates, don't be surprised at what we're saying — answer, since you're so used to proceeding by question and answer. Come then: what charge do you have against us and the city, that you're attempting to destroy us? To begin with, didn't we bring you into being — wasn't it through us that your father took your mother and fathered you? So tell us: do you have some complaint against those of us laws that govern marriage, that they're not good?" "I have no complaint," I would say. "Then against the laws concerning the rearing and education of the child once born, under which you yourself were educated? Or did those of us laws appointed over this not give good orders when they directed your father to educate you in music and gymnastics?" "Good orders," I would say. "Well then. Since you were born, reared, and educated, could you claim, in the first place, that you were not ours — our offspring and our slave, both you and your ancestors before you? And if that's how things stand, do you think that justice is on equal terms between you and us — that whatever we undertake to do to you, you have the right to do back to us?
SOCRATES: "With your father, then — or with a master, if you happened to have one — justice was not on equal terms for you, so that whatever you suffered you could do back: you couldn't answer back when spoken to harshly, or strike back when struck, or any number of things like that. But with your fatherland and the laws it will be permitted — so that if we undertake to destroy you, believing it just, you in turn will undertake, so far as you can, to destroy us, the laws, and your fatherland in return, and you'll claim that in doing so you're acting justly — you, the man who genuinely cares about virtue? Or are you so wise that it has escaped you that fatherland is more precious than mother and father and all your other ancestors put together — more venerable, more holy, held in greater honor both among the gods and among human beings with any sense — and that you must revere it, and yield to it, and soothe a fatherland when it is angry more than a father, and either persuade it or do whatever it commands, and suffer quietly whatever it orders you to suffer, whether to be beaten or to be bound; and if it leads you to war to be wounded or killed, you must do it, and that is what justice is — no giving way, no retreating, no leaving your post, but in war and in the law court and everywhere you must do what your city and fatherland command, or else persuade it where justice truly lies; and that to use force against a mother or a father is unholy, and against your fatherland far more so still?" What will we say to that, Crito? That the laws are speaking the truth, or not?
CRITO: I think they are.
SOCRATES: "Consider then, Socrates," the laws might perhaps say, "whether we are speaking the truth in this: that what you are now attempting to do to us is not just. For we brought you into being, reared you, educated you, gave you, as we gave every citizen, a share in everything fine we could — and even so, we proclaim, by having granted the liberty to any Athenian who wishes, that once he has passed his citizen's scrutiny and seen the affairs of the city and us, the laws, if we do not please him, he may take what is his and go wherever he likes. Not one of us laws stands in the way or forbids it: if any of you wants to go off to a colony because we and the city do not please him, or to move and live as a foreigner somewhere else, he may go wherever he likes, taking his property with him. But whoever of you stays, seeing the way we judge our cases and manage the city in everything else — that man, we say, has by his action already agreed with us to do whatever we command; and if he does not obey, we say he does wrong in three ways: because he disobeys us who are his parents; because he disobeys those who reared him; and because, having agreed to obey us, he neither obeys nor persuades us if we are doing something badly — even though we set the choice before him and do not harshly order him to do whatever we command, but allow one of two things, either to persuade us or to do it — he does neither. SOCRATES: "So we say that you too, Socrates, will be liable to these charges if you do what you have in mind — and you not least of the Athenians, but among the most of all." And if I should say, "Why so?" perhaps they would fairly take hold of me and say that I, as much as any Athenian, happen to have made this agreement with them. For they would say: "Socrates, we have strong evidence that we and the city pleased you. You would never have stayed at home in it more than every other Athenian if it had not pleased you more than it pleased them. You never left the city for a festival — except once, to the Isthmus — nor went anywhere else, except somewhere on military service; you never made any other journey abroad, as other people do; no desire ever seized you to know another city or other laws. We were enough for you, we and our city. So decidedly did you choose us and agree to live as a citizen under us that, among other things, you fathered children in the city — because it pleased you. Furthermore, at your very trial you could have proposed exile as your penalty, if you had wanted, and done then, with the city's consent, what you are now attempting against its will. But at that time you put on a fine show of not resenting it if you had to die; you chose death before exile — so you said. And now you feel no shame before those words, you show no regard for us, the laws, since you are trying to destroy us; and you are doing what the meanest slave would do, attempting to run away contrary to the contracts and agreements under which you covenanted with us to live as a citizen. First, then, answer us this very point: are we telling the truth when we assert that you agreed — by deed, not by word — to live as a citizen under us, or is it untrue?" What are we to say to that, Crito? Anything but agree?
CRITO: We must agree, Socrates.
SOCRATES: "Then what are you doing," they would say, "but breaking the contracts and agreements you made with us — agreements you made under no compulsion, not deceived, not forced to decide in a short time, but over seventy years, in which you were free to leave if we did not please you and the agreements did not seem just to you?"
SOCRATES: "But you preferred neither Sparta nor Crete — the places you keep saying are well governed — nor any other city, Greek or barbarian; you traveled out of Athens less than the lame and the blind and the other cripples. So decidedly, beyond the other Athenians, did the city please you, and we the laws too — obviously; for whom would a city please without its laws? And now will you not stand by what you agreed? You will, if you take our advice, Socrates; and you will not make yourself ridiculous by leaving the city. For consider: if you break these agreements and go wrong in any of this, what good will you do yourself or your friends? That your friends will themselves risk exile too, and being barred from their city or losing their property, is fairly clear. As for you: first, if you go to one of the nearest cities, Thebes or Megara — both are well governed — you will arrive as an enemy of their constitution, Socrates, and all who care for their own cities will look at you askance, regarding you as a destroyer of the laws; and you will confirm the jurors in their opinion, so that they will seem to have judged the case correctly. For whoever is a destroyer of laws would very likely be thought a destroyer of the young and the foolish. Will you then avoid the well-governed cities and the most orderly men? And if you do that, will your life be worth living? Or will you approach these men and have the effrontery to converse with them — saying what, Socrates? The same things you said here, that virtue and justice are worth most to human beings, and lawful conduct and the laws? Don't you think the whole business of Socrates will look disgraceful? You must think so. Or will you clear out of these regions and go to Thessaly, to Crito's friends? There, of course, there is the greatest disorder and license, and perhaps they would enjoy hearing from you how comically you ran away from the prison, dressed up in some outfit — wearing a leather jerkin or the other things runaways usually rig themselves out in — and altering your own appearance. But that an old man, with probably only a little time left to live, dared to cling so greedily to life by breaking the greatest laws — will no one say that? Perhaps, if you annoy no one; otherwise, Socrates, you will hear many things unworthy of you. So you will live fawning on everyone and playing the slave — doing what, except feasting in Thessaly, as if you had traveled abroad to Thessaly for a dinner?
SOCRATES: "And those arguments of yours about justice and the rest of virtue — where will they be then? But is it for your children's sake that you want to live, to rear and educate them? What — will you take them to Thessaly and rear and educate them there, making foreigners of them, so that they can enjoy that too? Or if not that, will they be better reared and educated brought up here while you are alive, though you are not with them? Your friends, you say, will look after them. Will they look after them if you travel to Thessaly, and not look after them if you travel to Hades? If those who claim to be your friends are worth anything, you must believe they will. No, Socrates: obey us, who reared you, and do not put children or life or anything else above justice, so that when you come to Hades you may have all this to say in your defense to the rulers there. For it is plain that doing these things is not better or more just or more holy for you here, or for any of yours, nor will it be better for you when you arrive there. As it is, if you depart, you depart wronged — not by us, the laws, but by men. But if you go out so shamefully, returning wrong for wrong and harm for harm, breaking your own agreements and contracts with us and doing harm to those you should least of all harm — yourself, your friends, your country, and us — then we will be angry with you for as long as you live, and in that other world our brothers, the laws in Hades, will not receive you kindly, knowing that you tried to destroy us, so far as it lay in you. Do not let Crito persuade you to do what he says rather than what we say."
These things, my dear friend Crito, you can be sure I seem to hear, as the Corybants seem to hear the pipes, and this echo of these words hums within me and makes me unable to hear anything else. Know, then, that as things now seem to me, if you speak against them, you will speak in vain. Still, if you think you can accomplish anything, speak.
CRITO: No, Socrates, I have nothing to say.
SOCRATES: Then let it be, Crito, and let us act this way, since this is the way the god leads.
ECHECRATES: Were you there yourself, Phaedo, with Socrates on the day he drank the poison in the prison, or did you hear about it from someone else? PHAEDO: I was there myself, Echecrates. ECHECRATES: Then what did the man say before his death? And how did he die? I would love to hear it. Hardly any of our Phliasian citizens travel to Athens these days, and no visitor has come from there in a long while who could give us any clear report about it — except that he drank poison and died. Beyond that, nobody could tell us anything.
PHAEDO: So you didn't even learn how the trial went? ECHECRATES: Yes, someone did report that to us, and we were surprised that he apparently died so long after it was over. Why was that, Phaedo? PHAEDO: A stroke of chance in his case, Echecrates. It happened that on the day before the trial, the stern of the ship the Athenians send to Delos was wreathed. ECHECRATES: What ship is that? PHAEDO: It's the ship, so the Athenians say, in which Theseus once sailed to Crete with those famous fourteen young people, and saved them and saved himself too. The story goes that they vowed to Apollo then that if they were saved, they would send a sacred mission to Delos every year — and ever since, right up to now, they send it to the god annually. Once the mission begins, they have a law that the city must stay pure during that time, and no one may be publicly executed until the ship reaches Delos and comes back again. Sometimes that takes a long while, when winds happen to hold them back. The mission begins when the priest of Apollo wreathes the stern of the ship, and that, as I say, happened to occur on the day before the trial. That's why Socrates spent so long in prison between his trial and his death. ECHECRATES: But what about the death itself, Phaedo? What was said and done, and which of the man's close friends were with him? Or wouldn't the authorities allow anyone in — did he die with no friends beside him? PHAEDO: Not at all. There were people with him, quite a few in fact. ECHECRATES: Then please do your best to tell us the whole thing as exactly as you can — unless you happen to be pressed for time. PHAEDO: No, I'm free, and I'll try to tell you the story. Remembering Socrates — whether I'm speaking of him myself or listening to someone else — is always the greatest pleasure I have. ECHECRATES: Well, Phaedo, you have listeners who feel the same way. So try to go through it all as precisely as you can. PHAEDO: I can tell you, what I felt while I was there was extraordinary. I felt no pity, though I was present at the death of a close friend — because the man seemed happy to me, Echecrates, in his bearing and in his words, so fearlessly and nobly did he meet his end. It struck me that even in going down to Hades he was not going without divine favor, and that when he arrived there he would fare well, if anyone ever has.
PHAEDO: For that reason nothing like grief came over me, as you'd expect for someone present at a scene of mourning — but no pleasure either, of the kind we usually had when we were doing philosophy together, though the conversation was of that sort. Instead I had a genuinely strange feeling, an unfamiliar blend mixed from pleasure and pain together, as I kept thinking that in a moment this man was going to die. And nearly all of us there were in the same state, sometimes laughing, sometimes in tears — one of us especially, Apollodorus. You know the man, I suppose, and what he's like. ECHECRATES: Of course I do. PHAEDO: Well, he was completely overcome, and I was shaken myself, and so were the others. ECHECRATES: Who happened to be there, Phaedo? PHAEDO: Of the local men, this Apollodorus was there, and Critobulus and his father, and also Hermogenes, Epigenes, Aeschines, and Antisthenes. Ctesippus of Paeania was there too, and Menexenus, and some other locals. Plato, I believe, was ill. ECHECRATES: Were any foreigners present? PHAEDO: Yes — Simmias the Theban, and Cebes, and Phaedondes; and from Megara, Euclides and Terpsion. ECHECRATES: What about Aristippus and Cleombrotus — were they there? PHAEDO: No. They were said to be in Aegina. ECHECRATES: Anyone else? PHAEDO: I think those were about all who came. ECHECRATES: Well then — what do you say the conversation was? PHAEDO: I'll try to tell you everything from the beginning. On the previous days, the others and I had made a habit of visiting Socrates, gathering at dawn at the courthouse where the trial had been held, since it was near the prison. We would wait around each day until the prison opened, passing the time with one another, because it didn't open early; and when it did open, we would go in to Socrates and usually spend the whole day with him. On that day we gathered earlier than usual, because the evening before, when we left the prison, we had learned that the ship had arrived from Delos. So we passed the word to each other to come as early as possible to the usual place. We came, and the doorkeeper who usually answered to us came out and told us to wait and not go in until he himself gave the word — 'because the Eleven,' he said, 'are unchaining Socrates and giving instructions for him to die today.'
PHAEDO: He didn't keep us long, though; he came back and told us to go in. When we entered, we found Socrates just released from his chains, and Xanthippe — you know her — sitting beside him with his little boy on her lap. When Xanthippe saw us, she cried out and said the sort of thing women always do: 'Socrates, this is the last time your friends will speak to you, and you to them!' Socrates glanced at Crito and said, 'Crito, have someone take her home.' And some of Crito's people led her away, wailing and beating her breast. Socrates sat up on the bed, bent his leg, and rubbed it with his hand, and as he rubbed it he said, 'What a strange thing it seems to be, men, this thing people call pleasant. How remarkably it's related to what seems to be its opposite, the painful: the two of them refuse to visit a person at the same time, yet if you chase one and catch it, you're pretty much forced to take the other too, as if the pair of them were attached at a single head. I think,' he said, 'that if Aesop had noticed this, he would have composed a fable about it: the god wanted to reconcile them in their war, and when he couldn't, he fastened their heads together — and that's why, wherever one of them turns up, the other follows along behind. Just as it seems with me: there was pain in my leg from the chain, and now here comes pleasure, evidently following right after it.' Cebes broke in: 'By Zeus, Socrates, I'm glad you reminded me. About those poems you've composed — setting Aesop's fables to verse, and the hymn to Apollo — several people have already asked me, and Evenus did just the other day: what were you thinking, writing them after you came here, when you'd never written anything before? So if you care at all that I have an answer for Evenus when he asks me again — and I know very well he will — tell me what to say.' 'Tell him the truth, Cebes,' he said. 'I didn't write them wanting to rival him or his poems — I knew that wouldn't be easy — but to test what certain dreams meant, and to clear my conscience, in case this was the music they had been ordering me all along to make. It was like this: the same dream kept visiting me throughout my past life, appearing now in one form, now in another, but always saying the same thing: Socrates, it said, make music, and work at it.'
PHAEDO: 'And in the time before now, I took it to be urging and cheering me on in exactly what I was already doing — the way people cheer on runners — that the dream was encouraging me in what I was doing, to make music, since philosophy is the greatest music, and that was what I was practicing. But now, after the trial was over and the god's festival was delaying my death, it seemed to me that in case the dream had been ordering me all along to make music in the common sense, I ought not to disobey it but should do it: it was safer not to depart before clearing my conscience by composing poems in obedience to the dream. So first I composed one for the god whose festival this was; and after the god, reflecting that a poet, if he's really to be a poet, must make stories and not arguments, and that I was no storyteller myself, I took the stories I had at hand and knew by heart — Aesop's — and versified the first ones I came across. So tell Evenus that, Cebes, and tell him farewell, and, if he's sensible, to follow me as quickly as he can. I'm off today, it seems — the Athenians command it.' And Simmias said, 'What a thing to urge on Evenus, Socrates! I've met the man often, and from what I've seen of him, he won't be at all willing to take your advice.' 'What?' he said. 'Isn't Evenus a philosopher?' 'I think so,' said Simmias. 'Then Evenus will be willing — and so will everyone who engages in this business worthily. But he probably won't do violence to himself; they say that isn't permitted.' As he said this, he lowered his legs to the ground, and sitting that way he carried on the rest of the conversation. Then Cebes asked him, 'What do you mean, Socrates — that it isn't permitted to do violence to oneself, but the philosopher would be willing to follow the dying?' 'Why, Cebes — haven't you and Simmias heard about such things? You studied with Philolaus.' 'Nothing definite, Socrates.' 'Well, I speak of it only from hearsay myself; but what I happen to have heard I don't mind telling. Indeed, it's probably most fitting for someone about to travel to that other place to inquire and tell stories about the journey there — what sort of thing we imagine it to be. What else would one do with the time until sunset?' 'Then on what possible ground do they say it isn't permitted to kill oneself, Socrates? I have indeed heard — to answer the question you just asked — both from Philolaus, when he was living with us, and from certain others as well, that one ought not to do this. But I've never heard anything definite about it from anyone.'
PHAEDO: Well, you must be eager to hear it, he said, and perhaps you'll get your wish. Though it may strike you as strange that this alone, of all things, should be simple — that it is never the case for a human being, as it is for other things, that sometimes and for some people it's better to be dead than alive, and yet for those for whom it's better to be dead, it seems it would be wrong for them to do themselves this good turn, and instead they must wait for someone else to do it for them. And Cebes, laughing quietly, said, in his own dialect, Zeus knows! And Socrates said, Put that way, it certainly sounds unreasonable — and yet perhaps there's some sense in it after all. There's a doctrine spoken of in secret about this, that we human beings are in a kind of guard-post, and one must not release oneself from it or run away — that idea seems weighty to me and not easy to see through. Still, this much seems right to me, Cebes: that the gods are the ones who look after us, and that we humans are among the gods' possessions. Doesn't that seem so to you? It does to me, said Cebes. Well then, he said, if one of your own possessions killed itself, without your having indicated that you wanted it dead, wouldn't you be angry with it, and punish it if you had some means of punishment? Certainly, he said. Then perhaps, in that light, it isn't unreasonable to say that no one should kill himself before a god sends some necessity upon him, such as the one now present for us. Well, that does seem plausible, Cebes said. But what you were just saying — that philosophers would readily be willing to die — that seems odd, Socrates, if what we just agreed makes sense: that god is the one looking after us, and we are his possessions. For it makes no sense that the most sensible people wouldn't be upset at leaving this service, in which they are overseen by the best overseers there are among beings — the gods. Surely such a person doesn't think he'll take better care of himself once set free. No, a foolish person might think that one should flee from one's master, without reasoning that one shouldn't flee from what is good but should stay with it as much as possible — so that fleeing would be thoughtless of him. But a sensible person would surely want always to be with what is better than himself. And so, Socrates, it seems the opposite of what you were just saying should be true: it's fitting for the sensible to be upset at dying, and for the foolish to rejoice.
PHAEDO: When Socrates heard this, he seemed to me pleased with Cebes' persistence, and glancing at us he said, Cebes is always hunting down some argument or other, and he's not at all quick to be convinced by whatever anyone says. And Simmias said, Well, Socrates, this time I think Cebes actually has a point. What could truly wise men want, in fleeing from masters better than themselves, and getting free of them so easily? And I think Cebes is aiming his argument at you — that you take it so lightly, leaving both us and those good rulers you yourself admit are gods. You're right to say so, he said; I take it you mean I ought to make a defense against this, as if in a courtroom. Exactly, said Simmias. Come then, he said, let me try to make my defense more persuasive to you than it was to the jury. For, he said, Simmias and Cebes, if I didn't expect to arrive, first, among other gods both wise and good, and then among human beings who have died who are better than the ones here, I'd be wrong not to be upset at death. But as it is, you may be sure I expect to arrive among good men — though I wouldn't insist too strongly on that — but that I will arrive among gods who are altogether good masters, this, if anything of the kind, I would insist on firmly. So that's why I'm not equally troubled, and instead I'm full of hope that there is something for those who have died, and, as the old saying goes, something far better for the good than for the wicked. Well then, Socrates, said Simmias, do you intend to keep this thought to yourself as you go, or would you share it with us too? It seems to me this would be a good shared by us as well, and at the same time it would serve as your defense, if you persuade us of what you're saying. I'll try, he said. But first let's see what Crito here wants — he's seemed to want to say something for a while now. What else, Socrates, said Crito, except what the man who's going to give you the poison has been telling me for a while now — that you should be told to talk as little as possible. He says people get more heated when they talk, and nothing like that should interfere with the drug; otherwise those who do that sort of thing sometimes have to drink it two or even three times. And Socrates said, Let him be — just let him prepare his dose so it can be given twice, or even three times if need be. I pretty much knew you'd say that, said Crito, but he's been bothering me about it for a while. Let him be, he said.
PHAEDO: Well then, I want to give my defense now to you, my judges, to show why it seems reasonable to me that a man who has genuinely spent his life in philosophy should be confident as he faces death, and full of hope that once he dies he will gain the greatest goods over there. How this could be so, Simmias and Cebes, I'll try to explain. It seems that those who engage with philosophy in the right way happen, without others noticing, to be practicing nothing other than dying and being dead. So if this is true, it would surely be strange to be eager, throughout one's whole life, for nothing but this, and then, when it actually arrives, to be upset about the very thing one had long been eager for and practicing. And Simmias laughed and said, By Zeus, Socrates, you've made me laugh just now, though I wasn't really in the mood. I think most people, hearing that, would think it very well said about those who practice philosophy — and our own countrymen would agree entirely — that philosophers really do long for death, and that it hasn't escaped them that they deserve it. And they'd be right to say so, Simmias, except for the part about it not escaping them. For it has escaped them in what sense the true philosophers long for death, and in what sense they deserve it, and what sort of death it is. Let's speak among ourselves, he said, and pay no more attention to them. Do we think death is something? Certainly, said Simmias, taking up the question. Is it anything other than the separation of the soul from the body? And that being dead is this: the body having come to be by itself, separated from the soul, and the soul being by itself, separated from the body? Is death anything other than this? No, this is it, he said. Consider then, my good man, whether you agree with me on this — for I think it's from this that we'll get more insight into what we're examining. Does it seem fitting for a philosopher to be seriously concerned with the pleasures people call such, for instance those of food and drink? Least of all, Socrates, said Simmias. And what about the pleasures of sex? Not at all. And what about the other kinds of bodily care and adornment — does such a man think them worth honoring? Things like fine clothes and shoes and other bodily ornaments — does he seem to you to value them, or to despise them, except so far as there's great necessity to have anything to do with them? I think the true philosopher despises them, he said. Doesn't it seem to you, then, that such a man's whole concern is not with the body, but, so far as he can, turned away from it and toward the soul? It does to me.
PHAEDO: So doesn't the philosopher show himself, first of all in matters like these, as releasing his soul from association with the body, more than other people do? So it appears. And most people think, Simmias, that someone for whom none of these things is pleasant, who takes no part in them, doesn't deserve to live — that a man who cares nothing for the pleasures that come through the body is close to being dead already. Quite true, what you say. But what about the acquisition of understanding itself? Is the body a hindrance or not, if one takes it along as a partner in the search? Here's what I mean: do sight and hearing hold any truth for human beings, or is it just as the poets are always chanting to us, that we neither hear nor see anything accurately? And yet if these bodily senses aren't accurate or clear, the others will hardly be better, since they're all inferior to these. Don't you think so? I do, he said. When, then, does the soul grasp the truth? For whenever it tries to examine anything together with the body, it's clearly deceived by it. True. Isn't it in reasoning, then, if anywhere, that something of the things that are becomes clear to it? Yes. And it reasons best, surely, when none of these things troubles it — neither hearing nor sight, nor pain nor any pleasure — but when it is, as much as possible, alone by itself, letting the body go, and, so far as it can, having no association or contact with it, reaches out toward what is. That's so. So here too the philosopher's soul dishonors the body most, and flees from it, seeking to be by itself. It appears so. And what about things like this, Simmias? Do we say there's such a thing as the just itself, or not? We certainly do, by Zeus. And again something beautiful, and something good? Of course. Have you ever yet seen any of these with your eyes? Never, he said. Or grasped them by any other bodily sense? I mean all of them together — size, health, strength, and in one word the being of each thing, what each really is. Is their truest reality contemplated through the body, or is it rather this way: whoever among us prepares himself most fully and precisely to think through, in itself, the very thing he's investigating, that person will come closest to knowing each thing? Certainly.
PHAEDO: "Would the man who does this most purely, then, be the one who goes at each thing as much as possible with pure thought itself, not laying any sight alongside his thinking, nor dragging in any other sense together with his reasoning, but who uses thought alone by itself, unmixed, and tries to hunt down each of the things that are, each one itself by itself, unmixed, cut off as far as possible from eyes and ears and, so to speak, from the whole body, on the ground that the body throws the soul into confusion and does not let it acquire truth and understanding whenever it keeps it company — isn't this the man, Simmias, if anyone will, who will lay hold of what is?" "What you say is extraordinarily true, Socrates," said Simmias. "Then," he said, "from all this some such belief must arise in men who are genuinely lovers of wisdom, so that they say things like this to one another: that there seems to be a kind of path leading us, together with the argument, in our inquiry — that as long as we have the body, and our soul is fouled up together with such an evil, we will never adequately gain what we desire, and this, we say, is the truth. For the body fills us with countless distractions just to feed it, and then, if diseases fall upon it, they block our hunt for what is. It fills us with erotic longings and appetites and fears and images of every sort and a great deal of nonsense, so that, as the saying truly goes, no thinking whatsoever ever actually arises in us because of it. Wars, factions, and battles are caused by nothing but the body and its appetites. For all wars come about because of the acquisition of wealth, and we are forced to acquire wealth because of the body, since we are enslaved to its service — and because of all this we have no leisure for philosophy. And the worst thing of all is that even if we do get some leisure from it and turn to look into something, in our inquiries the body keeps forcing its way in everywhere, causing turmoil and confusion, and it startles us so that we cannot see the truth on account of it. No, it has really been shown to us that if we are ever going to know something purely, we must be rid of the body and view the things themselves with the soul by itself. And then, it seems, we will have what we desire and claim to be lovers of — understanding — once we have died, as the argument shows, though not while we are alive.
PHAEDO: "For if it isn't possible to know anything purely in company with the body, then one of two things is true: either knowledge cannot be acquired anywhere at all, or only after death. For then the soul will be by itself, apart from the body, and not before. And while we are alive, it seems, we will be as close as possible to knowing only if we have as little as possible to do with the body and do not share in it, except where absolute necessity requires, and do not let ourselves be infected with its nature, but stay pure of it, until the god himself releases us. And in this way, once we are freed from the body's folly and made pure, we will presumably be in the company of others like ourselves, and will know through ourselves the whole of what is unmixed — and that, perhaps, is the truth. For it is probably not permitted for the impure to touch the pure. Such things, Simmias, I think all who rightly love learning must say and believe among themselves. Or don't you think so?" "Nothing could be more so, Socrates." "Then," said Socrates, "if this is true, my friend, there is great hope that when I arrive where I am going, I will there, if anywhere, adequately gain that for the sake of which we have taken such great pains in our past life, so that this journey now laid upon me comes with good hope — and for any other man too who believes his mind has been prepared, as it were, purified." "Certainly," said Simmias. "And is this not what purification turns out to be — the very thing we've been saying for a while now — separating the soul as much as possible from the body, and habituating it to gather and collect itself together, out of every part of the body, by itself, and to dwell, as far as it can, both now and hereafter, alone by itself, released as if from chains, from the body?" "Certainly," he said. "And isn't this exactly what is called death — the release and separation of soul from body?" "Absolutely," he said. "And it is always, we say, those who practice philosophy in the right way, and only they, who are most eager to release it, and this very thing is the philosophers' pursuit — the release and separation of soul from body. Isn't that so?" "It appears so." "Then, as I was saying at the beginning, wouldn't it be absurd for a man to spend his life preparing himself to live as close as possible to being dead, and then, when death arrives for him, to resent it?" "Absurd — of course." "So in truth, Simmias," he said, "those who practice philosophy rightly are practicing dying, and death is, for them, the least fearsome thing in the world of all things. Consider it from the following.
PHAEDO: "If they are everywhere at odds with the body, and desire to have the soul by itself alone, and if, when this actually happens, they were to be afraid and resentful, wouldn't it be quite unreasonable of them not to go gladly to the place where, once they arrive, there is hope of attaining what they loved throughout their life — and they loved understanding — and of being rid of that with which they were at odds, now that it no longer accompanies them? Many men, when their human loves — boys, wives, sons — have died, have been willing of their own accord to go down to Hades, driven by just this hope: of seeing there those they longed for, and being with them. And yet will someone who is truly in love with understanding, and who has grasped this very same hope firmly — that he will meet with it nowhere else worth mentioning except in Hades — will he resent dying, and not go there gladly? We must think he will, my friend, if he is truly a philosopher. For he will be quite convinced of this: that he will meet with understanding in its pure form nowhere else but there. And if this is so, as I was just saying, wouldn't it be quite unreasonable for such a man to fear death?" "Quite unreasonable indeed, by Zeus," he said. "So isn't this," he said, "sufficient evidence for you, about any man you see resenting the prospect of dying, that he was, after all, no lover of wisdom but a lover of the body? And this same man happens, no doubt, to be a lover of money too, and a lover of honor — one or the other of these, or both." "It is certainly as you say," he said. "Then, Simmias," he said, "doesn't what is called courage belong most of all to men disposed in just this way?" "Absolutely, surely," he said. "And self-control too — the very thing most people call self-control, not being flustered over one's appetites but holding them cheap and in orderly check — doesn't that belong only to those who hold the body cheapest and live in philosophy?" "It must," he said. "For if you're willing," he said, "to consider the courage and self-control of everyone else, they will strike you as strange." "How so, Socrates?" "You know," he said, "that everyone else regards death as one of the great evils?" "Very much so," he said. "So isn't it out of fear of greater evils that the courageous among them endure death, whenever they do endure it?" "That's so." "So it is by being afraid, and through fear, that all of them are courageous — except the philosophers. And yet it's absurd for someone to be courageous through fear and cowardice." "Quite so." "And what about the well-behaved among them? Haven't they suffered the same thing — are they self-controlled through a kind of self-indulgence? Yet we say that's impossible — but all the same, something like this happens to them regarding this simple-minded self-control: fearing to be deprived of certain other pleasures, and desiring them, they hold off from some pleasures because they are mastered by others.
PHAEDO: "And yet they call it self-indulgence to be ruled by pleasures — but it turns out that, being mastered by certain pleasures, they master other pleasures. And this is like what was just being said — that in a way it is through self-indulgence that they have been made self-controlled." "So it seems." "My blessed Simmias, I'm afraid this isn't the right exchange for virtue — trading pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, and fear for fear, greater for smaller, as if they were coins — but that there is only one currency that is correct, for which all these must be exchanged: understanding. And with this, and in exchange for this, everything is truly bought and sold — courage and self-control and justice, and, in short, true virtue, together with understanding, whether pleasures and fears and all other such things are added or taken away. But when they are separated from understanding and exchanged one for another, such virtue is nothing but a kind of sketch, and is in fact slavish, and has nothing sound or true in it — while the truth is really some kind of purification from all such things, and self-control and justice and courage, and understanding itself, are a kind of purification. And it seems to me that the men who established the rites of initiation for us were no fools, but were, in fact, hinting long ago that whoever arrives in Hades uninitiated and unperfected will lie in the mud, while the one who arrives there purified and perfected will dwell among the gods. For, as those concerned with the rites say, 'many carry the wand, but the bacchants are few' — and these, in my opinion, are none other than those who have practiced philosophy in the right way. I have done everything in my power, in my life, to become one of these, leaving nothing undone, and have striven in every way to do so. Whether I have striven rightly, and whether we have achieved anything, we will know clearly, once we arrive there, a little later, god willing, as I believe. This, then, Simmias and Cebes," he said, "is my defense — that it is reasonable for me not to take it hard or resent leaving you and the masters here, believing that there too, no less than here, I will meet with good masters and companions. Most people find this hard to believe. So if I am at all more convincing to you in my defense than I was to the Athenian jurors, that would be good."
PHAEDO: When Socrates had said this, Cebes took it up and said, "Socrates, everything else seems to me well said, but what you say about the soul causes people a great deal of disbelief — the fear that once it is freed from the body, it is no longer anywhere at all, but is destroyed and perishes on that very day a man dies, the moment it is freed from the body, and that as it goes out it scatters and disperses like breath or smoke, flying off and vanishing, and is no longer anywhere at all. For if it really existed somewhere, gathered together by itself and rid of those evils you were just describing, that would be a great and beautiful hope, Socrates, that what you say is true. But this surely needs no small amount of reassurance and proof — that the soul exists once the man has died, and retains some power and understanding." "What you say is true, Cebes," said Socrates. "But what shall we do, then? Do you want us to talk the matter through together, whether it's likely to be so or not?" "I, for one," said Cebes, "would be glad to hear what view you hold about it." "I don't think," said Socrates, "that anyone hearing me now, not even if he were a comic poet, could say I am babbling and talking about things that don't concern me. So if you think it best, we should look into it closely. Let's examine it this way: whether the souls of men who have died exist in Hades or not. Now there is an old tradition, which we recall, that souls arriving there come from here, and then come back here again, and are born from the dead. And if this is so — that the living are born again from the dead — wouldn't our souls have to exist there? For surely they could not be born again if they did not exist, and this would be sufficient proof that this is so, if it should truly become clear that the living come from nowhere else but from the dead. But if this is not so, some other argument would be needed." "Quite so," said Cebes. "Well then," he said, "don't consider this just in the case of human beings, if you want to understand it more easily, but in the case of all animals and plants too, and, in short, let us look at everything that comes to be, and see whether everything comes to be in this way — from nothing else but from its opposite, in the case of all things that happen to have such a thing, as, say, the beautiful is opposite to the ugly, and the just to the unjust, and countless other things are like this. Let us examine this, then: whether it is necessary that everything that has an opposite comes to be from nothing else but its own opposite. For instance, when something comes to be larger, isn't it necessary that it was smaller before, and only afterward becomes larger?" "Yes."
So if something becomes smaller, it must have been bigger before and become smaller afterward? That's how it is, he said. And the weaker comes from the stronger, and the faster from the slower? Certainly. And what about this: if something becomes worse, doesn't it come from something better, and if more just, from something less just? Of course. So we have this well enough established, that everything comes to be this way, opposite things from their opposites? Certainly. Now then: is there also something like this in them — that between every pair of opposites, since there are two of them, there are two processes of becoming, one from each toward the other, and then back again from that one to the first? Between something bigger and something smaller there's growth and shrinking, and we call one of these growing, the other shrinking? Yes, he said. And likewise separating and combining, cooling and heating, and so on for everything, even where we don't have names for it in some cases — still, in practice, it must hold everywhere, that these things come to be out of each other, and there's a process of becoming from each into the other. Certainly, he said. Well then, he said, is there something opposite to being alive, the way being awake is opposite to being asleep? Certainly, he said. What is it? Being dead, he said. So these come from each other, since they're opposites, and there are two processes of becoming between the two of them? Of course. Now then, he said, I'll tell you the one pair of opposites I was just talking about, and its two processes — Socrates said this — and you tell me the other. I mean sleeping and waking: waking comes from sleeping, and sleeping comes from waking, and their two processes are falling asleep and waking up. Is that clear enough for you, or not? Certainly. Now you tell me the same way about life and death. Don't you say that being dead is opposite to being alive? I do. And that they come from each other? Yes. So what comes from the living? The dead, he said. And what, he said, from the dead? I have to admit, he said, the living. So living things and living people come from the dead, Cebes? So it appears, he said. Then our souls exist in Hades. It seems so. And of the two processes involved here, isn't one of them at least perfectly clear? Dying is clear enough, surely, isn't it? Certainly, he said. So what shall we do, he said? Shall we fail to supply the opposite process, and let nature limp along lopsided this way? Or must we grant some process opposite to dying? We must, surely, he said. What is it? Coming back to life.
So, he said, if there is such a thing as coming back to life, this would be a process from the dead into the living — this coming-back-to-life? Certainly. Then we agree on this too: the living come from the dead no less than the dead come from the living. And given this, it seemed to be sufficient proof that the souls of the dead must exist somewhere, from which they come back again. I think, Socrates, he said, that this follows necessarily from what we've agreed. Now look at it this way, Cebes, he said, and see that we haven't agreed to this unfairly, as I see it. Suppose things didn't always pay each other back this way, one becoming from the other in a circle, but instead there were a straight-line process going only one way, from one thing to its opposite, without ever bending back or curving around — you realize that in the end everything would take on the same form and suffer the same fate, and becoming would stop altogether? What do you mean? he said. It's not hard to grasp what I mean, he said. Suppose, for instance, there were falling asleep, but waking up never paid it back by coming from the sleeping thing — you see that in the end everything would make Endymion look like a joke, and he'd be nowhere in particular, because everything else would have suffered the same thing as he did: sleeping. And if everything combined but nothing ever separated, the state of affairs Anaxagoras describes would quickly come about — all things together. And in the same way, dear Cebes, if everything that had a share of life died, and once dead, the dead things stayed in that condition and never came back to life, wouldn't it be quite inevitable that everything would eventually be dead, and nothing alive? Because if living things came from other things, but the living things kept dying, what could possibly prevent everything from being used up in death? There's no way around it, Socrates, said Cebes — you seem to me to be entirely right. Yes, Cebes, he said, I think it's absolutely so, and we're not agreeing to this deceived — it really is true that there's such a thing as coming back to life, that the living come from the dead, that the souls of the dead exist, and that it goes better for the good souls and worse for the bad ones. And what's more, Socrates, said Cebes, taking it up, if that theory is true which you're always saying, that our learning is really nothing but recollection, then by this argument too we must have learned at some earlier time what we're now recollecting.
But that's impossible, unless our soul existed somewhere before it came to be in this human form — so on this count too the soul looks like something immortal. But Cebes, said Simmias, taking it up, what are the proofs of this? Remind me — I don't remember them very clearly at the moment. In one word, said Cebes, and a beautiful one: if you question people properly, they'll tell you, all on their own, exactly how things stand — and yet if they didn't have knowledge already in them, along with a correct account, they wouldn't be able to do this. And then, if you bring them to diagrams or anything of that sort, right there it becomes perfectly clear that this is so. But if you're not convinced by that, Simmias, said Socrates, see whether you agree looking at it this way instead. Do you doubt how so-called learning could be recollection? It's not that I doubt you, said Simmias, but I need to have this very experience the argument is about — being reminded. And in fact, from what Cebes has started to say, I'm already remembering and I'm convinced — but I'd like to hear all the same how you were going to argue it. Like this, he said. We agree, I take it, that if someone is going to remember something, he must have known it at some earlier time. Certainly, he said. Do we also agree on this — that whenever knowledge comes about in a certain way, it's recollection? What way do I mean? This: if someone, on seeing or hearing something, or getting some other perception of it, doesn't just recognize that thing but also thinks of something else, of which the knowledge is not the same but different, don't we rightly say that he was reminded of the thing he formed a notion of? What do you mean? Something like this. Knowledge of a person is one thing, knowledge of a lyre another. Of course. Well, you know what happens to lovers whenever they see a lyre, or a cloak, or anything else their beloved is used to using — they recognize the lyre, and in their mind they form the image of the boy whose lyre it was. That's recollection — just as someone, seeing Simmias, is often reminded of Cebes, and there would be countless other examples like that. Countless indeed, by Zeus, said Simmias. So, he said, isn't something like that a kind of recollection — especially when it happens to someone regarding things that, through time and inattention, he had already forgotten? Certainly, he said. Well then, he said — is it possible, on seeing a painted horse or a painted lyre, to be reminded of a person, and on seeing a painted Simmias, to be reminded of Cebes? Certainly.
And also, on seeing a painted Simmias, to be reminded of Simmias himself? That's possible too, he said. So doesn't it follow, in all these cases, that recollection can come both from things that are like the thing recollected and from things that are unlike it? It does. But whenever someone is reminded of something from things like it, isn't it necessary that he also experience this in addition — noticing whether the thing falls short, in its likeness, of the thing he was reminded of, or not? Necessarily, he said. Now look, he said, whether this is so. We say there is such a thing as equal — I don't mean a stick equal to a stick, or a stone to a stone, or anything of that kind, but something else beyond all these, the equal itself. Shall we say it's something, or nothing? We'll certainly say it's something, by Zeus, said Simmias — remarkably so. And do we actually know what it is? Certainly, he said. Where did we get the knowledge of it from? Isn't it from the things we were just talking about — seeing sticks or stones or other things that are equal, we formed the notion of that other thing from these, something different from them? Or doesn't it seem different to you? Look at it this way too. Don't equal stones and sticks sometimes, while remaining the same, appear equal to one person and not to another? Certainly. But now — did the equals themselves ever appear unequal to you, or equality appear as inequality? Never, Socrates. So these equal things are not the same, he said, as the equal itself. It doesn't appear so to me at all, Socrates. And yet, he said, it's from these equal things, different as they are from that equal, that you've nonetheless formed the notion of it and grasped it? That's very true, he said. And this either because it's like them, or unlike them? Certainly. It makes no difference, he said — as long as, seeing one thing, you think of another from that sight, whether like or unlike, it must be that this has become an act of recollection. Certainly. Well then, he said — do we experience something like this with the equal things in sticks and the like that we were just talking about? Do they appear to us to be equal in the way the equal itself is, or do they fall short of being such a thing as the equal, or not at all? They fall quite short, he said. So don't we agree that whenever someone, seeing something, thinks, 'this thing I'm now looking at is trying to be like some other thing among the things that are, but falls short and cannot be like that thing, being inferior to it' — the person thinking this must already have had prior knowledge of that thing which he says the other resembles, but imperfectly? Necessarily. Well then — is this the very experience we've had ourselves, regarding equal things and the equal itself? Absolutely.
PHAEDO: So it's necessary that we knew the equal beforehand, before that time when we first saw equal things and realized that all of them are straining to be like the equal, but fall short of it. Yes, that's so. But we also agree on this: that we couldn't have gotten the notion from anywhere else, nor is it possible to get it any other way, except from seeing or touching or some other sense—and I count all the senses as one for this purpose. They're the same, Socrates, at least for what the argument is trying to show. Well then, it's from the senses that we must come to realize that everything given in the senses is straining toward that which the equal itself is, and falls short of it. Isn't that how we put it? Yes. So before we began to see and hear and use our other senses, we must somehow have already acquired knowledge of the equal itself—what it is—if we were going to refer the equal things we perceive back to it, on the grounds that they're all eager to be like it but come up short. That follows necessarily from what we've already agreed, Socrates. But didn't we start seeing and hearing and having our other senses the moment we were born? Certainly. And we're saying we had to have gotten knowledge of the equal before that? Yes. So it seems we must have possessed it before we were born. It does seem so. Now if we acquired it before birth and had it when we came to be, then we knew, both before birth and right at birth, not only the equal and the greater and the less but all things of that kind—for our argument now concerns the beautiful itself and the good itself no less than the equal, and the just and the holy, and, as I say, everything we stamp with the seal 'what it is' when we ask questions and when we answer them. So we must have acquired knowledge of all these before we were born. That's so. And if, having acquired it, we hadn't each time forgotten it, we'd always be born knowing it and would know it throughout our lives—for this is what knowing is: to have gotten hold of some piece of knowledge and to keep it, not to have lost it. Isn't that what we mean by forgetting, Simmias—the loss of knowledge? Certainly, Socrates, he said. But if, I imagine, we got it before being born and lost it in the process of being born, and then later, by using our senses concerning those very things, we recover the knowledge we once had before—wouldn't what we call learning be the recovery of knowledge that is already our own? And wouldn't we be right to call this remembering? Quite right.
PHAEDO: For it has turned out to be possible, hasn't it, that a person who perceives something—sees it, or hears it, or takes it in through some other sense—can, from that, come to think of something else that had slipped his mind, something related to it though unlike it, or something it resembles. So, as I say, one of two things must be true: either we're born already knowing these things and know them throughout our lives, or afterward, the people we say are learning are doing nothing but remembering, and learning would just be recollection. That's certainly how it looks, Socrates. Which do you choose then, Simmias? That we're born knowing, or that we later recollect what we had come to know earlier? I can't choose right now, Socrates. Well, can you choose this, and tell me what you think about it: a man who knows something—could he give an account of what he knows, or not? Certainly he must be able to, Socrates. And do you think everyone can give an account of the things we've just been discussing? I wish they could, said Simmias, but I'm much more afraid that by this time tomorrow there won't be a single person left able to do it properly. So you don't think everyone knows these things, Simmias? Not at all. So they're remembering what they once learned? Necessarily. When did our souls acquire this knowledge? Not, surely, since we became human beings. No, certainly not. Before that, then. Yes. So our souls existed, Simmias, even before they took human form, apart from bodies, and they possessed understanding. Unless we acquire this knowledge at the very moment we're born, Socrates—that time is still left open. Well, my friend—but at what other time do we lose it? We're not born already having it, as we've just agreed—do we lose it at the very moment we get it, or can you name some other time? None at all, Socrates—I didn't notice I was saying nothing. Well then, is this how it stands for us, Simmias? If those things we're always going on about really exist—the beautiful, the good, and all that kind of reality—and we refer everything we perceive back to that reality, discovering that it existed beforehand and belongs to us, and we compare our perceptions to it, then it follows necessarily that, just as these things exist, so too our soul existed before we were born; but if they don't exist, this whole argument would have been made in vain. Isn't that how it stands, and isn't it equally necessary that these things exist and that our souls existed before we were born, and that if the one is false, so is the other?
PHAEDO: It seems to me, Socrates, said Simmias, that the same necessity holds in both cases, and the argument takes splendid refuge in the fact that our soul's existence before our birth stands or falls together with the reality you're now describing. There's nothing I find so evident as this—that all such things exist as fully as possible: the beautiful, the good, and all the others you were just naming—and I think it's been adequately demonstrated. And what about Cebes? said Socrates. Cebes has to be persuaded too. Adequately, I think, said Simmias, though he's the most stubborn of men when it comes to distrusting arguments. Still, I think he's sufficiently convinced that our soul existed before we were born. But whether it will still exist once we've died—that, I think, hasn't been shown even to his own satisfaction, Socrates. The point Cebes raised earlier still stands—the worry most people have, that the soul might scatter the moment a person dies, and that this might be the end of its existence. What's to stop it from coming into being and being assembled from somewhere else, and existing before it enters a human body, and yet, once it arrives there and departs again, from itself coming to an end and being destroyed? Well said, Simmias, said Cebes. It does look as if only half of what needs proving has been shown—that our soul existed before we were born—but it still needs to be shown, in addition, that it will exist just as much after we die as it did before we were born, if the proof is to be complete. It has been shown, Simmias and Cebes, said Socrates—even now, if you're willing to combine this argument with the one we agreed on earlier, that everything living comes from what is dead. For if the soul exists even before this life, and if, in coming to life and being born, it can come from nowhere else but from death and being dead, then surely it must exist after death too, since it has to come to life again. So what you're asking has already been shown, even now. Still, I think you and Simmias would enjoy working this argument over still further—you have the fear children have, that when the soul leaves the body the wind will really blow it apart and scatter it, especially if a person happens to die not in calm weather but in a great storm. And Cebes laughed and said: Talk us out of it, Socrates, as if we were afraid—or rather, not as if we ourselves were afraid, but as if there's a child in each of us who's frightened of such things. Try to persuade him not to fear death as if it were a bogeyman. But you must, said Socrates, chant a charm over him every day, until you've charmed the fear away.
PHAEDO: But where, Socrates, said Cebes, shall we find a good singer of such charms, now that you're leaving us? Greece is a large place, Cebes, he said, and there are good men in it, and there are many foreign peoples too—you must search through all of them looking for such a charmer, sparing neither money nor effort, since there's nothing on which you could spend your money to better purpose. And you must search among yourselves as well, for you might not easily find people more capable of doing this than you are. Well, that we'll see to, said Cebes—but let's go back to where we left off, if that's what pleases you. Of course it pleases me—why wouldn't it? Good, he said. Now, said Socrates, this is the sort of question we need to ask ourselves: what kind of thing is it that suffers this fate, being scattered apart, and what kind of thing should we be afraid might suffer it, and what kind should not? And after that we should examine which kind the soul is, and on that basis feel confident or afraid on our soul's behalf. That's true, he said. Now, isn't it fitting that whatever is composite, put together out of parts, should by its nature suffer this—being split apart the same way it was put together? And if something happens to be non-composite, it alone, if anything, is fit not to suffer this. That's how it seems to me, said Cebes. And isn't it likely that the things which are always the same and stay in the same state are the non-composite ones, while the things that are sometimes one way and sometimes another and are never the same are the composite ones? Yes, that's how it seems to me too. Let's go back, then, he said, to the same things we were discussing before. That reality itself, whose being we account for in our questions and answers—does it always stay the same, in the same state, or does it change from one condition to another? The equal itself, the beautiful itself, each thing itself, what it is, being itself—does it ever admit any change whatsoever? Or does each of them, being what it is, single in form, remaining by itself, stay always the same in the same state, and never in any way admit any alteration at all? It must stay the same, in the same state, Socrates, said Cebes. But what about the many beautiful things—people, or horses, or cloaks, or anything else of that kind—or equal things, or beautiful things, or anything sharing the same name as those realities? Do they stay the same, or is it just the opposite with them—that they're never, so to speak, the same as themselves or as each other in any way at all? These, in turn, said Cebes, are never the same.
PHAEDO. "So these things you could touch, and see, and perceive with your other senses — but the things that stay always the same, there's no way to grasp them except by the reasoning of the mind. They're invisible, not things you see." "What you say is entirely true," he said. "Shall we then posit two kinds of things that are — one visible, one invisible?" "Let's posit that," he said. "And the invisible always stays the same, the visible never does?" "Let's posit that too," he said. "Well then," he went on, "aren't we ourselves partly body and partly soul?" "Nothing else," he said. "Which of the two kinds would we say the body is more like, more akin to?" "That's obvious to everyone," he said, "the visible." "And the soul? Visible or invisible?" "Not visible to human eyes, Socrates," he said. "But we meant visible and invisible relative to human nature — or did you have some other standard in mind?" "Human nature." "Then what do we say about the soul — visible or invisible?" "Not visible." "Invisible, then?" "Yes." "So the soul is more like the invisible, and the body more like the visible." "That's altogether necessary, Socrates." "Now didn't we also say a while back that when the soul uses the body to examine something — through sight or hearing or any other sense, since examining something through sense-perception is exactly what using the body means — it gets dragged by the body toward things that never stay the same, and it wanders and gets confused and dizzy, as if drunk, from contact with things of that sort?" "Certainly." "But when it examines things on its own, it travels there, to what is pure and everlasting and immortal and unchanging, and being akin to it, it stays with it always, whenever it's on its own and free to be — and it stops wandering, and in the presence of those things it stays constant and unchanging, since it's in contact with things of that sort. And isn't this condition of the soul called wisdom?" "Absolutely — beautifully and truly said, Socrates." "So which kind, going by what we said before and what we're saying now, does the soul seem to you more like, more akin to?" "I think anyone, Socrates — even the dullest — would agree, following this line of reasoning, that the soul is altogether and entirely more like the thing that always stays the same than the thing that doesn't." "And the body?" "Like the other kind."
PHAEDO. "Now look at it this way too. Whenever soul and body are together, nature assigns one to be ruled and enslaved, the other to rule and be master. Judging by that, which one seems to you like the divine, and which like the mortal? Don't you think the divine is naturally suited to rule and lead, while the mortal is suited to be ruled and enslaved?" "I do." "Then which does the soul resemble?" "Clearly, Socrates, the soul resembles the divine, and the body the mortal." "Then consider, Cebes," he said, "whether it follows from everything we've said that the soul is most like the divine, the immortal, the intelligible, the uniform, the indissoluble, and what stays always the same as itself, while the body, on the other hand, is most like the human, the mortal, the multiform, the unintelligible, the dissoluble, and what never stays the same as itself. Can we say anything against that, dear Cebes, to show it isn't so?" "We can't." "Well then — given that this is so, isn't it fitting for the body to dissolve quickly, while the soul is entirely indissoluble, or close to it?" "Of course." "Do you notice, then," he said, "that when a person dies, the visible part of him, the body, lying there in the visible world — what we call a corpse, which is naturally due to dissolve and fall apart and be dispersed — doesn't suffer any of that right away, but stays intact for a good long time, quite a long time in fact, if the person dies with his body in good condition and at a favorable season. Once the body shrinks and is embalmed, like the mummies in Egypt, it stays whole almost indefinitely, and even if some parts decay, the bones and sinews and everything like that are, so to speak, practically immortal — isn't that so?" "Yes." "But the soul — the invisible part — which departs to another place of that kind, noble and pure and invisible, truly to Hades, into the presence of the good and wise god, where, god willing, my own soul must soon go too — this soul of ours, so constituted, does it really, the moment it leaves the body, get blown apart and destroyed, as most people claim? Far from it, dear Cebes and Simmias — the truth is much more like this: if it departs pure, dragging nothing of the body along with it, since it had no willing part in the body's company during life but fled from it and gathered itself into itself, always practicing just this — and that's nothing other than practicing philosophy rightly, truly training to die with ease — or isn't that exactly what the practice of death would be?
PHAEDO. "Absolutely." "Then in that condition it departs to what is like itself, the invisible, the divine, the immortal, the wise, and arriving there it gets to be happy, freed from wandering and folly and fears and wild desires and all the other human troubles, and as they say of the initiated, it truly spends the rest of time in the company of the gods. Shall we say it's like this, Cebes, or otherwise?" "Like this, by Zeus," said Cebes. "But if it departs from the body defiled and impure, I think — because it was always in the body's company, and tended it, and loved it, and was bewitched by it and by its desires and pleasures, so that it thought nothing was true except the bodily — the sort of thing one can touch and see and drink and eat and use for sex — while it had grown accustomed to hating and fearing and fleeing what's dark to the eyes and invisible, but intelligible and grasped by philosophy — do you think a soul in that state will depart pure and by itself?" "Not in the least," he said. "No, I think it will be thoroughly permeated by the bodily, which its constant company and intimacy with the body, through long practice, has made grow into it as though part of its nature." "Quite so." "And we should think of this element, my friend, as heavy and burdensome and earthy and visible — and it's this that weighs such a soul down and drags it back into the visible region, out of fear of the invisible and of Hades, so that, as the story goes, it hovers around graves and tombs, where indeed shadowy phantoms of souls have been seen — the sort of apparitions produced by souls that were not released purely but still cling to something of the visible, which is why they can be seen." "That's likely, Socrates." "Likely indeed, Cebes — and these certainly aren't the souls of the good, but of the base, forced to wander around such places, paying the penalty for their former bad upbringing. And they wander like that until, through desire for what accompanies them — their bodily element — they're bound once more into a body. And they're bound, naturally enough, into characters resembling whatever they practiced during life." "What sort of thing do you mean by that, Socrates?" "For instance, those who devoted themselves to gluttony and violence and drunkenness, without any restraint, are likely to slip into the bodies of donkeys and beasts of that kind.
PHAEDO. "Or don't you think so?" "What you say is entirely likely." "And those who valued injustice and tyranny and plunder above all slip into the bodies of wolves and hawks and kites — or where else would we say such souls go?" "No doubt," said Cebes, "into creatures like that." "So it's clear enough," he said, "where each of the others would go too, following the likeness of their practices?" "Clear enough," he said, "of course." "So the happiest of these, and the ones going to the best place, are those who have practiced the ordinary civic virtue people call temperance and justice — which comes from habit and practice, without philosophy or reason?" "How are these the happiest?" "Because it's likely they return again into some similarly organized, gentle species — bees, perhaps, or wasps, or ants — or even back into the human race, and become decent, moderate men." "Likely enough." "But to enter the race of the gods is not permitted to anyone who hasn't practiced philosophy and departed entirely pure — only to the lover of learning. And this, my friends Simmias and Cebes, is exactly why true philosophers hold back from all the bodily desires, and master them, and don't surrender themselves to them — not out of fear of ruining their households or of poverty, the way most people, the money-lovers, do; nor out of dread of dishonor or disgrace, the way the power-lovers and honor-lovers do — that's why they hold back from them." "No, that wouldn't be fitting for them, Socrates," said Cebes. "No indeed, by Zeus," he said. "So for all these reasons, Cebes, those who care at all for their own soul, and don't live shaping their lives around the body, bid farewell to all that and don't walk the same road as people who don't know where they're going. Instead, believing they mustn't act against philosophy and the liberation and purification it offers, they turn and follow wherever it leads." "How so, Socrates?" "I'll tell you," he said. "Lovers of learning know that when philosophy takes hold of their soul, it finds it literally bound up and glued fast within the body, forced to examine the things that are through the body as through a prison cell rather than by itself, through itself, and wallowing in utter ignorance. And philosophy sees the terrible cunning of this imprisonment — that it works through desire, so that the prisoner himself becomes his own chief accomplice in being bound.
PHAEDO. So, as I was saying, lovers of learning know that when philosophy takes hold of their soul in that condition, it gently encourages it and tries to set it free, showing that observation through the eyes is full of deception, and observation through the ears and the other senses is full of deception too, and persuading the soul to withdraw from the senses except so far as it must use them, and urging it to gather and collect itself into itself, and to trust nothing but itself, whatever it, alone by itself, understands of any reality by itself — and to consider nothing true that it examines through other means, since such things vary from one setting to another; the former sort of thing being perceptible and visible, the latter, what the soul itself sees, being intelligible and invisible. Since the soul of the true philosopher believes it shouldn't resist this liberation, it holds itself back, as far as it can, from pleasures and desires and pains and fears, reasoning that whenever someone feels pleasure or fear or pain or desire intensely, the harm isn't simply what one might suppose — falling ill, say, or wasting money through indulging desires — but something else, the greatest and most extreme of all evils, which one suffers and doesn't even reckon with." "What is that, Socrates?" said Cebes. "That every human soul, whenever it feels intense pleasure or pain about something, is forced at the same time to believe that whatever caused this feeling most strongly is the clearest and truest thing there is — when it isn't. And this is especially true of visible things, isn't it?" "Certainly." "And isn't it in this very experience that the soul gets most tightly bound by the body?" "How so?" "Because each pleasure and pain, like a nail, pins the soul to the body and rivets it there, and makes it bodily, so that it comes to believe that whatever the body says is true. For by sharing the body's opinions and taking pleasure in the same things, it's forced, I think, to become like the body in character and habit, and never to arrive purely in Hades, but always to depart full of the body, so that it soon falls back into another body and, as if sown there, takes root — and because of all this, it has no share in the company of the divine and pure and uniform." "That's the truest thing you've said, Socrates," said Cebes. "For these reasons, then, Cebes, the rightful lovers of learning are disciplined and courageous — not for the reasons most people give. Or do you think otherwise?"
PHAEDO. No, I certainly wouldn't think that. That's not how the soul of a philosopher would reason. It wouldn't imagine that while philosophy must undo these bonds, the soul, once freed, should hand itself back over to pleasures and pains and bind itself up again, doing an endless task like some Penelope working her loom in reverse. No — such a soul secures a calm apart from these disturbances, follows reasoning and stays always within it, gazing on what is true, divine, and beyond opinion, and feeding on that. It believes it must live this way as long as it lives, and when it dies, arriving at what is akin to itself and of that same nature, it will be free of human troubles. After such a upbringing, Simmias and Cebes, it has nothing terrible to fear — that once separated from the body it might be torn apart, scattered by the winds, blown away and gone, existing nowhere anymore. When Socrates had said this, there was silence for a long while. Socrates himself seemed, as far as one could tell, still absorbed in what had been said, and so were most of us. But Cebes and Simmias were talking quietly to each other. Socrates noticed and asked, "What is it? Do you feel something was said inadequately? There are still plenty of grounds for doubt and objection in it, if someone means to examine it thoroughly. If you two are considering something else, never mind — but if you're stuck on some point in what's been said, don't hesitate to speak up yourselves and go through it, if you see some way it might have been put better, and include me too, if you think I can help you find your way more easily." Simmias said, "Well, Socrates, I'll tell you the truth. Each of us has been stuck for a while now, and each has been pushing the other to ask you, because we're eager to hear your answer but reluctant to trouble you, afraid it might be unwelcome given your present circumstances." Socrates laughed softly at this and said, "Simmias, that's rich! I'd have a hard time persuading other people that I don't consider my present fate a misfortune, when I can't even persuade you two — you're afraid I'm in a worse mood now than earlier in my life. It seems you think I'm a poorer prophet than the swans, who, when they sense that they must die, sing then more than ever, and more beautifully than before, rejoicing that they are about to go to the god whose servants they are."
PHAEDO. But people, because of their own fear of death, tell lies about the swans too — they say the swans, grieving over death, sing their last song out of sorrow. They don't stop to consider that no bird sings when it's hungry, or cold, or suffering some other pain — not even the nightingale, or the swallow, or the hoopoe, which people also claim sing out of sorrow. But it doesn't seem to me that these birds sing because they're in pain, and neither do the swans. I think that because they belong to Apollo, they have the gift of prophecy, and knowing in advance the good things in Hades, they sing and rejoice on that day more than ever before. And I count myself a fellow servant of the swans, consecrated to the same god, with no worse a gift of prophecy from our master than theirs, and no less cheerful about leaving this life than they are. So, for that reason, feel free to say and ask whatever you like, as long as the Eleven of Athens allow it." "Well said," Simmias replied. "I'll tell you what troubles me, and then Cebes here can say where he doesn't accept what's been argued. It seems to me, Socrates, that on matters like these, achieving clear certainty in this life is either impossible or extremely difficult — and yet not to test in every way what's said about them, and not to give up before one has examined the question from every angle and run out of options, is the mark of a very feeble man. On such questions one ought to accomplish one of these things: learn how the truth stands, or discover it oneself, or if that's impossible, then at least take the best and least refutable of human accounts, and riding on that as if on a raft, brave the danger of sailing through life — unless someone could make the crossing more safely and with less risk on some sturdier vessel, some divine account. And so now I won't be ashamed to ask, since you yourself invite it, and I won't blame myself later for not saying now what I think. Because, Socrates, when I examine what's been said, both on my own and together with Cebes here, it doesn't seem to me to have been argued adequately." Socrates said, "Perhaps you're right, my friend. But tell me where exactly it falls short."
PHAEDO. "Here," he said, "in the very point where one might make this same argument about attunement and a lyre and its strings — that the attunement is something invisible, bodiless, altogether beautiful and divine, present in the tuned lyre, while the lyre itself and its strings are bodies, bodily, composite, earthy, akin to what is mortal. Now suppose someone breaks the lyre, or cuts and snaps the strings, and then insists, using your same argument, that the attunement must still exist and can't have perished — for there'd be no way for the lyre to still exist with its strings broken, and the strings themselves, being mortal in nature, to still exist, while the attunement, akin and related to what is divine and immortal, has perished — perished before the mortal thing itself! Rather, he'd say, the attunement itself must still exist somewhere, and the wood and strings will rot away long before anything happens to it. And indeed, Socrates, I think you yourself have considered this — that we tend to suppose the soul is something very much like this: that as our body is held in tension and bound together by hot and cold, dry and wet, and things of that sort, our soul is a blending and attunement of these very things, whenever they're blended together well and in the right proportion. If, then, the soul turns out to be a kind of attunement, clearly, whenever our body is relaxed or strained beyond measure by illnesses and other afflictions, the soul must at once perish, however divine it may be — just as other attunements perish, both those in musical notes and those in the works of craftsmen generally — while the remains of each body last a long time, until they're burned up or rot away. So consider what we should say in response to this argument, if someone claims the soul, being a blending of the elements in the body, perishes first of all in what we call death." Socrates looked at him steadily, as he often did, and smiled. "What Simmias says is fair enough," he said. "If any of you is more resourceful than I am, why didn't he answer? He does seem to have laid hold of the argument rather well. Still, I think that before answering, we should first hear what fault Cebes here finds with the argument, so that in the time it takes, we can think over what to say — and then, once we've heard them both, either agree with them if they seem to be in tune with the truth, or if not, defend the argument on its behalf. Come then, Cebes," he said, "tell us what's been troubling you and making you doubt." "I'll tell you," said Cebes.
PHAEDO. "It seems to me that the argument is still in the same place, and has, as we said before, the same fault to answer for. That our soul existed even before it came into this visible form — I don't take back that this has been shown quite elegantly, and, if it's not too bold to say, quite adequately. But that it still exists somewhere even after we die — that I don't think has been shown. I don't agree with Simmias's objection that the soul isn't stronger and longer-lasting than the body — on all these points I think it differs enormously from the body. So then, the argument might say, why do you still doubt, when you see that after a man dies, the weaker part of him still exists? Doesn't it seem necessary to you that the longer-lasting part should still be preserved for that same length of time? Well, consider this point, and see if there's anything in it — because, it seems, I too, like Simmias, need an image. It seems to me that this is rather like someone saying, about an old weaver who has died, that the man hasn't perished but exists somewhere safe, and offering as proof the cloak he wove and wore himself, which is still intact and hasn't perished — and if someone doubted him, he'd ask which lasts longer, a man or a cloak in use and worn regularly, and when the answer comes back that the man lasts much longer, he'd think he had proven that the man, of all things, must surely still be safe, since the shorter-lived thing hasn't perished. But I don't think that's how it is, Simmias — think it over yourself, what I'm saying. Anyone would recognize that whoever says this is talking nonsense. Because this weaver, having worn out and woven many such cloaks, outlived all of those many cloaks, but died before the last one — and that doesn't make a man any inferior to a cloak, or weaker. And I think the soul stands to the body in just this same relation, and anyone saying the same things about them would seem to me to be saying something reasonable — that the soul is long-lasting, while the body is weaker and shorter-lived. But he might add that each soul wears out many bodies, especially if it lives many years — for if the body flows and perishes while the person is still living, and the soul is always reweaving what wears out, then it would necessarily follow that whenever the soul perishes, it happens to be wearing its last garment, and it perishes before that one alone — and once the soul has perished, then finally the body would show its weak nature and quickly rot away and vanish.
PHAEDO. And so this argument doesn't yet give us grounds to feel confident that once we die, our soul still exists somewhere. Suppose someone granted the speaker even more than you've granted — allowed not only that our souls existed in the time before we were born, but also that nothing prevents some souls from continuing to exist after we die, and existing in the future, and being born again many times over, and dying again — since the soul is by nature strong enough to endure many births — but even granting all that, he might refuse to concede this further point: that the soul doesn't suffer wear from its many births, and that in the end, in one of its deaths, it perishes utterly. And this death, this dissolution of the body which brings ruin to the soul — no one, he might say, could know when it happens, since none of us can perceive it. And if that's how things are, then no one facing death has any right to be confident without being foolish, unless he can prove that the soul is altogether immortal and indestructible. Otherwise, anyone who is about to die must always be afraid for his own soul, that in this present separation from the body it might perish utterly. All of us, hearing them say this, felt distressed — as we said to each other afterward — because we had been thoroughly convinced by the earlier argument, and now they seemed to stir us up again and cast us into doubt, not only about what had already been said but about what was still to come, making us wonder whether we were worthless judges of the matter, or whether the subject itself simply admitted no certainty. ECHECRATES. By the gods, Phaedo, I sympathize with you. Even now, hearing you tell it, I find myself asking: what argument can we still trust? The argument Socrates gave, so persuasive as it was, has now fallen into doubt. This idea — that our soul is some kind of attunement — has a remarkable hold on me, now and always; hearing it again just now reminded me that I had already believed something like it myself before. So I badly need some other argument, starting fresh, to persuade me that the soul of someone who dies doesn't die along with him. So tell me, for god's sake, how did Socrates take up the argument? And did he too, as you say you all did, show any sign of distress, or did he come to its defense calmly? Did he defend it adequately, or only partially? Tell us everything, as precisely as you can."
PHAEDO: Yes, Echecrates, and though I'd marveled at Socrates many times before, I never admired him more than I did that day, being there. That he had something to say — well, that's not so strange, perhaps. But what amazed me most was, first, how gladly and warmly and appreciatively he took in the young men's argument; then how sharply he noticed what we'd suffered from those arguments; and then how well he healed us, calling us back as if we'd fled the field defeated, and urging us to follow along and examine the argument together. ECHECRATES: How did he do it? PHAEDO: I'll tell you. I happened to be sitting on his right, on a low stool beside the bed, and he was sitting well above me. So he stroked my head and gathered up the hair at my neck — he liked to play with my hair whenever the chance came — and said, 'Tomorrow, perhaps, Phaedo, you'll cut off these beautiful locks.' 'It seems so, Socrates,' I said. 'Not if you listen to me.' 'What then?' I said. 'Today,' he said, 'I'll cut off mine, and you those, if our argument dies on us and we can't bring it back to life. And if I were you and the argument slipped away from me, I'd swear an oath, like the Argives, not to let my hair grow again until I'd won my rematch against the argument of Simmias and Cebes.' 'But,' I said, 'they say not even Heracles is a match for two.' 'Then call on me,' he said, 'as your Iolaus, while there's still daylight.' 'I call on you, then,' I said, 'not as Heracles, but as Iolaus calling on Heracles.' 'It won't make any difference,' he said. 'But first let's guard against a certain danger.' 'What danger?' I said. 'That we not become,' he said, 'haters of argument, the way some people become haters of humanity. There's no worse thing that can happen to a person than to come to hate argument. Hatred of argument and hatred of people arise the same way. Hatred of people creeps in when someone trusts another completely, without real skill in judging people, believing him to be entirely true, sound, and reliable, and then, a little later, finds him corrupt and untrustworthy — and then another one the same way. And when this happens to someone often, and especially at the hands of those he'd have counted closest and dearest, he ends up, worn down by repeated blows, hating everyone, and believing there's nothing sound in anybody at all. Haven't you noticed this happening?' 'I certainly have,' I said. 'Well then,' he said, 'isn't it a shameful thing, and plain that such a person was trying to deal with people without any skill in human affairs?'
PHAEDO: 'For if he'd used some skill in dealing with them, he'd have judged the matter as it really stands — that the very good and the very bad are each very few, and those in between are the most.' 'How do you mean?' I said. 'It's like it is,' he said, 'with the very small and the very large. Do you think anything is rarer than finding a person or a dog, or anything else, that's extremely large or extremely small? Or extremely fast or slow, or ugly or beautiful, or white or black? Haven't you noticed that in all such cases, the extremes at either end are rare and few, while the ones in between are abundant and many?' 'I certainly have,' I said. 'So don't you think,' he said, 'that if a contest in wickedness were held, very few would come out on top there too?' 'Likely so,' I said. 'Likely indeed,' he said. 'But in this respect arguments aren't like people — here I was simply following your lead just now — rather, the resemblance is this: when someone trusts some argument to be true without having the skill to judge arguments, and then a little later it seems false to him — sometimes rightly, sometimes not — and then another, and then another — you know how it is, especially with those who've spent their time on arguments that argue both sides of everything: eventually they think themselves the wisest of all, and imagine they alone have grasped that nothing at all is sound or stable, neither among things nor among arguments, but that everything that is turns up and down exactly as in the Euripus, and never stays put for any time at all.' 'What you say is entirely true,' I said. 'Then, Phaedo,' he said, 'wouldn't it be a pitiful thing if, when there is some argument that is true and stable and can be understood, a person who then runs into certain arguments that seem at one time true and at another time not, doesn't blame himself or his own lack of skill, but ends up — because of the pain of it — gladly shifting the blame away from himself onto the arguments themselves, and spends the rest of his life hating and abusing arguments, and so is robbed of the truth and knowledge of the things that are?' 'By Zeus,' I said, 'that would be pitiful indeed.' 'So first of all,' he said, 'let's guard against this, and not let into our minds the idea that there's likely nothing sound in arguments, but rather that we ourselves are not yet sound, and that we must be brave and eager to become sound — you and the others for the sake of your whole life still ahead, and I myself for the sake of death itself, since as things stand I'm in danger of behaving, about this very matter, not like a lover of wisdom but like the utterly uneducated, who simply love to win.'
PHAEDO: 'For when people like that dispute about something, they don't care at all how the matter they're arguing about actually stands — what they're eager for is that the position they themselves have staked out should seem right to those present. And I think that right now I differ from them only in this one respect: I won't be eager to make what I say seem true to those present, except as a side effect, but rather to make it seem so to myself, as much as possible. For I reckon it this way, my dear friend — see how self-interested this is — if what I say happens to be true, then it's good to be persuaded of it; but if there's nothing at all for someone who has died, then at least for this time before death itself I'll be less unpleasant to the people here by my grieving, and this folly of mine won't last on with me — that would be a bad thing — but will perish shortly after. So prepared, Simmias and Cebes,' he said, 'I come to the argument. But you, if you listen to me, will give little thought to Socrates and much more to the truth: if I seem to you to say something true, agree with it; if not, resist it with every argument you have, taking care that in my eagerness I don't deceive both myself and you alike, and fly off leaving my sting behind, like a bee. Well, we must press on,' he said. 'First remind me of what you were saying, if I don't seem to remember it. Simmias, I believe, distrusts and fears that the soul, though more divine and more beautiful than the body, might nonetheless perish first, being a kind of harmony. Cebes, it seemed to me, agreed with me on this much — that the soul lasts longer than the body — but held that this remains unclear to everyone: whether the soul, after wearing out many bodies, many times over, and leaving behind the last body, might not then itself perish, and this very thing be death — the destruction of the soul — since the body, at least, never stops perishing all the time. Is there anything else, Simmias and Cebes, that we need to examine besides this?' Both agreed that this was so. 'Well then,' he said, 'do you accept all the earlier arguments, or some but not others?' 'Some,' they said, 'but not others.'
PHAEDO: 'What do you say, then,' he said, 'about that argument in which we claimed that learning is recollection, and that if this is so, our soul must necessarily exist somewhere else before it was bound within the body?' 'For my part,' said Cebes, 'I was wonderfully persuaded by it at the time, and now I stand by it as by no other argument.' 'And I too,' said Simmias, 'feel the same way, and I'd be quite surprised if I ever came to think differently about that one.' And Socrates said, 'But you're bound, my Theban friend, to think differently, if this belief still holds — that harmony is a composite thing, and that the soul is a kind of harmony made up out of the things strung together in the body. For surely you won't accept your own claim that a harmony existed already composed before the things existed out of which it had to be composed — will you accept that?' 'Not at all, Socrates,' he said. 'Do you notice, then,' he said, 'that this is what you end up saying, when you claim the soul existed before it came into a human shape and body, and yet also that it's composed of things that don't yet exist? For harmony isn't the sort of thing you're comparing it to; rather, the lyre and its strings and its notes come into being first, still unattuned, and only last of all is the harmony put together, and it's the first thing to be destroyed. So how will this argument of yours harmonize with that one?' 'Not at all,' said Simmias. 'And yet,' he said, 'it's fitting that it should be in tune, if any argument is to be in tune with the one about harmony.' 'It is fitting,' said Simmias. 'Well then, this one is not in tune with yours. So consider which of the two arguments you choose — that learning is recollection, or that the soul is a harmony.' 'The former, Socrates, by far,' he said. 'For this one came to me without proof, resting on a certain plausibility and attractiveness, which is why it appeals to most people too; but I'm well aware that arguments that base their proofs on mere plausibility are frauds, and if one isn't on guard against them, they deceive very thoroughly — in geometry and everywhere else as well. But the argument about recollection and learning was stated on the basis of a hypothesis worth accepting. For it was said, I believe, that our soul exists even before it comes into the body, just as its very essence, which bears the name of what-it-is, exists — and this I've accepted, I'm convinced, on sufficient and correct grounds. So it seems I'm bound, for these reasons, to accept neither from myself nor from anyone else the claim that the soul is a harmony.' 'What about this, then, Simmias,' he said, 'looking at it this way?'
PHAEDO: 'Do you think it fitting for a harmony, or any other composite, to be in some other condition than that of the things out of which it's composed?' 'Not at all.' 'Nor, I suppose, to do anything, or to undergo anything, beyond what those components do or undergo?' He agreed. 'Then it isn't fitting for a harmony to lead the things out of which it's composed, but rather to follow them.' He agreed to this too. 'So a harmony is very far from being able to move, or sound, or be opposed in any other way to its own parts.' 'Very far indeed,' he said. 'Well then — isn't each harmony by nature just whatever it's been tuned to be?' 'I don't follow,' he said. 'I mean,' he said, 'if it's tuned more, and to a greater degree — if that's even possible — wouldn't it be more of a harmony, and a greater one; and if less, and to a lesser degree, wouldn't it be less of one, and a lesser one?' 'Certainly.' 'Is this true of the soul, then — that one soul is, even in the smallest degree, more or less this very thing, soul, than another?' 'Not in the least,' he said. 'Come then, by Zeus: one soul is said to possess intelligence and virtue, and to be good; another, folly and depravity, and to be bad. And is this said truly?' 'Truly indeed.' 'Now, of those who hold that the soul is a harmony, what will anyone say these things — virtue and vice — actually are, present in souls? Will he say they're some further harmony and disharmony? And that the good soul, being itself a harmony, contains within itself, harmony that it is, yet another harmony, while the bad one is itself unattuned and contains no further harmony within it?' 'I can't say,' said Simmias, 'but clearly something of that kind is what a person holding that view would say.' 'But it's already been agreed,' he said, 'that no soul is any more or less soul than another — and this agreement means precisely that no harmony is any more or to a greater degree, or less or to a lesser degree, harmony than another harmony. Isn't that so?' 'Certainly.' 'And that whatever is no more and no less a harmony is neither more nor less attuned — is that so?' 'It is.' 'And what is neither more nor less attuned has no greater or lesser share of harmony, but an equal share?' 'An equal share.' 'So then, since one soul is, in this very respect — being soul — no more and no less than another, it's also no more and no less attuned?' 'Just so.' 'And being in this condition, it would have no greater share of either disharmony or harmony?' 'No, it wouldn't.' 'And being in this condition again, could one soul have any greater share of vice or virtue than another, if vice is disharmony and virtue is harmony?' 'No greater share at all.'
PHAEDO: More than that, Simmias—by strict logic, no soul would have any share in vice at all, if it really is an attunement. For an attunement, being completely and purely just that—attunement—could never take on any lack of attunement. No, it couldn't. And surely a soul, being completely and purely a soul, could never take on vice either. How could it, given what we've said? So by this argument all souls of all living things will turn out equally good, if it's true that souls are all alike by nature just this one thing, soul. That's how it looks to me, Socrates, he said. And do you think it sound, said Socrates, for the argument to say this, and would it have to end up saying it if the hypothesis that soul is an attunement were correct? Not in the least, he said. Well then, he said, of all the things in a human being, would you say anything else rules them besides the soul, especially a wise soul? No, I wouldn't. Does it rule by yielding to the body's feelings, or by opposing them? I mean something like this: when there's heat and thirst in the body, the soul pulls the opposite way, toward not drinking, and when there's hunger, toward not eating, and we see it opposing the body in countless other ways too—don't we? Certainly. Now didn't we agree earlier that an attunement, if it really is one, could never sound contrary to the tensions, slackenings, pluckings, or any other affections of the very things it's composed from, but must follow them and never govern them? We agreed to that—of course we did. Well then? Doesn't the soul now appear to us to do the complete opposite—governing all the very things people say it's composed from, opposing almost all of them throughout life, and lording it over them in every way, sometimes punishing them harshly and painfully—through physical training and medicine—and sometimes more gently, sometimes threatening and sometimes admonishing, addressing the appetites, the angers, and the fears as though it were one thing talking to another, altogether separate thing? That's just what Homer wrote in the Odyssey, where he says of Odysseus: he struck his chest and rebuked his heart with these words: 'Endure, my heart—you've borne worse than this before.' Do you think he wrote that thinking of the soul as an attunement, something that would be driven by the body's feelings, rather than as something that drives and masters them—something far too divine a thing to be a mere attunement? Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, that's how it seems to me too.
PHAEDO: So it's simply not right, my excellent friend, for us to say that the soul is any kind of attunement—for then, it seems, we'd agree with neither divine Homer nor with ourselves. That's how it stands, he said. Well now, said Socrates, we seem to have appeased Harmonia of Thebes reasonably well. But what about Cadmus, Cebes—how are we going to win him over, and with what argument? I think you'll find a way, said Cebes—at any rate, that argument you just gave against the attunement theory was a marvelous surprise to me. When Simmias was speaking and stuck on his problem, I really wondered whether anyone would be able to make any use of his argument at all. So it struck me as quite strange that it couldn't withstand even the very first attack of your argument. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Cadmus's argument met the same fate. My good man, said Socrates, don't tempt fate, or some jealous power may overturn the argument we're about to make. Well, that's for the god to worry about—as for us, let's go at it Homeric-style, closing in to see whether there's anything to what you say. Here, then, is the sum of what you're asking: you want it shown that our soul is indestructible and immortal, so that a philosopher on the point of dying, confident and believing that after death he'll fare far better there than if he'd lived and died some other kind of life, won't be showing a foolish, empty-headed confidence. Showing that the soul is something strong and godlike, and that it existed even before we became human, doesn't in your view—so you say—prevent all of this from indicating merely that the soul is long-lasting and existed for some unimaginable stretch of time before, knowing and doing all sorts of things—but was no more immortal for that, and in fact its very entry into a human body was the beginning of its destruction, like a disease; and that it lives out this life in misery and finally perishes altogether in what we call death. And you say it makes no difference to each of our individual fears whether it enters a body once or many times; for anyone who isn't foolish ought to be afraid, if he can't give an account showing the soul is immortal, and has no knowledge of it. Something like that, I think, Cebes, is what you're saying; and I'm deliberately going back over it several times so that nothing slips past us, and so you can add or take away anything you like. And Cebes said, No, there's nothing I want to take away or add right now—that is exactly what I'm saying. Then Socrates paused for a long while, considering something to himself, and said, It's no small thing you're after, Cebes; for it requires a full inquiry into the cause of coming-to-be and passing-away generally.
PHAEDO: So, if you like, I'll go through my own experience with these matters for you; then, if anything I say strikes you as useful, you can use it toward persuading yourself of what you're arguing. Yes, said Cebes, I would like that. Then listen, as I tell it. When I was young, Cebes, I had an extraordinary appetite for that kind of wisdom people call the study of nature; it seemed to me a magnificent thing to know the causes of each thing—why each thing comes to be, why it perishes, why it exists at all. And I kept flipping back and forth, examining questions like these first: is it when heat and cold undergo some kind of fermentation, as some people said, that living things are formed together? And is it blood we think with, or air, or fire? Or none of these, but rather the brain that provides our senses of hearing and seeing and smelling, and out of these arise memory and belief, and out of memory and belief once they've settled down, knowledge comes to be along these lines? And then again, examining how all these things perish, and studying the phenomena of the heavens and the earth, I ended up concluding that I was, if anything, spectacularly unsuited for this kind of inquiry. And I'll give you good enough proof of that: matters I previously understood clearly enough—or so I thought, and so others thought too—I was, through this inquiry, so thoroughly blinded that I actually unlearned things I had thought I knew before, among many others, why a human being grows. That, I used to think, was obvious to anyone: because of eating and drinking. When, from food, flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and in the same way each of the other parts gets its own proper matter added to it, then, I thought, the mass that was small later becomes large, and that's how a small person becomes a big one. That's what I used to think—doesn't that seem reasonable to you? It does to me, said Cebes. Consider this too, then. I used to think it was reasonable enough that, whenever a tall man stood next to a short one, he'd appear taller by a head, and one horse taller than another the same way; and even more obviously than that—ten seemed to me more than eight because two had been added to it, and a two-cubit length greater than a one-cubit length because it exceeded it by half its own measure. Well, said Cebes, what do you think about all that now?
PHAEDO: I'm a long way, by Zeus, he said, from thinking I know the cause of any of that—I who don't even accept it of myself that when you add one to one, either the one it was added to has become two, or the one that was added, or that the one added and the one it was added to became two by the addition of the one to the other. I find it strange that when each of them was separate from the other, each was, presumably, one, and they weren't two then, but once they came close to each other, this—their coming together, their being placed near one another—turned out to be the cause of their becoming two. Nor, again, can I be persuaded that if you split one in two, this—the splitting—has now become the cause of there being two; for that's the opposite cause from the one before, which made for becoming two. Then it was because they were brought together near one another and one was added to the other; now it's because one is drawn apart and separated from the other. Nor can I any longer convince myself that I understand why a unit comes to be at all—nor, in a word, why anything else comes to be or perishes or exists, following this method of inquiry—but I've cobbled together some other approach of my own, haphazardly, and this old method I don't accept in any way at all. But once, hearing someone reading aloud from a book—by Anaxagoras, he said it was—and saying that it is Mind that orders and is the cause of everything, I was delighted with this explanation, and it seemed to me in a way to be a good thing, that Mind should be the cause of everything; and I thought that if this were so, then Mind, in ordering everything, would order and arrange each thing in whatever way was best for it; so if anyone wanted to find the cause of anything—why it comes to be, perishes, or exists—what he'd need to find out about it was how it was best for it to be, or to undergo or do anything else whatsoever; and by this reasoning a person need consider nothing else about anything, himself included, except what is best and most excellent—though necessarily the same person would also know what is worse, since the knowledge of both is the same. Reasoning this way, I was delighted to think I had found in Anaxagoras a teacher after my own mind about the cause of things, one who would tell me, first, whether the earth is flat or round, and having told me that, would go on to explain the cause and the necessity of it, telling me what was better, and that it was better for it to be such as it is; and if he said it was in the middle, he would go on to explain how it was better for it to be in the middle; and if he could show me all this, I was prepared never again to go looking for any other kind of cause.
PHAEDO: And so I had gotten myself ready to ask the same kind of question about the sun, and the moon, and the other stars — about their speeds relative to one another, their turnings, and whatever else happens to them — in what way it is better for each of them to act and be acted upon as it does. I never imagined that, having said mind arranged them, he would then bring in some other cause for them than that it is best for them to be as they are. So I thought that in assigning the cause for each of them, and for the whole together, he would go on to explain what is best for each and what is good for all in common. I wouldn't have sold my hopes for a great deal — no, I got hold of the books as eagerly as I could and read them as fast as I was able, so that I might know, as soon as possible, the best and the worse. Well, my friend, I was carried along from a marvelous hope, only to find, as I went on reading, a man making no use of mind at all, nor crediting it with any responsibility for ordering things, but instead blaming air, and aether, and water, and a great many other absurd things. It struck me as exactly like someone saying that Socrates does everything he does by mind, and then, trying to give the causes of each of the things I do, saying first that the reason I'm sitting here now is that my body is made up of bones and sinews, and the bones are solid and have joints separating them from each other, while the sinews, being able to stretch and relax, wrap around the bones along with the flesh and the skin that holds them together; so, since the bones hang loose at their joints, when the sinews slacken and tighten they somehow make it possible for me to bend my limbs now, and that's why, bent up in this way, I'm sitting here. And he would give you other causes just like that for my talking with you — sounds, and air, and hearing, and a thousand other such things — never mentioning the true causes: that since the Athenians decided it was better to condemn me, for that very reason I in turn decided it was better to sit here, and more just to stay and submit to whatever penalty they order. Because — by the dog! — I think these sinews and bones would long since have been off in Megara or among the Boeotians, carried there by their opinion of what's best, if I hadn't thought it more just and finer to submit to whatever penalty the city imposes rather than to flee and run away.
PHAEDO: To call things like that causes is altogether absurd. If someone said that without having such things as bones and sinews and the rest I have, I wouldn't be able to do what I've decided to do, he'd be speaking the truth. But to say that it's because of these things that I do what I do — and that I do it by mind, rather than by choosing the best — would be a great and careless failure of argument. It amounts to being unable to distinguish between what the real cause is and that without which the cause could never be a cause at all. Most people, groping around in the dark, as it were, seem to me to call that other thing by a name that doesn't belong to it, as though it were the cause itself. That's why one man wraps a vortex around the earth and makes the heavens hold it in place, while another props the air up under it like a flat kneading-trough on a stand. But the power by which things are now arranged in the best possible way — that power they neither look for, nor believe holds any divine strength; instead they think they'll someday discover an Atlas mightier and more immortal and holding everything together better than that — and they give no thought at all to the fact that it is truly the good and the fitting that binds and holds things together. Now I would gladly have become a student of that kind of cause, whatever it might be, from anyone at all. But since I was deprived of it, and proved unable either to find it myself or to learn it from anyone else, do you want me, he said, to give you a demonstration of the second course I took in my search for the cause, Cebes? By all means, he said, I want that very much. Well then, he said, after I had given up examining things as they are, I thought I ought to be careful not to suffer what happens to people who watch and study an eclipse of the sun — some of them ruin their eyes, unless they look at its image in water or something of that sort. I had some such thought myself, and I was afraid I might be blinded in my soul altogether by looking at things with my eyes and trying to grasp them with each of my senses. So it seemed to me I ought to take refuge in accounts, and look for the truth of things within them.
PHAEDO: Now perhaps the way I compare it isn't quite right in one respect — I don't fully agree that someone who examines things in accounts is examining them in images any more than someone who examines them in facts. But at any rate, that's the direction I set out in: taking as a foundation, each time, whatever account I judge to be strongest, I set down as true whatever seems to me to agree with it — both concerning cause and concerning everything else that is — and whatever doesn't agree, as not true. But I want to explain what I mean more clearly, since I don't think you follow me yet. No, by Zeus, said Cebes, not entirely. Well, he said, here's what I mean — nothing new, but the same things I've never stopped saying, both elsewhere and in the discussion we just had. I'm going to try to show you the kind of cause I've been working with, and I'll go back again to those much-talked-of things, and start from them, taking as given that there is such a thing as the beautiful itself, by itself, and the good, and the great, and all the rest. If you grant me these and agree that they exist, I hope from them to show you the cause, and to discover that the soul is immortal. Well, said Cebes, since you have my agreement, you'd better not delay in finishing. Then look, he said, at what follows from that, and see if you agree with me. It seems to me that if there is anything beautiful besides the beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in that beautiful — and I say the same of everything. Do you agree with that kind of cause? I agree, he said. Well then, he said, I no longer understand, and I can't recognize those other clever causes people give. If someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a blooming color, or a shape, or anything else of that sort, I dismiss all that — it only confuses me — and I hold, simply, plainly, and perhaps naively, to this one point: that nothing else makes a thing beautiful except the presence of that beautiful — or its association, or however it may be attached — I won't insist on the exact manner — only that it is by the beautiful that all beautiful things become beautiful. That seems to me the safest answer I can give, both to myself and to anyone else, and holding to it I believe I'll never fall; it's safe to answer, both for me and for anyone, that it is by the beautiful that beautiful things become beautiful. Don't you think so too? I do. And is it by greatness that great things are great, and greater things greater, and by smallness that smaller things are smaller? Yes.
PHAEDO: Then you too would not accept it if someone said that one person is taller than another by a head, and the shorter one shorter by that same head — you'd protest that all you mean is that whatever is greater than another is greater by nothing other than greatness, and is greater because of that, because of greatness, and whatever is smaller is smaller by nothing other than smallness, and is smaller because of that, because of smallness — for fear, I imagine, that some opposing argument might confront you, if you say someone is taller by a head, since then, first, the greater would be greater by the very same thing that makes the smaller smaller, and further, a small thing — a head — would be what makes the taller person taller, and that would be a monstrosity, that something great should be great by something small. Wouldn't you be afraid of that? And Cebes laughed and said, I would. Then, he said, wouldn't you be afraid to say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this is the cause of its exceeding eight, rather than saying it's by number, and because of number? And that a length of two cubits is greater than one cubit by half its length, rather than by magnitude? The same fear applies, surely. Certainly, he said. And what about this — if one is added to one, wouldn't you be wary of saying that the addition is the cause of there being two, or, if one is split in two, that the splitting is the cause? Wouldn't you cry out loudly that you know of no other way anything comes to be except by partaking of the particular reality of whatever it is that it comes to share in, and that in these cases you have no other cause for there coming to be two except partaking of twoness, and that whatever is going to be two must partake of that, and whatever is going to be one must partake of oneness — and that you'd leave all this business of splittings and additions and other such cleverness aside, letting those wiser than yourself answer in those terms, while you, being afraid, as the saying goes, of your own shadow and of your own inexperience, would cling to that safe foundation of your hypothesis and answer accordingly. But if someone attacked the hypothesis itself, you'd let it go and not answer, until you'd examined what follows from it, to see whether the consequences agree with one another or not; and when you had to give an account of the hypothesis itself, you'd do it the same way — setting down another hypothesis in turn, whichever seemed best among the higher ones, until you arrived at something adequate — and you wouldn't muddle things together, the way debaters do, by talking at once about the starting point and about what follows from it, if indeed you wanted to discover something real. That kind of person, perhaps, gives no thought or care to that at all — clever enough, in their wisdom, to stir everything together and still manage to please themselves. But you, if you're a philosopher, would, I think, do as I say.
PHAEDO: What you say is entirely true, said both Simmias and Cebes together. ECHECRATES: Yes, by Zeus, Phaedo, and rightly so — it seems to me astonishing how clearly he put that, even for someone with only a little understanding. PHAEDO: Quite so, Echecrates, and everyone present thought so too. ECHECRATES: Yes, and so do we, who weren't there, hearing it now. But what was said after that? PHAEDO: As I recall, once this had been granted to him, and it was agreed that each of the forms is something, and that other things, by partaking of them, take their name from them, he went on to ask: If that's how you put it, then whenever you say Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter than Phaedo, don't you mean that both are present in Simmias at that time — both tallness and shortness? I do. But surely, he said, you agree that the statement 'Simmias exceeds Socrates' is not, in truth, as it's phrased in words? For Simmias doesn't naturally exceed him by being Simmias, but by the tallness he happens to have; nor does he exceed Socrates because Socrates is Socrates, but because Socrates has smallness compared to his tallness? True. Nor again is he exceeded by Phaedo because Phaedo is Phaedo, but because Phaedo has tallness compared to Simmias's smallness? That's so. So Simmias comes to be called both small and tall, being between the two — presenting his smallness to be exceeded by the other's tallness, and offering his tallness to exceed the other's smallness. And smiling, he added, I seem to be talking like a book, but at any rate that's how it is. Cebes agreed. I say this because I want you to see things as I do. It seems to me not only that tallness itself is never willing to be tall and short at once, but also that the tallness in us never admits smallness, nor is willing to be exceeded; instead, one of two things happens — either it flees and withdraws when its opposite, smallness, approaches, or it perishes at that approach; but it will not, by standing its ground and admitting smallness, become other than it was. Just as I myself, by admitting and standing my ground under smallness, and still being just who I am, am this same person, small — whereas that other thing, tallness, has not dared, being tall, to be small. In the same way, the smallness in us is never willing to become or to be tall, nor is any other opposite, while remaining what it was, willing at the same time to become and to be its opposite — instead it either withdraws or perishes in that very experience.
PHAEDO: "That's exactly how it looks to me," said Cebes. And someone among those present, on hearing this, spoke up — I don't clearly remember who it was: "By the gods, didn't we agree earlier in the discussion on the very opposite of what's being said now — that the bigger comes from the smaller and the smaller from the bigger, and that this is simply how opposites come to be: out of their opposites? But now, it seems to me, we're saying that could never happen." Socrates turned his head toward him, listened, and said, "Bravely recalled! But you're not noticing the difference between what's being said now and what was said then. Back then we said that an opposite thing comes to be from an opposite thing; now we're saying that the opposite itself could never become opposite to itself — neither the one in us nor the one in nature. Back then, my friend, we were talking about the things that have the opposites in them, calling them by the names of those opposites; now we're talking about the opposites themselves, the ones whose presence gives the things their names. And it's these themselves, we say, that would never be willing to accept coming-to-be from one another." And with that he looked at Cebes and said, "Cebes, did anything this man said trouble you too?" "No, not this time," said Cebes, "though I don't deny that plenty of things do trouble me." "So we've agreed on this without qualification," he said: "an opposite will never be opposite to itself." "Absolutely." "Now consider this further point for me," he said, "and see whether you'll agree. Is there something you call hot, and something cold?" "There is." "The same things as snow and fire?" "By Zeus, no." "So the hot is something other than fire, and the cold something other than snow?" "Yes." "But I think you'd grant this: snow, being what it is, will never take in the hot — as we were saying before — and still be what it was, snow and hot as well; when the hot approaches, it will either get out of its way or be destroyed." "Certainly." "And fire, in turn, when the cold approaches it, will either withdraw or perish; it will never dare to take in coldness and still be what it was, fire and cold too." "That's true," he said. "Then it holds for some things of this kind," he said, "that it's not only the form itself that's entitled to its own name for all time, but also something else, which is not the form yet always has its character whenever it exists. Maybe what I mean will be clearer in this example: the odd, presumably, must always get this name we're now giving it — right?" "Certainly."
PHAEDO: "But is it the only thing that does — this is my question — or is there something else, which is not the same as the odd, yet which we must always call by its own name and by this name 'odd' too, because it's so constituted by nature that it's never separated from the odd? I mean the sort of thing that happens with the number three, and with many other things. Look at the three. Doesn't it seem to you that it must always be addressed both by its own name and by the name of the odd, even though the odd is not the same as the three? Still, that's how the three and the five and the whole half of the number series are constituted: each of them, without being what the odd is, is always odd. And again, two and four and the whole other column of number, without being what the even is — still each of them is always even. Do you grant this or not?" "Of course," he said. "Then watch closely," he said, "for what I want to make clear. It's this: it appears that not only do those opposites refuse to accept one another, but also whatever things, without being opposite to each other, always contain the opposites — these too, it seems, refuse to accept the character that's opposite to the one in them; when it advances, they either perish or retreat. Won't we say that three will be destroyed first, will suffer anything whatever, sooner than stay put and become even while still being three?" "Absolutely," said Cebes. "And yet," he said, "two is not the opposite of three." "No indeed." "So it's not only the opposite forms that don't stand firm when they advance on each other; certain other things too don't stand firm when the opposites advance." "Very true," he said. "Then do you want us to define, if we can, what kind of things these are?" "Certainly." "Well then, Cebes," he said, "would they be these: whatever a thing takes hold of, it forces it to have not only its own character but also, always, the character of some opposite?" "What do you mean?" "Just what we were saying a moment ago. You know, surely, that whatever the character of three takes hold of must be not only three but also odd." "Certainly." "Then upon such a thing, we say, the character opposite to the form that produces this will never come." "No." "And what produced it was the odd?" "Yes." "And opposite to this is the character of the even?" "Yes." "So the character of the even will never come upon the three." "No indeed." "So the three has no share in the even." "None." "So the three is un-even." "Yes."
PHAEDO: "Now for what I said we should define — what kind of things, without being opposite to something, nevertheless don't accept it, the opposite. For instance, just now: the three, though not opposite to the even, still doesn't accept it any more for that, since it always brings up the opposite against it; likewise the two against the odd, and fire against the cold, and a great many others. Well, see whether you'd define it this way: not only does the opposite not accept its opposite, but also whatever brings up some opposite against that which it enters — the thing that brings it up will itself never accept the oppositeness of what it brings. Refresh your memory again; it does no harm to hear it more than once. Five won't accept the character of the even, nor ten, its double, the character of the odd. This double, of course, is itself opposite to something else, but all the same it won't accept the character of the odd. Nor will one-and-a-half and the other such things, the half, accept the character of the whole; and the third-part likewise, and everything of that sort — if you follow me and agree it's so." "I agree entirely," he said, "and I follow." "Then tell me again from the beginning," he said. "And don't answer me in the terms of my question, but do as I do. I say this because, beyond that first answer I described, the safe one, I now see another kind of safety arising from what we've just said. If you asked me what it is whose presence in a body makes it hot, I won't give you that safe, ignorant answer — 'heat' — but a subtler one, drawn from our present results: 'fire.' And if you ask what it is whose presence in a body makes it sick, I won't say 'sickness' but 'fever.' And what it is whose presence in a number makes it odd, I won't say 'oddness' but 'the unit' — and so on. See whether by now you understand well enough what I want." "Quite well enough," he said. "Then answer," he said: "what is it whose presence in a body makes it alive?" "Soul," he said. "And is this always so?" "Of course," he said. "So whatever the soul takes hold of, it always comes to it bringing life?" "It does indeed," he said. "And is there something opposite to life, or nothing?" "There is," he said. "What?" "Death." "Then the soul will never accept the opposite of what it always brings — that follows from what we agreed before?" "Most emphatically," said Cebes. "Well then: what did we just now call the thing that doesn't accept the character of the even?" "Un-even," he said. "And what doesn't accept the just, and whatever doesn't accept the musical?" "Unmusical," he said, "and the other, unjust." "Good. And what do we call whatever doesn't accept death?" "Deathless," he said. "And the soul doesn't accept death?" "No." "So the soul is deathless." "Deathless." "Good," he said. "Shall we say this has been proved? What do you think?" "Proved, and very adequately, Socrates."
PHAEDO: "Then what, Cebes?" he said. "If the un-even were necessarily indestructible, wouldn't three be indestructible?" "Of course." "And if the un-hot too were necessarily indestructible, then whenever someone brought heat against snow, the snow would withdraw safe and unmelted? It wouldn't be destroyed, nor would it stay put and take in the heat." "True," he said. "And in the same way, I think, if the un-coolable were indestructible, then whenever something cold advanced on the fire, it would never be put out or destroyed; it would go off and depart intact." "Necessarily," he said. "Then aren't we compelled," he said, "to say the same about the deathless? If the deathless is also indestructible, it's impossible for the soul to be destroyed when death comes against it. For by what we've said, it will not accept death and will not be dead — just as three, we said, will not be even, nor will the odd; just as fire will not be cold, nor the heat in the fire. 'But what prevents this,' someone might say: 'the odd doesn't become even when the even advances — that's agreed — but what prevents it from perishing, and an even thing coming to be in its place?' Against someone who said that, we couldn't fight it out and insist that it doesn't perish; for the un-even is not indestructible. If that had been agreed between us, we could easily have argued that when the even advances, the odd and the three go off and depart; and about fire and the hot and the rest we'd have argued the same way. Isn't that so?" "Certainly." "So now, about the deathless: if we agree that it's also indestructible, then the soul, besides being deathless, would be indestructible too; but if not, another argument would be needed." "But none is needed on that account," he said. "Hardly anything could refuse destruction if the deathless, which is eternal, is going to accept destruction." "And the god, I think," said Socrates, "and the form of life itself, and anything else that is deathless — everyone would agree these never perish." "Everyone indeed, by Zeus," he said, "all human beings, and still more, I imagine, the gods." "Then since the deathless is also imperishable, what else could the soul be, if it really is deathless, than indestructible as well?" "It must be, absolutely." "So when death comes against a man, the mortal part of him, it seems, dies, while the deathless part goes off and departs safe and undestroyed, yielding its place to death." "So it appears."
PHAEDO: "Then beyond all doubt, Cebes," he said, "the soul is deathless and indestructible, and our souls really will exist in Hades." "For my part, Socrates," Cebes said, "I have nothing further to say against that, and no way of doubting the argument. But if Simmias here or anyone else has something to say, it would be well not to keep silent about it — I don't know to what other occasion than the present one a person could put off speaking or hearing about such things, if he wants to say or hear anything at all." "But indeed," said Simmias, "I too no longer have any grounds for doubt, given what has been said. And yet, because of the sheer magnitude of the subjects the argument concerns, and because I have a low opinion of human weakness, I find myself still compelled to hold some private doubt about what has been said." "Not only that, Simmias," said Socrates, "but you are right to say so — and even our first assumptions, trustworthy as they seem to you, still need to be examined more clearly. If you take them apart thoroughly enough, I think you will follow the argument as far as it is possible for a human being to follow it; and if that itself becomes clear, you will look for nothing further." "That's true," he said. "But here is something, gentlemen, that it's right to think through: if the soul is immortal, it needs care — not only for the time we call 'living,' but for all time — and the danger of neglecting it would now indeed seem terrible. For if death were a release from everything, it would be a windfall for the wicked to die, being freed at once from the body and, along with the soul, from their own wickedness. But since the soul plainly is deathless, it has no escape from evils and no safety except by becoming as good and as wise as possible. For the soul goes down to Hades possessing nothing else at all but its education and upbringing — and these, it is said, help or harm the dead person the most, right from the very beginning of the journey to that place. And this is how the story goes: when each person dies, the guardian spirit that was allotted to him in life undertakes to lead him to a certain place, where those gathered must be judged and then travel on to Hades with the guide appointed to conduct people from here to there. Having there met with what they must meet, and having remained as long as is required, another guide brings them back here again, after many long cycles of time.
PHAEDO: "But in fact the journey is not as the Telephus of Aeschylus describes it — he says a single path leads to Hades, but it seems to me neither single nor simple. If it were, there would be no need of guides — no one could ever go astray if there were but one road. As it is, it seems to have many branches and forks — I judge this from the rites and customs practiced here. Now the soul that is orderly and wise follows along and is not ignorant of what confronts it, but the soul that clings to the body with desire — as I said before — flutters around it and around the visible world for a long time, and after much resistance and much suffering, is led away by force and with difficulty by the spirit assigned to it. And when it arrives where the others are, if it is impure and has done something of that sort — if it has been stained with unjust killings or committed other such acts, sister deeds done by sister souls — everyone shuns it and turns away, unwilling to be either its companion or its guide, and it wanders alone, gripped by utter helplessness, until certain periods of time have passed, and when these arrive it is swept by necessity into the dwelling that suits it. But the soul that has passed through life in purity and moderation, finding gods for companions and guides, settles each in the place fitting for it. For there are many wonderful places on the earth, and the earth itself is neither of the kind nor the size that is commonly supposed by those who habitually talk about it — of this I have been persuaded by someone." And Simmias said, "What do you mean by this, Socrates? I too have heard a great deal about the earth, but not the things that persuade you — so I'd be glad to hear." "Well, Simmias, it doesn't seem to me to take the skill of Glaucus just to narrate what it is; but to show that it's true seems harder to me than the skill of Glaucus could manage — and at the same time I probably wouldn't be capable of it, and even if I knew how, my life, Simmias, seems to me too short for such a long account. Still, nothing stops me from telling you the shape I am persuaded the earth has, and its regions."
PHAEDO: "Well," said Simmias, "that much will do." "I am persuaded, then," he said, "first, that if the earth is round and lies in the middle of the heavens, it needs neither air nor any other such force to keep it from falling, but that the uniformity of the heavens with themselves in every direction, and the equilibrium of the earth itself, are sufficient to hold it up. For a thing in equilibrium, set in the middle of something uniform, will have no more reason to tilt one way than another, but being in the same relation all around, it will remain untilted. This, then, is the first thing I am persuaded of." "And rightly so," said Simmias. "Further," he said, "that it is enormously large, and that we who live between the Pillars of Heracles and the river Phasis inhabit only a small portion of it, dwelling around the sea like ants or frogs around a pond, while many other people live elsewhere in many such regions. For everywhere around the earth there are many hollows of every shape and size, into which water and mist and air have flowed together; but the earth itself lies pure in the pure heaven, in which the stars are, which most of those accustomed to speak of such things call the aether. Our world is the sediment of that aether, always flowing together into the hollows of the earth. So we who live in these hollows are unaware of it, and think we live up on the surface of the earth — just as if someone living in the middle of the ocean floor thought he lived on the surface of the sea, and seeing the sun and the other stars through the water, took the sea for the sky, and because of his slowness and weakness had never reached the surface of the sea nor ever risen up out of the water to look out at our world here and see how much purer and more beautiful it is than his own, nor had he heard this from anyone who had seen it. This is exactly our condition: living in some hollow of the earth, we think we live on its surface, and we call the air 'heaven,' as though it were the true heaven through which the stars move — when really, through weakness and slowness, we are unable to pass all the way through the air to its outer edge. For if someone reached its summit, or grew wings and flew up, he would look out and see — just as fish here, poking their heads out of the sea, see the things of our world — so he too would see the things up there, and if his nature could bear to go on gazing, he would recognize that that is the true heaven, and the true light, and the true earth.
PHAEDO: "For this earth of ours, and its stones, and this whole region here, are corroded and eaten away, just as things in the sea are by the brine, and nothing worthwhile grows in the sea, nor is anything there, one might say, complete — only caverns and sand and endless mud and slime, wherever there is earth at all, and nothing there measures up in beauty to what we have here. But that world up there would show itself to be far more superior still to ours. In fact, if it's fitting to tell a tale, it's worth hearing, Simmias, what things are like on the earth that lies beneath that heaven." "Well, Socrates," said Simmias, "we would certainly be glad to hear this tale." "It is said, then, my friend, first that the earth itself, viewed from above, looks like one of those balls stitched from twelve pieces of leather — many-colored, marked off in patches of color, of which the colors we have here are like samples, the sort painters use. There, the whole earth is made of such colors, and far brighter and purer ones than these: one region is sea-purple and wonderfully beautiful, another gold-colored, another white — whiter than chalk or snow — and made up likewise of the other colors, even more numerous and more beautiful than any we have seen. And even these very hollows of the earth, being full of water and air, present a kind of color, gleaming amid the variety of the other colors, so that the whole appears as one continuous, varied surface. And in an earth of this kind, the things that grow, grow in proportion — trees and flowers and fruits; and the mountains too, and the stones, have in the same proportion a smoothness, a translucence, and colors more beautiful; of which the small stones we prize here — carnelian, jasper, emerald, and all such — are fragments; but there, every stone is like this, and even more beautiful still. The reason for this is that those stones are pure and not eaten away and corroded, as ours are, by decay and brine flowing down together here, which bring disfigurement and disease to stones and earth alike, and to the other animals and plants as well.
PHAEDO: "And the earth itself is adorned with all these things, and further with gold and silver and all such other things besides. For these lie exposed to view by nature, being many in number and great in size and scattered everywhere over the earth, so that to see it is a sight for the eyes of the blessed. And there are many other living creatures upon it, and human beings too — some dwelling inland, others along the air as we do along the sea, and others on islands which the air flows around, close by the mainland; and, in a word, what water and the sea are to us for our needs, the air is to them there, and what air is to us, the aether is to them. And their seasons are blended in such a way that they are free of sickness and live for a much longer time than people here, and in sight, hearing, wisdom, and all such things, they are as far superior to us as air is purer than water, and aether than air. They also have groves and temples of the gods, in which the gods truly dwell, and they have oracles, prophecies, and direct perceptions of the gods, and such communion with them face to face; and they see the sun and moon and stars as they truly are, and their happiness in every other respect matches this. Such, then, is the nature of the whole earth and of what surrounds it; and within it, arranged around its whole circuit, are many regions in its hollow places — some deeper and more open than the one we live in, others deeper still but with a narrower opening than ours, and some shallower in depth than ours but broader. All of these are connected to one another underground by many passages, some narrower, some wider, and have channels through which much water flows from one into another as if into mixing bowls, and there are immense rivers of water, hot and cold, flowing forever beneath the earth, and great rivers of fire, and many rivers of liquid mud, some purer and some filthier — like the rivers of mud that flow ahead of the lava in Sicily, and the lava stream itself. From these, each of the regions is filled in turn, as the circular flow happens to reach each one at each time. And all of this moves up and down like a kind of swing set within the earth; and this swinging motion comes about, in fact, through some such natural cause as this.
One of the chasms of the earth happens to be the largest of all, and it runs straight through the whole earth—the one Homer describes when he speaks of it as "far off, where the deepest pit lies beneath the ground." This chasm, both Homer elsewhere and many other poets, have called Tartarus. All the rivers flow together into this chasm, and flow out of it again, and each takes on the character of whatever kind of earth it flows through. The reason all the streams flow out from there and back into it again is that this fluid mass has no bottom and no floor to rest on. So it sways and surges up and down, and the air and wind around it do the same thing—for the wind follows along with it both when it rushes toward one side of the earth and when it rushes toward the other, and just as with people breathing, the wind that flows there is always being breathed out and breathed in, so too, swaying together with the fluid, the wind produces terrifying, uncontrollable blasts as it goes in and out. So whenever the water withdraws to the region called the lower one, it flows into the channels on that side and through the earth and fills them, just as people do when they pour water through irrigation channels; and whenever in turn it leaves that side and rushes toward this one, it fills the channels here again, and once filled, these flow through their passages and through the earth, and arriving each at the places toward which they've been channeled, they form seas and lakes and rivers and springs. From there they sink back down through the earth again—some circling through longer and more numerous regions, others through shorter and fewer—and empty back into Tartarus, some far below the point where they were drawn off, others only a little below. But all of them flow in below the point where they flowed out, and some come out on the opposite side from where they went in, others on the same side; and there are some that circle all the way around, coiling once or even several times around the earth like snakes, before plunging down as far as they can and emptying in again. It's possible to go down as far as the middle from either direction, but no farther—since beyond that point, the ground rises upward for streams flowing from both directions alike.
Now besides these there are many other great streams of every kind. But among this multitude there happen to be four in particular, the largest of which, and the one that flows in the outermost circle around everything, is called Ocean. Directly across from this one, flowing in the opposite direction, is the Acheron, which flows through desolate regions and, running underground, reaches the Acherusian Lake, where the souls of most of the dead arrive, and after remaining there for certain appointed periods—some longer, some shorter—are sent out again into the births of living creatures. A third river empties out between these two, and near its outlet it pours into a vast region burning with much fire, and forms a lake bigger than our own sea, boiling with water and mud. From there it moves in a circle, thick and muddy, coiling around the earth until it reaches, among other places, the edge of the Acherusian Lake, without mixing with its waters; and after coiling many times underground it empties still lower than Tartarus. This is the river they call Pyriphlegethon, and its offshoots are what spout up as streams of lava wherever they happen to break through the earth. Directly opposite this one, the fourth river empties first into a place terrible and wild, they say, colored entirely like dark blue steel—the river they call the Styx, and the lake formed where it empties, Styx as well. After plunging in there and taking on fearsome powers in its water, it sinks under the earth, and coiling around moves opposite to Pyriphlegethon, meeting it from the other side in the Acherusian Lake; and its water too mixes with nothing, but it also circles all the way around and empties into Tartarus opposite Pyriphlegethon. Its name, as the poets say, is Cocytus. Given that these things are arranged this way, when the dead arrive at the place where each one's guiding spirit brings them, first they are judged—those who lived well and righteously, and those who did not. Those judged to have lived a middling life travel to the Acheron, and boarding whatever serves as their vessels, arrive on these at the lake, and there they dwell and are purified, paying the penalty for any wrongs they've done and being released from them, and receiving rewards for their good deeds, each according to merit. But those judged incurable because of the magnitude of their crimes—having committed many great sacrileges, or many unjust and lawless murders, or other such things—these are hurled by their fitting destiny into Tartarus, from which they never emerge.
Those judged to have committed curable but serious wrongs—say, striking a father or mother in anger and then living the rest of their life in regret, or becoming a killer in some similar way—these must fall into Tartarus, but after falling and spending a year there, the current casts them out again, the killers by way of Cocytus, those who struck father or mother by way of Pyriphlegethon; and when, carried along, they come opposite the Acherusian Lake, there they cry out and call—some to those they killed, others to those they wronged—and calling out, they beg and plead to be allowed to come out into the lake and be received. And if they persuade them, they come out and their sufferings cease; but if not, they're swept back again into Tartarus and from there again into the rivers, and this keeps happening to them until they persuade those they wronged—for this is the sentence the judges set upon them. But those judged to have lived an exceptionally righteous life are the ones who are freed and released from these regions within the earth, as though from prisons, and arrive above at the pure dwelling place, settling upon the earth's surface. And among these, the ones who have been sufficiently purified by philosophy live thereafter entirely without bodies, and arrive at dwellings still more beautiful than these, which it isn't easy to describe, nor is there time enough right now. For the sake of all we've gone through, then, Simmias, one must do everything possible to have a share of virtue and wisdom in this life—for the prize is fine and the hope is great. To insist that these things are exactly as I've described them wouldn't suit a sensible man; but that something like this, or something of this kind, is true of our souls and their dwellings, given that the soul plainly is immortal, this seems to me both fitting and worth risking belief in—for it's a noble risk—and one should say such things over to oneself like a charm, which is why I've drawn out this story so long. For these reasons, then, a man ought to feel confident about his own soul if throughout his life he has dismissed the other pleasures, the ones concerned with the body and its adornments, treating them as foreign to him and more likely to do harm than good, and has instead thrown himself into the pleasures of learning, adorning his soul not with something foreign but with its own proper ornament—self-control, justice, courage, freedom, and truth—and so awaits his journey to Hades, ready to set out whenever fate calls.
"As for the rest of you, Simmias and Cebes and everyone else," he said, "each of you will make that journey at some time in the future. But now already—as a tragic poet might put it—fate is calling me, and it's about time I turned to my bath. It seems better to bathe before drinking the poison, rather than giving the women the trouble of washing a corpse." When he'd said this, Crito spoke up: "Well then, Socrates—what instructions do you have for these men or for me, about your children or anything else, that we could carry out for you most gladly?" "Nothing new, Crito," he said, "just what I always say—that if you take care of yourselves, whatever you do will be done as a favor to me and mine and to yourselves, even if you make no promises now; but if you neglect yourselves and refuse to live, so to speak, following the tracks laid out by what's been said both now and in the past, then no matter how much and how earnestly you agree now, it will do no good at all." "We'll certainly try hard to do as you say," said Crito. "But how shall we bury you?" "However you like," he said, "provided you can catch me and I don't slip away from you." And laughing quietly, and glancing over at us, he said, "I can't convince Crito, gentlemen, that I am this Socrates here, the one now talking with you and arranging each point of the discussion—he thinks I'm that other one he'll see shortly, a corpse, and he's asking how to bury that. And all this that I've been saying at length, that once I drink the poison I'll no longer stay with you but will be off and away to some blessed state of happiness—all this, it seems, I've been saying to him for nothing, meant only to comfort you and myself at once. So please stand surety for me to Crito," he said, "the opposite kind of surety from the one he offered the jury—he pledged that I would stay; you pledge that I will not stay once I'm dead, but will be gone and away, so that Crito can bear it more easily, and not be distressed on my behalf when he sees my body being burned or buried, as if I were suffering something terrible, or say at the funeral that he's laying out Socrates, or carrying him out, or burying him. For you should know well, my good Crito," he said, "that speaking carelessly isn't only a fault in itself, but it does some harm to the soul as well.
"No, you must have courage, and say that you're burying my body—and bury it however you please, whatever way seems most proper to you." Having said this, he got up and went into another room to bathe, and Crito followed him, while he told us to wait. So we waited, talking among ourselves about what had been said and going over it again, and at other times dwelling on the calamity that had befallen us, feeling quite simply as though we were about to live out the rest of our lives deprived of a father, like orphans. When he had bathed and his children were brought to him—he had two small sons and one older one—and the women of his household arrived, he spoke with them in Crito's presence and gave instructions about whatever he wished, then told the women and children to leave, and came back to us himself. It was now near sunset, since he had spent a long time inside. He came in and sat down, freshly bathed, and there wasn't much conversation after that before the attendant of the Eleven came in, stood beside him, and said, "Socrates, I won't have the same complaint against you that I have against others—that they get angry at me and curse me when, following the orders of the officials, I tell them to drink the poison. But you, I've come to know in this time as the noblest and gentlest and best man of all who have ever come here, and now especially I'm sure you're not angry at me, but at those responsible—for you know who they are. So now, since you know what message I've come to bring, farewell, and try to bear what must be borne as easily as you can." And bursting into tears, he turned and left. Socrates looked up at him and said, "Farewell to you too—we'll do as you say." And turning to us, he said, "What a civilized man. The whole time I've been here he's come to see me, and sometimes talked with me, and been the best of men, and now see how nobly he weeps for me. But come, Crito, let's do as he says—let someone bring the poison, if it's been prepared; if not, let the man prepare it." And Crito said, "But Socrates, I think the sun is still on the mountains and hasn't set yet. And besides, I know others who have drunk it quite late, well after being told to, and have eaten well and drunk well, and some have even had time with whomever they desired. Please, there's no need to hurry—there's still time."
PHAEDO: And Socrates said, "That's reasonable enough, Crito. The men you're talking about think they gain something by doing it that way. But I have good reason not to do it myself -- I don't think I'll gain anything by drinking a little later, except to make myself look ridiculous, clinging to life and sparing a life that has nothing left in it. Come now, do as I say, and don't do otherwise." Hearing this, Crito nodded to the slave standing nearby. The slave went out, and after some time returned with the man who was to administer the poison, carrying it ready-ground in a cup. When Socrates saw the man he said, "Well, my good fellow, you understand these things -- what should I do?" "Nothing," the man said, "except drink it and walk about until your legs feel heavy, then lie down. It will act on its own." And with that he held out the cup to Socrates. He took it, quite calmly, Echecrates -- not a tremor, no change in color or expression -- and looking up at the man from under his brow the way he always did, he said, "What do you say about pouring a libation from this drink to someone? Is that allowed, or not?" "Socrates," the man said, "we grind only as much as we judge the right amount to drink." "I understand," he said. "But surely it's permitted, and right, to pray to the gods that my journey from this world to the other be a fortunate one. That's my prayer -- may it turn out that way." And with these words, he raised the cup to his lips and drank it down, quite readily and without any trouble at all. Up to that point most of us had been fairly able to hold back our tears, but when we saw him drinking, and that he had drunk it, we couldn't hold back any longer -- for my part, the tears came pouring down against my will, so that I covered my face and wept for myself -- not for him, but for my own fortune, at being deprived of a companion like that. Crito had gotten up even before I did, since he couldn't hold back his tears either. Apollodorus, who hadn't stopped weeping even before this, now burst into loud sobbing and anger, and there wasn't a single person present he didn't break down -- except Socrates himself. He said, "What are you doing, you strange men? It was mainly for this reason that I sent the women away, so they wouldn't behave so improperly -- I've heard that one should die in reverent silence. Be calm, and be strong." Hearing this, we felt ashamed and held back our tears. He walked about, and when he said his legs were getting heavy, he lay down on his back -- that's what the man told him to do -- and the same man, the one who had given him the poison, kept his hand on him, and after a while examined his feet and legs, then pressed hard on his foot and asked if he could feel it. He said no.
PHAEDO: After that he pressed his shins, and moving upward like this he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff. He touched him himself and said that when it reached his heart, he would be gone. Now the coldness had nearly reached his abdomen, when he uncovered his face -- he had been covered -- and said -- these were his last words -- "Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please pay the debt, and don't neglect it." "It will be done," said Crito. "But see if you have anything else to say." To this question he gave no further answer. After a little while he stirred, and the man uncovered him -- his eyes had fixed and were staring. Seeing this, Crito closed his mouth and his eyes. That, Echecrates, was the end of our companion, a man who, we would say, was of all those of his time whom we ever knew, the best, and also the wisest and the most just.
APOLLODORUS: I think I'm actually well prepared to answer what you're asking. Just the other day I happened to be walking up to the city from my house in Phalerum, when someone I know spotted me from behind, some way off, and called out - joking as he called - "Hey, you there, the man from Phalerum, Apollodorus, won't you wait up?" So I stopped and waited. And he said, "Apollodorus, I was actually just looking for you, because I wanted to ask you about the party at Agathon's - the one with Socrates and Alcibiades and the others who were there at that dinner - what exactly was said about love. Someone else told me about it, from what he'd heard from Phoenix son of Philip, and he said you knew about it too. But he couldn't give me anything clear. So you tell me - you're the right person, since you're used to reporting your companion's words. But first," he said, "tell me - were you actually there yourself, at this gathering, or not?" And I said, "It certainly sounds like whoever told you gave you nothing clear at all, if you think this gathering you're asking about happened recently, so that I could have been there." "That's what I thought," he said. "How could you think that, Glaucon?" I said. "Don't you know that Agathon hasn't lived here for years, and that it's not even three years yet since I've been spending my time with Socrates and making it my business to know whatever he says or does each day?"
APOLLODORUS: Before that I used to run around wherever I happened to go, thinking I was doing something, when really I was more pathetic than anyone - no less than you are right now - thinking one should do anything at all rather than practice philosophy. And he said, "Don't mock me, just tell me when this gathering took place." And I said it was when we were still boys, when Agathon won with his first tragedy, the day after he and his chorus offered the victory sacrifice. "That was a long time ago then, it seems," he said. "But who told you about it? Not Socrates himself?" "No, by Zeus," I said, "the same man who told Phoenix. A man named Aristodemus, from Cydathenaeum, a small fellow, always without sandals - he was there at the gathering, being, I think, about the most devoted of Socrates's admirers at that time. Though I did later ask Socrates some things about what I'd heard from Aristodemus, and he confirmed it just as Aristodemus had told it." "Well then," he said, "why don't you tell it to me? The road to the city is certainly good for talking and listening as we walk." So as we went along we talked it over between us, which is why, as I said at the start, I'm not unprepared. So if I need to tell it to you all as well, that's what I should do. And really, whenever I'm having some conversation about philosophy myself, or listening to others, quite apart from thinking it does me good, I get an extraordinary pleasure from it. But whenever I hear some other kind of talk, especially the kind you rich businessmen go in for, I get annoyed myself and feel sorry for you, my friends, because you think you're accomplishing something when you're accomplishing nothing. And perhaps you in turn think I'm the wretched one - and I suspect you're right to think so. But as for you, I don't just think it, I know it for a fact. COMPANION: You're always the same, Apollodorus - always running yourself down along with everyone else. You seem to me to think absolutely everyone is miserable except Socrates, starting with yourself. And I have no idea where you got this nickname of yours, "the softie" - because in your talk, at least, you're always harsh, both toward yourself and toward everyone else, except Socrates. APOLLODORUS: My dear fellow, isn't it obvious that thinking this way about myself and about all of you means I'm out of my mind, quite mad? COMPANION: This isn't worth arguing about right now, Apollodorus. Just do what we asked - don't put us off, tell us what was said. APOLLODORUS: Well then, it went something like this - or rather, let me try to tell it to you from the beginning, the way Aristodemus told it to me.
He said Socrates ran into him freshly bathed and wearing sandals, which he rarely did, and Aristodemus asked him where he was going, looking so handsome. And Socrates said he was going to dinner at Agathon's. "Yesterday I dodged him at the victory celebration, afraid of the crowd, but I promised to come today. So I've dressed up like this, to go looking handsome to a handsome man's house. But you," he said, "how do you feel about coming along to dinner uninvited?" And Aristodemus said he answered, "Whatever you say." "Come along then," Socrates said, "and let's ruin the old saying, giving it a twist - that good men go uninvited to the feasts of good men. Homer, after all, doesn't just ruin that saying but practically assaults it - he makes Agamemnon an outstandingly good man in war, and Menelaus a weak spearman, and yet when Agamemnon is holding a sacrifice and feast, he has Menelaus come to the banquet uninvited - the lesser man to the better man's table." Hearing this, Aristodemus said, "I suppose I run the same risk myself then, Socrates - not as you put it, but rather as Homer would have it - going as an ordinary man, uninvited, to the feast of a wise one. So think about what defense you'll give for bringing me, since I won't admit to coming uninvited - I'll say you invited me." "Two going together," Socrates said, "can plan on the way what we'll say. Let's go." So, talking along these lines, Aristodemus said, they went on. But Socrates, paying attention to something in his own thoughts along the way, fell behind, and when Aristodemus waited for him, he told him to go on ahead. When they got to Agathon's house, they found the door open, and something funny happened to Aristodemus there. One of the house slaves met him right away and led him to where the others were already reclining, and he found them just about to start dinner. As soon as Agathon saw him he said, "Aristodemus, you've come at just the right time to join us for dinner. If you came for some other reason, put it off for another time - I was looking for you yesterday to invite you and couldn't find you anywhere. But how is it you haven't brought Socrates to us?" And I, said Aristodemus, turned around and saw Socrates wasn't following anywhere behind me. So I said that I had come with Socrates myself, having been invited by him to this dinner. "You did well to come," he said, "but where is he?"
"He was just coming in behind me - I'm actually wondering myself where he could be." "Won't you go look, boy," said Agathon, "and bring Socrates in? And you, Aristodemus, take the couch next to Eryximachus." A slave washed his feet so he could recline, and then another of the slaves came in to report that Socrates had withdrawn and was standing in the neighbors' doorway, and wouldn't come in no matter how they called him. "That's strange," Agathon said. "Go call him again, and don't let him alone." But Aristodemus said, "No, leave him be - it's a habit of his. Sometimes he steps aside wherever he happens to be and just stands there. He'll come soon enough, I think. Don't disturb him, just let him be." "Well, if you think so, that's what we should do," Agathon said. "But the rest of us, slaves, let's have our meal. Just serve whatever you like, since there's no one supervising you now - which I've never done before - so now, treating me and these guests here as if we'd all been invited by you, look after us well, so we'll have reason to praise you." After this, he said, they had dinner, but Socrates still hadn't come in. Agathon kept telling them to go fetch him, but Aristodemus wouldn't allow it. Eventually Socrates did come in, not having taken as long as usual, but just about when they were halfway through dinner. Agathon, who happened to be reclining alone at the far end, said, "Come here, Socrates, lie down next to me, so that by touching you I might get some benefit from that wise thought that came to you in the doorway. Clearly you found it and have it now - otherwise you wouldn't have come away." And Socrates sat down and said, "It would be a fine thing, Agathon, if wisdom were the sort of thing that flowed from the fuller of us into the emptier just by our touching each other, the way water flows through a woolen thread from the fuller cup into the emptier one. If wisdom really worked that way, then I'd value very highly this place next to you, since I think I'd be filled up from you with a great deal of fine wisdom. My own wisdom might be a poor thing, or even doubtful, like a dream, but yours is brilliant and has a great capacity for growth - seeing how it blazed out from you so strongly while you're still young, and became visible just the other day before more than thirty thousand witnesses of the Greeks." "You're being insolent, Socrates," said Agathon. "We'll settle this question of wisdom between us a little later, with Dionysus as our judge. For now, turn your attention to dinner first."
After this, he said, when Socrates had reclined and eaten along with the others, they poured libations, sang a hymn to the god, and did the other customary things, and then turned to drinking. Pausanias, he said, opened up a discussion something like this: "Well, gentlemen," he said, "how can we make our drinking as easy as possible? For my part I'll tell you that I'm really in a bad way from yesterday's drinking, and I need some recovery time - and I think many of you are in the same state, since you were there yesterday too. So let's think about how we might drink as comfortably as possible." Aristophanes said, "That's well said, Pausanias, that we should arrange things somehow to make the drinking easier - I myself am one of those who got thoroughly soaked yesterday." Hearing them, Eryximachus, son of Acumenus, said, "You're both quite right. But there's one more of you I'd like to hear from - how you feel about your strength for drinking, Agathon." "Not at all up to it," he said, "I'm not strong either." "It would be a godsend for us, it seems," Eryximachus said, "for me and Aristodemus and Phaedrus and these others, if you who are the strongest drinkers are worn out now - we're always weak drinkers ourselves. Socrates I leave out of the discussion - he's up to either, so whichever we do will suit him fine. So since it seems to me none of those present is eager for a lot of wine drinking, perhaps I'll be less unwelcome if I tell you the plain truth about what drunkenness is like. This much, I think, has become quite clear to me from medicine - that drunkenness is a hard thing for people. I myself wouldn't willingly want to drink to excess, nor would I advise anyone else to, especially someone still suffering from yesterday's hangover." "Well," said Phaedrus of Myrrhinus, breaking in, "I'm used to obeying you, especially on matters of medicine - and so, I think, will the rest, if they're sensible." Hearing this, they all agreed not to make this present gathering one of heavy drinking, but to drink just for pleasure, as they pleased. "Since this much is decided, then," Eryximachus said, "that each should drink as much as he wants, with no compulsion, I propose next that we send away the flute-girl who just came in - let her play for herself, or for the women inside if she likes - and that we spend today in conversation with each other instead. And if you're willing, I'd like to suggest what kind of conversation."
Everyone, he said, agreed and wanted him to introduce it. So Eryximachus said: my opening, then, follows Euripides' Melanippe—for the story I'm about to tell isn't mine, it's Phaedrus's here. Phaedrus is always complaining to me. Isn't it strange, Eryximachus, he says, that for other gods the poets have composed hymns and paeans, but for Love, who is such a great and important god, not one of all the poets who have ever lived has composed a single encomium? And if you want to consider the accomplished sophists as well—they write prose eulogies of Heracles and others, as the excellent Prodicus does. That's not so surprising, but I've actually come across a book by a clever man in which salt received a marvelous eulogy for its usefulness, and you could find plenty of other such things praised—yet though people have taken such trouble over things like that, no human being to this day has ever dared to hymn Love properly. So great a god has been utterly neglected. This seems right to me, what Phaedrus says. So I want to make a contribution to him and do him this favor, and at the same time it strikes me as fitting, given the occasion, for those of us here to honor the god. So if you all agree too, we could pass the time well enough in speeches: I think each of us in turn, going around to the right, should speak in praise of Love, as fine a speech as he can manage, and Phaedrus should begin, since he's reclining first and is, besides, the father of the idea. No one will vote against you on this, Eryximachus, said Socrates. I certainly won't refuse, since I claim to understand nothing but matters of love, nor will Agathon, I imagine, or Pausanias, nor Aristophanes either, whose whole business is Dionysus and Aphrodite, nor anyone else here that I can see. Though it isn't quite fair to those of us reclining last—but if the ones before us speak well and fully enough, that will satisfy us. Well then, good luck to him—let Phaedrus begin and sing the praises of Love. All the others agreed with this and urged the same as Socrates. Now, Aristodemus didn't remember everything each speaker said, word for word, and I don't remember everything he told me either; but I'll tell you the parts of each speech that stood out most and seemed to me worth recalling.
First, then, as I said, Phaedrus began somewhere around here: that Love is a great god, marvelous among both men and gods, in many ways, but not least in his origin. For it is a mark of honor to be among the oldest of the gods, he said, and here is the proof: Love has no parents, and none are mentioned by anyone, whether ordinary person or poet, but Hesiod says that first Chaos came to be—and then broad-breasted Earth, the ever-secure seat of all things, and Love. Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod that these two came into being after Chaos, Earth and Love. And Parmenides says of her origin—first of all the gods she devised Love. So from many sources it is agreed that Love is among the oldest of the gods. And being the oldest, he is the cause of the greatest goods for us. For I myself can't say what greater good there is for a young man, right from the start, than a worthy lover, and for a lover, a worthy boy to love. For what ought to guide people all their lives, if they mean to live well, cannot be instilled so effectively by family ties, or public honors, or wealth, or anything else, as by love. And what do I mean by this? I mean shame at what is disgraceful and ambition for what is honorable—without these, neither a city nor a private person can achieve anything great or fine. So I say that if a man in love were caught doing something shameful, or suffering it from someone else without defending himself out of cowardice, he would be more pained to be seen that way by his beloved than by his father, or his friends, or anyone else in the world. And we see the same thing in the one who is loved: he is especially ashamed before his lovers when he's caught doing something disgraceful. So if there were some way to bring about a city or an army made up of lovers and their beloveds, there could be no better way for them to govern their own affairs than by keeping away from everything disgraceful and competing with one another for honor; and men like that, fighting alongside each other, few as they might be, would practically conquer the whole world.
For a man in love would surely rather be seen by anyone else than by his beloved deserting his post or throwing away his weapons—he'd choose to die many times over before that. And as for abandoning one's beloved, or failing to help him in danger—no one is so cowardly that Love himself couldn't inspire him with courage, making him equal to the man who is bravest by nature; and quite literally, what Homer said—that a god breathed might into some of the heroes—this is exactly what Love provides to those who love, coming from himself. And what's more, only lovers are willing to die for one another—not just men, but women too. Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, gives ample proof of this claim before the Greeks, since she alone was willing to die for her husband, though he had both a father and a mother living; but she so far surpassed them in devotion, because of her love, that she showed them up as strangers to their son, related to him in name only. And when she did this deed, it seemed so noble not only to men but to the gods as well that, of the many people who have done many noble things, the gods granted this privilege to only a few—to bring their soul back up again from Hades—but hers they sent back up, in admiration of her deed. So even the gods honor above all this devotion and excellence concerning love. But Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, they sent away from Hades unsatisfied, showing him only a phantom of the wife he had come for, without giving her to him, because he seemed soft—being a lyre-player, after all—and not brave enough to die for love as Alcestis had, but instead contrived to go down into Hades alive. That's exactly why they punished him, and made it so that he died at the hands of women, rather than honoring him as they honored Achilles, son of Thetis, whom they sent to the Isles of the Blessed, because though he had learned from his mother that he would die if he killed Hector, and would live to old age and go home if he did not, he dared to choose to help his lover Patroclus, and after avenging him, to die not merely for him but after him, since he was already dead. For this the gods were full of admiration and honored him even more highly, because he valued his lover so greatly.
Aeschylus talks nonsense when he claims Achilles was in love with Patroclus—Achilles, who was more beautiful not only than Patroclus but than all the other heroes as well, and still beardless, and moreover much younger, as Homer says. But in truth, while the gods honor this excellence connected with love most of all, they admire and reward it even more, and treat it even better, when the beloved loves his lover than when the lover loves his boy. For the lover is more divine than the beloved, since he is inspired by the god. That is why the gods honored Achilles even above Alcestis, sending him off to the Isles of the Blessed. So I say that Love is among the gods the oldest, the most honored, and the most authoritative for human beings to acquire virtue and happiness, both while they live and after they die. This, more or less, was the speech Phaedrus gave, he said; and after Phaedrus there were some other speeches which he didn't remember very well. Leaving those aside, he went on to describe Pausanias's speech. He said: Phaedrus, I don't think our topic has been well set out for us—simply being told, just like that, to praise Love. If Love were one thing, this would be fine, but as it is, he isn't one thing; and since he isn't one, it's more correct to specify first which kind of Love ought to be praised. So I'll try to correct this: first I'll say which Love should be praised, and then praise him in a way worthy of the god. We all know that there's no Aphrodite without Love. If there were only one Aphrodite, there would be only one Love; but since there are actually two Aphrodites, there must also be two Loves. And surely there are two goddesses—one older, motherless, daughter of Uranus, whom we call Heavenly Aphrodite; the other younger, daughter of Zeus and Dione, whom we call Common Aphrodite. It follows, then, that the Love who works alongside the second should rightly be called Common Love, and the other, Heavenly Love. Now, one ought to praise all the gods, but I must try to say what falls to each of these two. For every action is like this: done just by itself, it is neither noble nor shameful.
Take what we're doing right now, for instance—drinking, or singing, or conversing—none of these is in itself a fine thing, but depending on how it is done, in the doing, it turns out one way or the other; done well and rightly it becomes noble, done wrongly, shameful. And so it is with loving, and with Love: not every Love is noble or worthy of praise, but only the one that inspires us to love nobly. Now the Love that belongs to Common Aphrodite is common indeed, and does whatever chance brings; and this is the Love that inferior people feel. Such people, first of all, love women no less than boys; next, they love bodies rather than souls; and further, they love whoever happens to be least intelligent, looking only to the accomplishment of the act, and caring nothing for whether it is done nobly or not. That's why it turns out for them, as chance would have it, sometimes good, sometimes just the opposite. For this Love comes from the goddess who is much younger than the other, and who partakes in her origin of both female and male. But the Love of Heavenly Aphrodite, first of all, has no share in the female, only in the male—this is the love of boys—and further, she is older, having no part in outrage. That is why those inspired by this Love turn toward the male, cherishing what is naturally stronger and has more sense. And one could recognize, even within the practice of loving boys, those who are moved purely by this Love: they don't fall in love with mere children, but only once the boys begin to show some intelligence, which happens around the time their beards start to grow. For I think those who begin to love at this point are prepared to spend their whole lives together and share their lives in common, not to deceive a young man, catching him off guard while he's still foolish, laugh at him, and run off to someone else. There ought, in fact, to be a law against loving young boys, so that a great deal of effort wouldn't be wasted on something so uncertain—for it's unclear how a boy will turn out, in either vice or virtue of soul and body. Good men set this rule for themselves willingly; but these common lovers ought to be compelled to observe something similar, just as we do our best to keep them from pursuing freeborn women.
These are the men who have brought about the disgrace, so that some people dare to say it's shameful to grant favors to lovers. They say this looking at people like these, seeing their bad timing and injustice — since surely nothing done in an orderly and lawful way could justly incur blame. Now the custom concerning love in other cities is easy to understand, since it's simply defined; but here and in Sparta it's complicated. In Elis and among the Boeotians, and wherever people aren't skilled speakers, it's simply established by law that granting favors to lovers is a fine thing, and no one, young or old, would say it's shameful — I think so that they won't have the trouble of trying to persuade the young with argument, since they're no good at speaking. But in Ionia and many other places under barbarian rule, it's considered shameful. For the barbarians, because of their tyrannies, consider this shameful, along with love of philosophy and love of physical training — for I don't think it serves the interests of rulers to have great ambitions grow up in their subjects, nor strong friendships and partnerships, which above all else love tends to produce. The tyrants here learned this by experience too: the love of Aristogeiton and the friendship of Harmodius, once it became steadfast, brought down their rule. So wherever it's been laid down that granting favors to lovers is shameful, this rests on the badness of those who made the law — the greed of the rulers, and the cowardice of the ruled; and wherever it's been considered simply a fine thing, that's due to the laziness of soul in those who made the law. Here the law has been laid down in a far better way than in those places — though, as I said, it isn't easy to understand.
If you think about it, it's said to be finer to love openly than in secret, and especially to love the noblest and best, even if they're less handsome than others; and also that everyone gives the lover remarkable encouragement, as if he were doing nothing shameful, and that winning his beloved seems admirable while failing seems disgraceful; and the law has given the lover license, when he's attempting to win his beloved, to do astonishing things and still be praised for them — things which, if anyone dared to do them pursuing any other goal whatsoever, he would earn the harshest reproaches from philosophy itself. For if someone wanting to get money from another, or to hold office, or gain some other kind of power, were willing to do the sort of things lovers do toward their beloveds — making supplications and pleading entreaties in their requests, swearing oaths, sleeping on doorsteps, and being willing to perform a slavery that not even a slave would perform — he would be stopped from acting this way by both friends and enemies, the former reproaching him for flattery and servility, the latter admonishing him and feeling ashamed on his behalf. But when a lover does all these same things, there's grace attached to it, and the law grants him license to act this way without reproach, as though he were accomplishing something altogether admirable. And what's strangest of all, so most people say, is that he alone gets forgiveness from the gods for breaking his oaths — for they say there's no such thing as an oath sworn in the name of Aphrodite. Thus both gods and men have granted every license to the lover, as the law here declares. On this basis, then, one might suppose that in this city both loving and being friends with lovers is considered a completely admirable thing. But then, when fathers set tutors over their beloved sons and don't let them converse with their lovers, and the tutor has strict instructions to that effect, and companions their own age reproach them if they see anything like that going on, and the older men don't stop those doing the reproaching or scold them for speaking wrongly — anyone looking at this, in turn, would suppose the opposite, that such behavior is considered utterly shameful here. The truth, I think, is this: the matter isn't simple. As was said at the start, it's neither fine in itself nor shameful in itself, but done in a fine way it's fine, done in a shameful way it's shameful. It's shameful to grant favors to a bad man in a bad way; it's fine to grant them to a good man in a good way. That common lover is bad, the one who loves the body rather than the soul — for he isn't even constant, since what he loves isn't constant either. The moment the bloom of the body he loved begins to fade, he's off and gone, having shamed many fine words and promises. But the one who loves a good character stays devoted for life, since he has attached himself to something constant.
Our law wants to test these lovers thoroughly and well, and to make some worthy of favor while letting others escape it. That's why it urges some to pursue and others to flee, acting as judge and tester to see which sort the lover belongs to, and which sort the beloved. That's the reason, then, why being caught quickly is considered shameful, so that time may intervene — since time seems to be what tests most things well — and also why being caught through money or political power is shameful, whether because the boy, suffering badly, cringes and doesn't hold firm, or because, being benefited with money or political advancement, he doesn't look down on it. None of these things seems either secure or lasting, quite apart from the fact that no noble friendship has ever grown from them. So there's only one path left by our law, if a beloved is to grant favors to a lover in a fine way. Just as it was the rule for lovers that performing any slavery whatsoever willingly for their beloveds was not flattery and not to be reproached, so too there's one other kind of willing slavery left that isn't reproachable — the slavery devoted to excellence. It's our custom that if someone is willing to serve another in the belief that through him he'll become better in some kind of wisdom or in some other part of excellence, this willing slavery is not considered shameful, nor is it flattery. These two customs, then — the one concerning the love of boys and the one concerning philosophy and excellence generally — must come together as one, if it's to turn out to be a fine thing for a beloved to grant favors to a lover. For when a lover and his beloved come together, each holding to his own rule — the one, that he's justified in performing any service whatsoever for a beloved who grants him favors; the other, that he's justified in rendering any service whatsoever to the one who makes him wise and good — the one able to contribute to wisdom and excellence generally, the other in need of acquiring education and wisdom generally — then, when these two customs come together in the same place, it's only here, and nowhere else, that it turns out to be a fine thing for a beloved to grant favors to a lover. And in this case being deceived brings no shame at all; in every other case, whether deceived or not, it brings shame.
If someone grants favors to a lover as if to a rich man, for the sake of wealth, and is deceived and gets no money, because the lover turns out to be poor, it's just as shameful — for such a person seems to have shown what he really is, namely that for the sake of money he'd serve anyone in any way, and that's not a fine thing. By the same reasoning, even if someone grants favors to a lover thinking him a good man, expecting to become better himself through this friendship, and is deceived because the man turns out bad, lacking excellence after all — even so the deception is a fine one. For this person too seems to have shown what he really is, namely that for the sake of excellence and becoming better he would go to any lengths for anyone, and that in turn is the finest thing of all. So it's altogether and in every way a fine thing to grant favors for the sake of excellence. This is the love that belongs to the heavenly goddess, itself heavenly, and worth a great deal both to the city and to individuals, since it compels both the lover himself and the beloved to take great care over their own excellence. All the other kinds of love belong to the other goddess, the common one. That, Phaedrus, is my contribution on the subject of Love, offered on the spot as best I could. When Pausanias came to a stop — you see, the clever people have taught me to make these little balanced turns of phrase — Aristodemus said it was Aristophanes' turn to speak, but he happened to have a fit of hiccups, from overeating or something else, and couldn't speak. So instead he said — since the doctor Eryximachus was lying on the couch below him — "Eryximachus, it's only fair that you either stop my hiccups or speak in my place until I can stop." And Eryximachus said, "Well, I'll do both. I'll speak in your turn, and when you stop, you can speak in mine. While I'm speaking, try holding your breath for a good while, and see if the hiccups will stop on their own; if not, gargle with water. And if it's really stubborn, take something to tickle your nose and sneeze with it; if you do that once or twice, even a very stubborn case will stop." "Go ahead and speak, then," said Aristophanes, "and I'll do as you say."
So Eryximachus spoke: Since Pausanias, after making a fine start on his speech, didn't bring it to an adequate conclusion, I think it's necessary for me to try to put a finish on the argument. That love is twofold seems to me a fine distinction to have drawn; but that it isn't found only in the souls of human beings, directed toward the beautiful, but also occurs in many other things and in many other contexts — in the bodies of all living creatures, in things that grow in the earth, and, one might say, in everything that exists — this I think I've come to see through medicine, our own craft, namely how great and wonderful the god is, and how his reach extends over everything, both in human affairs and in divine ones. I'll begin my speech from medicine, so that we may pay due honor to our craft. The nature of bodies contains this twofold love: for the healthy and the diseased in the body are admittedly different and unlike, and the unlike desires and loves what is unlike. So the love directed at what is healthy is one thing, and the love directed at what is diseased is another. Now just as Pausanias was saying a moment ago that it's fine to grant favors to good men and shameful to grant them to unrestrained ones, so too within the bodies themselves it's fine and necessary to gratify what is good and healthy in each body — and this is exactly what is meant by the medical art — while it's shameful, and one must refuse to gratify, what is bad and diseased, if one means to be skilled in the craft. For medicine, to put it briefly, is the science of the erotic affections of the body with respect to filling and emptying, and whoever can distinguish in these the fine love from the shameful one is the most skilled physician; and whoever can produce change, so that one kind of love is acquired in place of the other, and, in bodies that lack the love they should have, knows how to instill it, and to remove it where it's present but shouldn't be, would be a good practitioner. For he must be able to make the most hostile elements in the body into friends, and make them love one another. And the most hostile elements are the most opposite ones — cold to hot, bitter to sweet, dry to wet, and all such things. It was by knowing how to instill love and concord in these that our ancestor Asclepius, as these poets here say and as I myself believe, established our craft.
So medicine, as I say, is entirely governed by this god, and so are gymnastics and farming. As for music, anyone who pays even a little attention can see that it works the same way, which is perhaps what Heraclitus means to say too, though his words don't put it well. He says that the One, being at odds with itself, comes together with itself, like the harmony of a bow or a lyre. But it's quite absurd to say that a harmony is at odds with itself, or that it's still made up of things at odds with each other. What he probably meant was this: that out of the high note and the low note, which were at odds at first, harmony is produced once the art of music brings them into agreement afterward. Surely there could be no harmony while the high and low notes were still at odds with one another; harmony is a kind of concord, and concord is a form of agreement, and agreement between things still at odds with each other is impossible so long as they remain at odds. And a thing that is discordant and out of agreement cannot be harmonized. It's the same with rhythm: it comes from fast and slow, which were at variance at first and are brought into agreement afterward. And in all these cases it's music that installs the agreement, just as medicine does in its own sphere, by producing love and concord between the opposed elements. So music too is a kind of knowledge of the erotic matters that concern harmony and rhythm. In the actual arrangement of harmony and rhythm themselves there's nothing hard about recognizing the erotic principles at work, and the double love hasn't yet appeared there. But when it comes to using rhythm and harmony on human beings — whether in composing, which people call songwriting, or in the correct use of already-composed melodies and meters, which is called education — then it becomes difficult, and calls for a skilled craftsman. And here we come back to the same point: that one must gratify and safeguard the love belonging to the orderly people, and to those not yet orderly insofar as it will help them become so — and that is the beautiful love, the heavenly one, the Love of the Heavenly Muse. But the love of Polyhymnia is the common one, which must be offered cautiously to whomever it's offered, so as to reap its pleasure without producing any excess — just as in our own art it's a great task to make good use of the appetites connected with the culinary art, so as to enjoy the pleasure of it without disease.
So in music, in medicine, and in everything else, both human and divine, so far as it's possible, one must guard against both forms of love, since both are present in all these things. Even the arrangement of the seasons of the year is full of both of them. Whenever the elements I was just describing — the hot and the cold, the dry and the wet — meet each other under the orderly love, and take on a moderate harmony and blending, they arrive bringing good weather and health to human beings and to the other animals and plants, and do no harm. But whenever the love that goes with excess gets the upper hand in the seasons of the year, it destroys much and does much harm. For plagues tend to arise from such things, and many other irregular diseases afflict both animals and plants; and frosts, hailstorms, and blights come from the excess and disorder of these erotic elements in their relations with one another — and the knowledge of these things, as they concern the movements of the stars and the seasons of the year, is called astronomy. Furthermore, all the sacrifices and everything that the art of divination oversees — and this is the whole area of dealings between gods and human beings — concern nothing other than the guarding and healing of Love. For all impiety tends to arise when someone fails to gratify the orderly Love, or to honor and give him first place in everything he does, and instead honors the other one, whether in matters concerning parents, living or dead, or concerning the gods. It's the task assigned to divination to keep watch over lovers in these matters and to heal them, and divination is, in turn, the craftsman of friendship between gods and human beings, through its knowledge of the erotic affairs of human beings that bear on right and piety. So great and so vast — indeed practically total — is the power that Love as a whole possesses; but the love that is directed toward good things and is brought to completion with moderation and justice, both among us and among the gods, has the greatest power of all, and provides us with our whole happiness, making us able to associate with one another and be friends, and even to be dear to the gods who are stronger than we are. Now I too, perhaps, in praising love, am leaving a great deal out — though not willingly. But if I've left anything out, it's your job, Aristophanes, to fill it in. Or if you have some other approach in mind for praising the god, go ahead and praise him, now that you've gotten over your hiccups.
At this point, he said, Aristophanes took over and said that yes, they had indeed stopped, though not before the sneezing had been applied to them — so that I'm amazed, he said, that the orderly part of the body should crave such noises and ticklings as sneezing produces. In any case, it stopped right away, as soon as I applied the sneeze to it. And Eryximachus said, My good Aristophanes, watch what you're doing. You're making jokes just as you're about to speak, and you're forcing me to stand guard over your speech, in case you say something laughable, when you could be speaking in peace. And Aristophanes laughed and said, You're right, Eryximachus — consider everything I've said unsaid. But don't stand guard over me, since what I'm afraid of in what I'm about to say isn't that I'll say something laughable — that would actually be a gain, and right at home with our Muse — but that I'll say something absurd. You think you can throw the ball and dodge it, Aristophanes, he said; but pay attention, and speak as though you'll have to give an account of it. Perhaps, though, if I see fit, I'll let you off. Well, Eryximachus, said Aristophanes, I do intend to speak along rather different lines from the ones you and Pausanias took. It seems to me that people have entirely failed to perceive the power of Love; for if they perceived it, they would have built him the grandest temples and altars, and would be offering him the greatest sacrifices — not as things stand now, when none of this happens for him, though it's more than anything else that ought to happen. For he is the most human-loving of the gods, a helper of human beings and a healer of those ills whose cure would bring the greatest happiness to the human race. So I will try to explain his power to you, and you can go be teachers of it to everyone else. But first you need to learn about human nature and what has happened to it. Our nature long ago was not what it is now, but was of a different kind. In the first place, there were three sexes of human beings, not two as there are now — male and female — but a third besides, which combined both of these; its name still survives, though the thing itself has vanished. There was once a being called androgynous, one in both form and name, combining male and female; but now it exists only as a term of abuse.
In the second place, the shape of each human being was completely round, with back and sides forming a circle; they had four hands, and legs to match the hands, and two faces, exactly alike, on a rounded neck; one head for the two faces, which were set opposite each other; four ears, two sets of genitals, and everything else to match, as you might imagine from this. They walked upright, as we do now, in whichever direction they chose; and whenever they needed to run fast, they moved the way tumblers do, flinging their legs up and spinning around — except that they had eight limbs to push off with, so they went rolling along quickly in a circle. The reason there were three sexes, and of this kind, is that the male was originally an offspring of the sun, the female of the earth, and the one that combined both was an offspring of the moon, since the moon too shares in both sun and earth. They were round, and their motion was rolling, because they resembled their parents. They were tremendous in strength and power, and had great ambitions, and they made an attempt on the gods; what Homer says about Ephialtes and Otus is said of them — that they tried to climb up into heaven, meaning to attack the gods. So Zeus and the other gods took counsel about what they should do with them, and were at a loss; they couldn't bring themselves to kill them and wipe out the race with thunderbolts, as they had done with the Giants — for that would mean losing the honors and sacrifices they received from human beings — and yet they couldn't let them go on behaving so outrageously. At last Zeus, thinking hard, said: I believe I have a plan by which human beings can continue to exist, yet stop their unruly behavior, by being made weaker. I will now, he said, cut each of them in two; this will make them weaker, and at the same time more useful to us, because there will be more of them; and they will walk upright on two legs. And if they still seem to behave outrageously and won't keep quiet, I'll cut them in two again, so they'll have to hop along on one leg. Having said this, he cut human beings in two, the way people slice sorb-apples before pickling them, or the way you'd cut an egg with a hair. And whenever he cut someone, he ordered Apollo to turn the face and the half of the neck around toward the cut, so that the person, seeing his own incision, would become more orderly, and to heal the rest.
So Apollo turned the face around, and pulling the skin together from all sides over what is now called the belly — like a purse drawn tight with a string — he tied off a single opening at the middle of the belly, which is what we now call the navel. He smoothed out most of the other wrinkles and shaped the chest with a tool something like the one shoemakers use to smooth wrinkles out of leather on a last; but he left a few wrinkles, the ones around the belly and the navel itself, as a reminder of the ancient experience. Now once our nature had been cut in two, each half, longing for its own other half, would come together with it; and throwing their arms around each other and tangling themselves together, desperate to grow into one, they began to die of hunger and general inactivity, because neither would do anything apart from the other. And whenever one of the halves died and the other was left, the one left behind would search for another and tangle itself together with that one, whether it happened to meet the half of a whole woman — what we now call a woman — or the half of a man; and so they kept perishing. But Zeus took pity on them and came up with another plan: he moved their genitals around to the front — for until then these too had been on the outside, and they had begotten and given birth not into one another but into the ground, the way cicadas do. So he moved these organs around to the front, and by this means made it possible for them to breed with one another, through the male in the female, for the following reasons: so that in the embrace, if a man met with a woman, they might beget and the race continue; but also so that if male met with male, there might at least be satisfaction in their being together, after which they could rest, turn to their work, and attend to the rest of life. This, then, is the source from which the desire of human beings for one another has been implanted in us since so long ago, drawing our original nature back together, trying to make one out of two, and to heal human nature. Each of us, then, is a mere token of a human being, since each has been sliced in two like a flatfish, cut from one into two; and each of us is forever seeking the token that matches him. All those men who are cut from that combined sex, then called androgynous, are drawn to women, and most adulterers come from this kind; and likewise all the women drawn to men and given to adultery come from this kind. But those women who are cut from an original woman pay hardly any attention to men, being drawn instead to women, and the women who love other women come from this kind.
But those who are a slice of the male pursue males. While they are boys, being little cuts of the male, they love men and delight in lying beside them and being wrapped in their arms — and these are the best of boys and young men, because they are by nature the most manly. Some people call them shameless, but that is a lie: they do this not out of shamelessness but out of boldness and courage and manliness, welcoming what is like themselves. And here is strong proof: when they grow up, it is men of this sort, and only they, who turn out fit for public life. When they reach manhood they are lovers of boys, and by nature take no interest in marriage or fathering children, though the law compels them to it; they would be content to live out their lives with one another, unmarried. Such a man, then, always becomes a lover of boys or a lover of his lover, always embracing what is kin to him. And whenever one of them — the boy-lover or anyone else — happens upon his own actual half, then the pair are struck with amazement, with affection and belonging and desire, and they hardly want to be parted from each other for even a moment. These are the ones who stay together their whole lives through, and yet they could not even say what it is they want from one another. No one could suppose it is merely the partnership of sex — that this is why each takes such immense delight in the other's company. No: the soul of each is clearly longing for something else, something it cannot name; it can only divine what it wants, and hint at it in riddles. And suppose, as they lay together, Hephaestus stood over them with his tools and asked: 'What is it, you two, that you want from each other?' And when they could not answer, suppose he asked again: 'Is this what you long for — to be joined together so completely that day and night you never leave each other's side? If that is your desire, I am willing to melt you down and weld you into one, so that from two you become one, and as long as you live you live a single life in common, as one being, and when you die, you die a single death, one instead of two, together even in Hades. Look into yourselves: is this what you love? Would this satisfy you, if you could have it?' We know that on hearing this not a single one would refuse, or show any sign of wanting anything else. Each would think he had heard, at last, the very thing he had longed for all along: to come together and be fused with his beloved, and from two to become one.
And the reason is this: this was our original nature, and we were whole. So the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole is love. Before this, as I say, we were one; but now, because of our wrongdoing, the god has scattered us into separate dwellings, as the Arcadians were scattered by the Spartans. And there is reason to fear that if we do not behave decently toward the gods, we may be split yet again, and go about like the figures carved in profile on grave-reliefs, sawn straight down the nose, turned into something like half-dice tokens. For these reasons every man should urge every other to piety toward the gods, so that we may escape the one fate and win the other, with Love as our leader and general. Let no one act against him — and whoever makes himself hateful to the gods does act against him — for if we become the god's friends and are reconciled to him, we shall find and meet the beloveds who are truly our own, which few men nowadays manage to do. And let Eryximachus not interrupt me and turn my speech into comedy, as if I meant Pausanias and Agathon — though perhaps they really do belong to that class, both being male by nature. I am speaking about everyone, men and women alike: our race would become happy if we brought love to fulfillment and each of us found his own beloved and returned to his original nature. And if that is the best thing, then necessarily the best thing available in our present condition is what comes nearest to it: to find a beloved whose nature answers to one's own mind. And if we would hymn the god responsible for this, we would rightly hymn Love, who in the present does us the greatest service by leading us toward what is our own, and for the future offers us the greatest hopes: that if we render piety to the gods, he will restore us to our original nature, heal us, and make us blessed and happy. There, Eryximachus, is my speech about Love — a different sort from yours. So, as I begged you, don't make a comedy of it; let us hear what each of the rest will say — or rather each of the remaining two, since Agathon and Socrates are left. Well, I'll do as you say, Eryximachus said; in fact I enjoyed your speech. And if I did not know that Socrates and Agathon were masters in matters of love, I would be very much afraid they might be at a loss for words, so much and so varied is what has already been said. As it is, I have every confidence.
Then Socrates said: You fought your own round well, Eryximachus; but if you were where I am now — or rather where I will be when Agathon too has spoken well — you would be thoroughly frightened and at your wits' end, just as I am now. You want to put a spell on me, Socrates, said Agathon, so that I get flustered thinking the audience holds great expectations of my speaking well. I would have a poor memory indeed, Agathon, said Socrates, if — after seeing your courage and composure as you mounted the platform with your actors and faced that enormous audience, about to present your own words, without the slightest sign of panic — I now supposed you would be flustered on account of the few of us here. What, Socrates? said Agathon. Surely you don't think me so stuffed with theater that I don't know a few men of sense are more frightening, to anyone with a mind, than a crowd of fools? No, Agathon, he said, it would be wrong of me to think anything boorish about you. I know quite well that if you met people you considered wise, you would care more for them than for the many. But I doubt we are those people — after all, we were there too, we were part of that crowd. Still, if you met other people who were wise, you would probably feel shame before them if you thought you were doing something shameful. Is that what you mean? That's true, he said. But before the many you would feel no shame, if you thought you were doing something shameful? At that point Phaedrus broke in, he said: My dear Agathon, if you answer Socrates, it will no longer matter to him in the least how anything else here turns out, so long as he has someone to converse with — especially someone beautiful. Now, I enjoy hearing Socrates converse, but it is my duty to look after the encomium to Love and to collect a speech from each one of you. Pay the god his due, each of you, and then converse all you like. You're right, Phaedrus, said Agathon, and there's nothing to stop me speaking; there will be plenty of other chances to converse with Socrates.
I want first to say how I ought to speak, and then to speak. All the previous speakers, it seems to me, have not been praising the god, but congratulating human beings on the good things the god causes for them; what sort of being he himself is, who gave these gifts, no one has said. Yet there is one right method for any praise of anything: to set out in words what sort of being the subject is, and what sort of things he causes. That is how we too ought rightly to praise Love: first what he is, then what he gives. I say, then, that of all the gods — blessed as they all are — Love, if one may say so without offense, is the most blessed, being the most beautiful and the best. He is most beautiful in this way. First, Phaedrus, he is the youngest of the gods. He supplies strong proof of this claim himself: he flees old age in headlong flight — and old age is fast, obviously; at any rate it comes at us faster than it should. Love by nature hates old age and will not come within long range of it. With the young he always keeps company, and young he is; the old saying has it right, that like always draws near to like. And though I agree with Phaedrus on many other points, I do not agree with this one, that Love is older than Kronos and Iapetos. I say he is the youngest of the gods and forever young, and that those ancient dealings among the gods which Hesiod and Parmenides recount happened under Necessity, not Love — if those poets were telling the truth. For there would have been no castrations or chainings of one another, nor all those other violences, if Love had been among them, but friendship and peace, as there is now, ever since Love has been king of the gods. So he is young — and besides being young, he is tender; though it would take a poet like Homer to display a god's tenderness. Homer says that Ate is a god and tender — her feet, at any rate, are tender — when he says: tender indeed are her feet: not on the ground does she set them, but upon the heads of men she walks. A fine piece of evidence, I think, for showing her tenderness: that she walks not on what is hard but on what is soft. We shall use the same evidence about Love, to show he is tender. He walks not upon the earth, nor upon skulls — which are none too soft — but in the softest things that exist he both walks and dwells. For he has set up house in the characters and souls of gods and men; and not, moreover, in all souls without exception — when he meets a soul with a hard character he departs, and where the character is soft, he settles in.
Since, then, he is always touching, with his feet and every part of him, the softest parts of the softest things, he must be supremely tender. So he is youngest and tenderest — and besides these, supple in form. If he were rigid he could not fold himself around us on every side, nor pass unnoticed through every soul as he enters and leaves. Strong proof of his well-proportioned and supple figure is his gracefulness, which by universal agreement Love possesses beyond all others; between gracelessness and Love there is perpetual war. The god's beauty of complexion is shown by his living among flowers: where there is no bloom, or the bloom has faded — in body, in soul, in anything whatever — Love will not settle; but wherever a spot is flowery and fragrant, there he settles and there he stays. About the god's beauty this is enough, though much still remains; after this we must speak of Love's virtue. The greatest point is that Love neither wrongs nor is wronged — not by a god, not against a god; not by a man, not against a man. He does not suffer by force, if he suffers at all, for force does not touch Love; nor does he act by force when he acts, since everyone serves Love in everything willingly — and whatever one willing party agrees with another willing party, the laws, those kings of the city, declare to be just. And beyond justice, he has the fullest share of moderation. Moderation is agreed to be mastery over pleasures and desires, and no pleasure is stronger than Love; so if they are weaker, they are mastered by Love, and he is master — and being master over pleasures and desires, Love would be moderate beyond all others. And as for courage, not even Ares can stand up to Love. For it is not Ares who holds Love, but Love who holds Ares — love for Aphrodite, so the story goes — and the one who holds is stronger than the one held; and mastering the most courageous of all the rest, he would be the most courageous of all. Now the god's justice, moderation, and courage have been spoken of; his wisdom remains — and one must try, as far as possible, to leave nothing out. First, so that I too may honor our art as Eryximachus honored his: the god is a poet so skilled that he can make a poet of another. At any rate everyone becomes a poet, however unmusical he was before, whom Love touches. This we may fittingly use as evidence that Love is a good poet, a maker, in short, of every kind of creation that belongs to the Muses; for what one does not have or does not know, one can neither give to another nor teach him.
And as for the making of all living things — who will deny that this is Love's wisdom, by which every animal comes into being and grows? And in the craftsman's arts, don't we know that whoever has this god for a teacher turns out famous and brilliant, while whoever Love never touches stays in the dark? Archery, medicine, prophecy — Apollo discovered them all with desire and love leading the way, so he too must count as Love's pupil; and so with the Muses in music, Hephaestus in metalwork, Athena in weaving, and Zeus in steering gods and men alike. That is why the affairs of the gods were set in order once Love was born among them — love of beauty, obviously, since Love has nothing to do with ugliness. Before that, as I said at the start, all sorts of terrible things happened among the gods, so the story goes, under the reign of Necessity. But once this god was born, from loving beautiful things every good thing has come, for gods and for human beings. So it seems to me, Phaedrus, that Love is first himself the most beautiful and the best, and after that the cause of the same qualities in others. And I feel moved to put something in verse — that he is the one who makes peace among men, and on the open sea a windless calm; who lays the winds to bed and gives sleep to the troubled. He is the one who empties us of estrangement and fills us with belonging; who brings us together in every gathering like this one, taking the lead at festivals, at dances, at sacrifices. He supplies gentleness and banishes savagery. Generous with goodwill, stingy with ill will. Gracious, kind; a sight for the wise, a wonder to the gods; envied by those who lack him, treasured by those who have him; father of luxury, delicacy, elegance, of graces and longing and desire; careful of the good, careless of the bad; in hardship, in fear, in longing, in speech the finest steersman, shipmate, comrade-in-arms, and rescuer; the ornament of all gods and men together, the leader most beautiful and best, whom every man should follow, singing his praises beautifully, joining in the song he sings as he charms the mind of every god and every human being. There, Phaedrus, he said — let that speech of mine be dedicated to the god, part playfulness, part measured seriousness, as far as my powers allow.
When Agathon finished, Aristodemus said, everyone present burst into applause — the young man had spoken in a way worthy of himself and of the god. Then Socrates looked at Eryximachus and said, Well, son of Acumenus, do you still think the fear I've been fearing was groundless? Wasn't I a prophet when I said just now that Agathon would speak marvelously and I would be stuck for words? On one point, said Eryximachus, I grant you spoke like a prophet — Agathon did speak well. But that you'll be stuck? I doubt it. My dear man, said Socrates, how could I not be stuck — how could anyone not be — having to speak after a speech so beautiful and so rich? The rest of it was not all equally astonishing, but that ending — who could hear the beauty of those words and phrases and not be struck dumb? For my part, when I realized I wouldn't be able to say anything even close to that beautiful, I nearly ran off in shame — I would have, if I'd had anywhere to go. The speech kept reminding me of Gorgias, so that I found myself in exactly Homer's predicament: I was terrified that Agathon would end by sending the head of Gorgias, that terror of a speaker, against my speech, and turn me to stone, speechless. And then I realized what a fool I'd been when I agreed to take my turn with you in praising Love and claimed to be an expert in matters of love — knowing nothing, as it turns out, about the business, about how anything ought to be praised. In my stupidity, I thought you should tell the truth about whatever is being praised; that this was the foundation, and from these truths you'd pick out the most beautiful points and arrange them as attractively as possible. And I was quite proud of myself, sure I'd speak well, since I knew the truth about praising anything. But apparently that's not what fine praising is at all. Apparently it's ascribing to the thing the greatest and most beautiful qualities you can, whether it actually has them or not — and if it's all false, no matter. The proposal, it seems, was that each of us should appear to praise Love, not that we should actually praise him.
That, I suppose, is why you rake up every possible claim and attribute it to Love, and declare him to be such-and-such and the cause of so much — to make him appear as beautiful and as good as possible, obviously to people who don't know him (surely not to those who do); and the praise sounds fine and impressive. But I, it turns out, didn't know this style of praising, and it was in my ignorance that I agreed to take my turn at praise. The tongue promised; the mind did not. So goodbye to all that. I am not going to give an encomium that way — I couldn't. But the truth — if you like, I'm willing to tell the truth, in my own fashion, not in competition with your speeches, or I'd only make myself ridiculous. So decide, Phaedrus, whether there's any use for a speech like that — hearing the truth told about Love, in whatever words and arrangement of phrases happen to come. Phaedrus and the others, he said, urged him to speak in whatever way he himself thought best. Then one more thing, Phaedrus, he said: let me ask Agathon a few small questions, so that I can get his agreement first and then speak on that basis. You have my leave, said Phaedrus; ask away. After that, he said, Socrates began from roughly this point. Truly, my dear Agathon, I thought you opened your speech beautifully when you said one should first show what sort of being Love is, and afterward his works. I admire that beginning very much. So come — since you described everything else about what Love is so beautifully and magnificently, tell me this too: is Love such as to be love of something, or of nothing? I'm not asking whether he is the love of some mother or father — the question whether Love is love of a mother or father would be absurd — but as if I were asking about the very word father: is a father the father of something, or not? You would tell me, presumably, if you wanted to answer properly, that a father is father of a son or a daughter. Wouldn't you? Certainly, said Agathon. And the same for a mother? He agreed to that too. Then answer a little more, said Socrates, so you'll see better what I'm after. Suppose I asked: what about a brother — just insofar as he is a brother — is he a brother of someone, or not? He said he is. Of a brother or a sister, then? He agreed. Now try to say the same about love, said Socrates. Is Love love of nothing, or of something? Of something, certainly.
Well then, said Socrates, keep that safe in your mind — remember what it's of. For now just tell me this: does Love desire the thing he is love of, or not? Certainly, he said. And does he desire and love it while having the very thing he desires and loves, or while not having it? Not having it, he said — most likely. Then consider, said Socrates, whether instead of merely likely it isn't necessary: that what desires, desires what it lacks, and doesn't desire unless it lacks. To me, Agathon, it seems astonishingly clear that it's necessary. What do you think? I think so too, he said. Well said. Now, would anyone who is tall want to be tall, or anyone strong want to be strong? Impossible, from what we've agreed. Because the one who already is those things can't be lacking them. True. For if someone strong wanted to be strong, said Socrates, and someone fast to be fast, and someone healthy to be healthy — since one might perhaps suppose, in these and all such cases, that people who are like this and have these qualities also desire the very things they have, and I say this so we won't be misled — if you think about it, Agathon, these people necessarily have, at the present moment, each of the things they have, whether they want to or not; and who would desire that? But when someone says, I am healthy and I also want to be healthy, I am rich and I also want to be rich, and I desire the very things I have, we would tell him: What you mean, my friend, is that having acquired wealth and health and strength, you want to go on possessing them into the future — since in the present, whether you want to or not, you have them. So when you say, I desire what I already have, consider whether you mean anything but this: I want what is now present to me to remain present in the future as well. He'd have to agree, wouldn't he? Agathon said yes. So then, said Socrates, isn't that loving the thing that isn't yet ready to hand for him, the thing he doesn't have — namely, that these things be preserved for him and present in time to come? Certainly, he said. So this man, and everyone else who desires, desires what isn't ready to hand and isn't present; what he doesn't have, what he himself isn't, what he lacks — these are the sorts of things desire and love are of? Absolutely, he said. Come then, said Socrates, let's sum up what's been said. Love is, first, of certain things; and second, of whatever things he currently lacks. Isn't that so?
Yes, he said. Now, with that settled, remember what things you said Love is love of, in your speech. Or if you like, I'll remind you. I believe you said something like this: that the affairs of the gods were set in order through love of beautiful things — for there could be no love of ugly ones. Wasn't that roughly what you said? I did say it, said Agathon. And a fair thing to say, my friend, said Socrates. And if that's so, Love would be love of beauty, and not of ugliness? He agreed. Now, we agreed that he loves what he lacks and doesn't have? Yes, he said. Then Love lacks beauty and doesn't have it. Necessarily, he said. Well then: what lacks beauty and possesses no beauty at all — do you call that beautiful? Certainly not. Then do you still maintain that Love is beautiful, if all this is so? And Agathon said, I'm afraid, Socrates, I knew nothing of what I was talking about. And yet you spoke beautifully, Agathon, he said. But one small thing more: don't you think good things are also beautiful? I do. Then if Love lacks beautiful things, and good things are beautiful, he would lack good things too. Socrates, he said, I can't argue with you. Let it be as you say. No, dear Agathon, he said — it's the truth you can't argue with; arguing with Socrates is easy enough. And now I'll let you go. Instead, the account of Love that I once heard from a woman of Mantinea, Diotima — wise in this and in many other things; she once got the Athenians, when they made their sacrifices before the plague, a ten-year postponement of the disease; and she is the one who taught me the ways of love — the account she gave, I'll try to go through for you on my own, starting from what Agathon and I have agreed, as best I can. As you laid it out, Agathon, one must first describe Love himself — who he is and what he's like — and then his works. I think it's easiest to go through it the way the stranger once went through it with me, questioning me as she went. For I was saying to her pretty much the same sorts of things Agathon was saying to me just now: that Love is a great god, and that he is love of beautiful things. And she refuted me with the very arguments I used on him — showing that by my own account Love is neither beautiful nor good. And I said, What do you mean, Diotima? Is Love ugly, then, and bad? And she said, Watch your tongue! Do you really think that whatever isn't beautiful must be ugly?
"Certainly. And can something be ignorant without being wise—wait, haven't you noticed there's something in between wisdom and ignorance?" "What's that?" "Having a correct opinion without being able to give a reasoned account of it. Don't you see that this is neither knowledge—for how could something without a reasoned account be knowledge?—nor ignorance—for how could something that hits on what's true be ignorance? Correct opinion is surely something of this sort, between understanding and ignorance." "What you say is true," I said. "Then don't force what isn't beautiful to be ugly, or what isn't good to be bad. And likewise with Love—since you yourself admit he isn't good or beautiful, don't think for that reason he must be ugly and bad, but rather something in between the two." "And yet," I said, "everyone agrees he's a great god." "Everyone who doesn't know, you mean, or everyone including those who do know?" "All of them together." And she laughed and said, "How could it be agreed, Socrates, that he's a great god, by people who say he isn't even a god at all?" "Who are these people?" I asked. "You're one," she said, "and I'm another." "How do you mean?" I said. "Easily," she said. "Tell me—don't you say all gods are happy and beautiful? Or would you dare say any god is not beautiful and happy?" "By Zeus, not I," I said. "And by happy you mean those who possess what's good and beautiful?" "Certainly." "But you've admitted that Love, for lack of good and beautiful things, desires the very things he lacks." "I have." "Then how could he be a god, if he has no share in what's good and beautiful?" "He couldn't, it seems." "So you see," she said, "that you too don't think Love is a god." "Then what could Love be?" I asked. "Mortal?" "Far from it." "Then what?" "As before, something between mortal and immortal." "What is that, Diotima?" "A great spirit, Socrates—for everything spiritual is between god and mortal." "With what power?" I asked. "Interpreting and ferrying between gods and men what comes from each—from men their prayers and sacrifices, from the gods their commands and the returns due for sacrifices—and being in the middle of both, it fills up the space between, so that the whole is bound together with itself.
"Through this power all divination proceeds, and the whole art of priests concerned with sacrifices, rites, incantations, every kind of prophecy and sorcery. God does not mix with man directly, but all the intercourse and conversation between gods and men, whether they're awake or asleep, happens through this power. And the man who is skilled in such matters is a man of spirit, while a man skilled in anything else—some craft or handiwork—is merely a workman. These spirits are many and of every kind, and Love is one of them." "And who are his father and mother?" I asked. "That's rather a long story," she said, "but I'll tell you anyway. When Aphrodite was born, the gods held a feast, and among them was Resource, the son of Cunning. When they had dined, Poverty came begging, as one does when there's a banquet going on, and stood by the doors. Now Resource, drunk on nectar—for there was no wine yet—went into the garden of Zeus and, heavy with drink, fell asleep. Poverty, scheming because of her own lack of means to get a child from Resource, lay down beside him and conceived Love. That's why Love became the follower and attendant of Aphrodite—he was born at her birthday feast, and he is also by nature a lover of beauty, since Aphrodite herself is beautiful. So, being the son of Resource and Poverty, Love finds himself in this condition. First, he's always poor, and far from being delicate and beautiful, as most people think—instead he's rough, unkempt, barefoot, homeless, always sleeping on the bare ground without a bed, lying in doorways and along roadsides under the open sky, having his mother's nature, always dwelling with need. But taking after his father, he schemes to get what's beautiful and good, being bold, impetuous, and intense, a formidable hunter, always weaving some new device, desiring understanding and resourceful in getting it, philosophizing his whole life long, a clever sorcerer, druggist, and sophist. He's not naturally immortal, nor mortal either, but on one and the same day he sometimes flourishes and lives, when he's resourceful, and sometimes he dies, but comes back to life again through his father's nature—yet whatever he gets always slips away, so that Love is never without means, nor ever rich, and he stands in between wisdom and ignorance as well.
"Here's how it stands. None of the gods pursue wisdom or desire to become wise—for they already are—nor does anyone else who is already wise pursue it. Nor, in turn, do the ignorant pursue wisdom or desire to become wise—for this is exactly what makes ignorance so difficult, that a person who is neither beautiful and good nor sensible seems to himself to be quite adequate. The one who doesn't think he's in need doesn't desire the thing he doesn't think he needs." "Then who are the ones who pursue wisdom, Diotima," I said, "if it's neither the wise nor the ignorant?" "That much is obvious even to a child," she said, "it's those in between the two—and Love would be among them. For wisdom is one of the most beautiful things, and Love is love directed at what's beautiful, so Love must necessarily be a lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom, he's between being wise and being ignorant. And the reason for this too lies in his birth: his father is wise and resourceful, his mother lacks wisdom and means. So that, dear Socrates, is the nature of this spirit. As for what you supposed Love to be, it's no wonder you were mistaken. From what you've said, I gather you supposed that the beloved was Love, not the one who loves—that's why I think Love seemed to you altogether beautiful. For what is lovable is truly beautiful, delicate, perfect, and blessed—but what does the loving is a different sort of thing altogether, the sort I've just described." And I said, "Well then, stranger—for what you say is well said—if Love is such as you describe, what use is he to human beings?" "That, Socrates," she said, "is what I'll try to teach you next. Love is indeed of this nature and this birth, and he's directed at beautiful things, as you say. But suppose someone asked us: in what way, Socrates and Diotima, is Love directed at beautiful things? Or to put it more clearly: the lover loves beautiful things—but what does he want from them?" And I said that he wants them to become his own. "But that answer," she said, "still calls for a further question: what will happen to the man who gets the beautiful things he wants?" I said I wasn't at all ready to answer that question offhand. "Well," she said, "suppose someone changed the question, using 'good' instead of 'beautiful,' and asked: tell me, Socrates, the lover loves good things—but what does he want from them?" "To have them become his own," I said. "And what will happen to the man who gets the good things he wants?" "That one I can answer more readily," I said. "He'll be happy."
"Yes," she said, "the happy are happy by possessing good things, and there's no need to go on asking for what purpose someone wants to be happy—the answer seems to be final." "That's true," I said. "Now this wish, and this love—do you think it's common to all human beings, and that everyone wants good things to be theirs always, or how do you put it?" "Just that," I said, "it's common to everyone." "Then why, Socrates," she said, "don't we say that everyone loves, if indeed everyone loves the same things always—instead we say some people love and others don't?" "I wonder about that myself," I said. "Don't wonder," she said. "We take one particular form of love and call it by the name of the whole—'love'—while for the other forms we use other names." "Like what?" I said. "Like this. You know that poetry—poiesis—covers a great deal, since whatever is responsible for bringing anything at all out of not-being into being is a kind of making, so that all the productive work done under every craft is a kind of making, and all their practitioners are makers." "True." "And yet," she said, "you know they're not called makers, but have other names, and only one part singled out from the whole of making—the part concerned with music and verse—is called by the name of the whole. This alone is called poetry, and those who possess this part of making are called poets." "True," I said. "So it is with love as well. In the broadest sense, all desire for good things and for happiness is love, and it's the greatest and most seductive love there is, in everyone. But those who pursue it by other paths—through making money, or through devotion to athletics, or through philosophy—aren't said to be in love or called lovers, while those who go after it in one particular way, and are devoted to it, get the name of the whole: love, being in love, lovers." "You're probably right," I said. "There is a story told," she said, "that those who seek their other half are the ones who love. But my account says that love is not of a half, nor of a whole, unless, my friend, that half or whole happens to be good—since people are quite willing to have their own feet and hands cut off, if they think their own parts are diseased."
"For I don't think people cherish what's their own, unless someone means by 'his own' the good, and by 'not his own' the bad—since the only thing people love is the good. Or do you think otherwise?" "By Zeus, not I," I said. "Then can we simply say that people love the good?" "Yes," I said. "But shouldn't we add," she said, "that they love the good to be theirs?" "We should add that." "And not only that it be theirs," she said, "but that it be theirs forever?" "That too must be added." "In sum, then," she said, "love is of having the good be one's own forever." "What you say is entirely true," I said. "Since this, then, is always what love is," she said, "in what way, and in what activity, is the eagerness and intensity of those who pursue it to be called love? What exactly is this activity? Can you say?" "If I could," I said, "Diotima, I wouldn't be marveling at your wisdom and coming to you to learn just these things." "Well, I'll tell you," she said. "It is giving birth in beauty, both in body and in soul." "It would take a diviner than me," I said, "to know what you mean—I don't follow." "Then I'll put it more plainly," she said. "All human beings, Socrates, are pregnant both in body and in soul, and when we reach a certain age, our nature desires to give birth. It cannot give birth in what is ugly, only in what is beautiful. The union of a man and a woman is, after all, a kind of birth. This is something divine—this act of conceiving and begetting is an immortal thing present within a mortal creature. But it cannot occur in what is discordant. What is ugly is discordant with everything divine, while the beautiful is in harmony with it. So Beauty is a kind of Fate and Birth-goddess presiding over generation. That's why, when the pregnant thing draws near something beautiful, it becomes gracious, and melts with joy, and gives birth and begets; but when it draws near something ugly, it shrinks back, scowling and grieved, turns away and curls in on itself, and does not beget, but holds its burden painfully. That's why, in the one who is pregnant and already teeming, there's such intense excitement over beauty—because it releases the one who holds it from a great birth-pang. For Love, Socrates," she said, "is not, as you think, of the beautiful." "Then of what?" "Of begetting and bringing to birth in the beautiful." "Well," I said.
"Just so," she said. "So why birth? Because birth is the only way a mortal thing can share in perpetuity and immortality. And it follows from what we've agreed—that love is always love of possessing the good for oneself—that love must also be love of immortality, since it's love of the good." All this she taught me whenever she spoke about matters of love. And once she asked: "What do you suppose causes this love and desire, Socrates? Don't you notice the strange state every animal falls into when it wants to breed—land animals and birds alike—how sick with love they all become, first to mate with one another, then to feed what's born? The weakest creatures are ready to fight the strongest over this, ready to die for it, to starve themselves half to death so as to raise their young, and to do absolutely anything else. Humans, you might suppose, do this out of reasoning. But animals—what causes such a lovesick state in them? Can you say?" And I told her again that I didn't know. "Do you really expect," she said, "to become a master of love someday if you haven't worked this out?" "But that's exactly why I've come to you, Diotima, as I said before—because I know I need teachers. So tell me the cause of this, and of the other facts about love." "Well," she said, "if you believe that love is by nature love of what we've repeatedly agreed it loves, don't be surprised. Because here too, on the same principle, mortal nature seeks, as far as it can, to exist forever and be immortal. And it can do this only one way—through generation—since it always leaves behind something new in place of the old. Even in the time one single living thing is said to live and be itself—as a person is called the same from childhood to old age—that person, even though he never has the same things in himself, is nonetheless still called the same, though he's always becoming new and losing other parts: in hair, flesh, bones, blood, and his whole body. And it isn't just the body—in the soul too, habits, character, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears—none of these ever stay the same in any one person; some are coming into being while others are perishing."
"And stranger still than these is the case of knowledge itself—not only do some branches of knowledge come to be in us while others perish, so that we're never even the same with respect to what we know, but each single piece of knowledge undergoes the very same thing. What we call studying exists because knowledge is leaving us—forgetting is the departure of knowledge, and studying, by putting a fresh memory back in place of the one that's leaving, preserves the knowledge, so that it seems to be the same. It's in this way that everything mortal is preserved—not by staying completely and forever the same, as the divine does, but by what is departing and aging leaving behind something new, of the same kind as it was. By this device, Socrates," she said, "a mortal thing shares in immortality, both in body and in everything else—the immortal shares in it differently. So don't be surprised that everything by nature prizes its own offshoot—this eagerness, this love, exists in all things for the sake of immortality." Hearing this argument, I was amazed, and said, "Well now, wisest Diotima, is this really true?" And she, like a practiced sophist, said, "Be assured of it, Socrates. Just look at human ambition, if you want—you'd be amazed at its irrationality, unless you keep in mind what I've said, and consider how strangely people are affected by the desire to become famous and to lay up undying glory for all time. For this they're ready to run every risk, even more than for their children, to spend money, endure any hardship, and even die. Do you think Alcestis would have died for Admetus, or Achilles would have died along with Patroclus, or your own Codrus would have died before his time to preserve the kingship for his sons, if they hadn't expected to win an undying memory for their courage—the very memory we still hold of them? Far from it," she said. "I think everyone does everything for the sake of undying excellence and this kind of glorious reputation, and the better people are, the more they do it—for they are in love with immortality."
"Now those who are pregnant in body," she said, "turn more toward women, and are lovers in that way, providing themselves—as they suppose—with immortality, remembrance, and happiness for all future time through having children. But there are others who are pregnant in soul—for indeed," she said, "there are those whose souls are pregnant even more than their bodies, pregnant with what is fitting for a soul to conceive and bear. And what is fitting? Wisdom, and excellence in general. Of these the poets are all begetters, and so are all the craftsmen said to be inventive. But by far the greatest and most beautiful branch of wisdom," she said, "is the one concerned with the ordering of cities and households, which goes by the names moderation and justice. When someone has been pregnant in soul with these from youth, being still unmarried and of ripe age, and desires now to bear and beget, he too, I think, goes about seeking the beautiful thing in which he might beget—for he will never beget in what is ugly. So, being pregnant, he welcomes beautiful bodies rather than ugly ones, and if he also meets a soul that's beautiful, noble, and well-formed, he welcomes the combination eagerly, and for such a person he's immediately full of things to say about excellence, about what a good man ought to be and what he ought to practice, and he sets about educating him. For by being in contact with beauty, I think, and keeping company with it, he brings to birth what he had long been carrying, remembering it whether present or absent, and joins with that person in raising what has been born, so that people like this share a far greater bond with one another than parents share through children, and a firmer friendship, since they have shared in children more beautiful and more immortal. And everyone would rather have such children of his own than human ones, looking to Homer and Hesiod and the other good poets, and envying the kind of offspring they leave behind, which grant them undying fame and remembrance, being themselves of such a kind. Or, if you like," she said, "consider what children Lycurgus left behind in Sparta—saviors of Sparta, and virtually of all Greece. Solon too is honored among you for having fathered your laws, and so are many other men elsewhere, among both Greeks and non-Greeks, who have brought many fine achievements to light and begotten every kind of excellence. Temples have already been raised to many of them because of such children, but never yet because of human ones."
"These matters of love, Socrates, are perhaps ones into which even you could be initiated. But whether you're capable of the final, revealed mysteries, for whose sake these very things exist if one pursues them rightly, I don't know. I will tell you," she said, "and spare no eagerness—try to follow, if you can. The one who goes about this rightly must begin, while young, by going toward beautiful bodies, and first, if his guide leads him rightly, he should love one single body and there beget beautiful discourse. Next he must notice that the beauty found in any body whatever is akin to the beauty found in another, and that if he's to pursue beauty of form, it's great folly not to consider the beauty found in all bodies to be one and the same. Having grasped this, he must become a lover of all beautiful bodies, and relax the intensity of his passion for just one, thinking little of it. After this he must come to regard beauty in souls as more valuable than beauty in the body, so that if someone is decent in soul, even with little bloom of body, that's enough for him, and he'll love and cherish him, and beget discourses of the sort that make young people better, and seek them, so that he's forced in turn to gaze upon the beauty in practices and laws, and to see that this too is all akin to itself, so that he comes to regard bodily beauty as a small thing. After practices he must be led on to the branches of knowledge, so that he may see in turn the beauty of these, and looking now toward beauty in its vastness, may no longer be a slave, fixed like a servant on the beauty of one boy, one person, or one practice, mean and small-minded, but turned toward the great open sea of beauty, and gazing upon it, may give birth to many beautiful and magnificent discourses and thoughts in a philosophy without stint, until, having grown strong and full there, he catches sight of a single kind of knowledge, one of this sort—the knowledge of a beauty I'm about to describe. Try now," she said, "to pay me the closest attention you can."
"Whoever has been guided this far in matters of love, viewing beautiful things one after another and in the right order, will now, as he comes to the very end of the ascent, suddenly catch sight of something wonderfully beautiful in its nature—the very thing, Socrates, for whose sake all the earlier labors were undertaken. It is, first, eternal, neither coming to be nor perishing, neither growing nor diminishing; and next, not beautiful in one respect and ugly in another, nor beautiful at one time and not at another, nor beautiful in relation to one thing and ugly in relation to another, nor beautiful here and ugly there, as though it were beautiful to some and ugly to others. Nor again will this beauty appear to him in the shape of a face, or hands, or anything else the body partakes of, nor as any statement or piece of knowledge, nor as residing in anything else, such as in a living creature, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything at all, but itself by itself with itself, single in form forever, while all the other beautiful things share in it in such a way that, though they come to be and pass away, it becomes no greater or less, and undergoes nothing at all. Whenever someone, rising by right love of boys from these particulars, begins to catch sight of that beauty, he is nearly touching the goal. For this is what it means to go rightly toward matters of love, or to be led by another—beginning from these beautiful particulars and always climbing upward for the sake of that beauty, as though using rungs of a ladder, from one body to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from practices to beautiful branches of learning, until from these branches of learning one arrives at that final learning, which is learning of nothing other than that beauty itself, and comes to know, at last, what beauty itself is. This, dear Socrates," said the woman of Mantinea, "if anywhere, is the point in life where it is worth living for a human being, when he gazes upon beauty itself. If you ever see it, it will not seem to you to be on the level of gold, clothing, or beautiful boys and young men, the sight of whom now so overwhelms you and everyone else that you're ready, gazing at your beloved and staying always in his company, if it were somehow possible, to give up food and drink altogether, just to look at him and be with him. What then," she said, "do we imagine it would be like, if someone got to see the beautiful itself, unmixed, pure, unadulterated, not stuffed full of human flesh and colors and a great deal of other mortal nonsense, but able to see the divine beauty itself, single in its form?"
"Do you think," she said, "that a person's life is worthless when he looks toward that vision and beholds it in the way he should, and lives in its company? Don't you realize," she said, "that there, and only there, seeing beauty with the faculty that can see it, he will be able to bring to birth not images of virtue, since he is not grasping an image, but true virtue, since he grasps the truth? And to the one who gives birth to true virtue and nurtures it, it falls to become dear to the gods, and if any human being ever becomes immortal, it is he." This, then, Phaedrus and the rest of you, is what Diotima told me, and I am convinced of it. And being convinced, I try to persuade others too that for acquiring this good, human nature could not easily find a better partner than Eros. That is why I say every man should honor love, and why I myself honor the things of love and pursue them above everything else, and urge others to do the same, and why now and always I praise the power and courage of Eros as far as I am able. Take this speech, Phaedrus, if you like, as a formal tribute to love; or if you prefer to call it something else, call it whatever pleases you." When Socrates had finished, the others applauded, but Aristophanes tried to say something, since Socrates had mentioned him earlier in his speech. But just then there came a loud knocking at the courtyard door, as of revelers, and the sound of a flute-girl could be heard. "Go and see who it is," Agathon said to the slaves. "If it's one of our friends, invite him in; otherwise tell them we've stopped drinking and are already resting." Not long after, they heard Alcibiades' voice in the courtyard, very drunk and shouting loudly, asking where Agathon was and demanding to be taken to him. So the flute-girl and some of his other companions supported him and brought him in, and he appeared in the doorway crowned with a thick wreath of ivy and violets, with a great many ribbons on his head, and said: "Greetings, gentlemen. Will you take on a drinking companion who is thoroughly drunk, or should we just leave, once we've crowned Agathon, which is what we came for? I wasn't able to come yesterday," he said, "but now I'm here with these ribbons on my head, so that I can take them from my own head and bind them around the head of the wisest and most beautiful man here, if I may put it that way.
"Will you all laugh at me for being drunk? Well, laugh if you like—I still know perfectly well that I'm telling the truth. But tell me right now, on these terms: do I come in, or not? Will you drink with me, or won't you?" Everyone shouted out in encouragement and told him to come in and take a seat, and Agathon called him over personally. So he went in, led by his companions, and as he was undoing the ribbons to crown Agathon, they fell in front of his eyes so that he didn't notice Socrates, and he sat down next to Agathon, between him and Socrates—for Socrates had moved aside when he saw him coming. Sitting down beside Agathon, he embraced him and put the wreath on his head. "Slaves," said Agathon, "take off Alcibiades' sandals, so he can recline here as a third with us." "By all means," said Alcibiades, "but who is this third drinking companion of ours?" And as he turned around he saw Socrates, and on seeing him he jumped up and cried, "Heracles! What is this? Socrates! You were lying in wait for me here, just like you always do, suddenly turning up wherever I least expect you. And now why have you come? And why did you take this particular spot, instead of next to Aristophanes or someone else who's funny and wants to be, but managed to arrange it so you're reclining next to the most beautiful person in the room?" "Agathon," said Socrates, "see if you can defend me. Loving this man has become no small trouble for me. From the moment I fell in love with him, I haven't been allowed so much as to look at a handsome man or talk to one, or he flies into a jealous rage and makes an awful scene, hurling abuse and practically laying his hands on me. So watch that he doesn't do something now too—make peace between us, or if he tries to use force, protect me, because his lover's madness and possessiveness terrify me." "There will be no peace between you and me," said Alcibiades. "But I'll get you back for this some other time. For now, Agathon," he said, "give me some of those ribbons, so I can crown this remarkable head of his too, and he won't complain that I crowned you but failed to crown him—a man who defeats everyone in argument, not just once, the other day, the way you did, but always." And taking some of the ribbons, he crowned Socrates and settled down to recline. Once he was settled, he said: "Well now, gentlemen—you seem to me to be sober. That can't be allowed; you must drink, since that was our agreement. So I appoint myself master of the drinking, until you've all had enough. Agathon, have them bring me a large cup, if there is one."
"Actually, never mind, just bring me that wine-cooler," he said, once he'd spotted it holding more than eight kotylai. He had it filled and drained it himself first, then told them to pour for Socrates, saying as he did: "Against Socrates, gentlemen, my trick is useless—he'll drink however much you tell him to and never get any more drunk for it." So the slave poured for Socrates and he drank. Then Eryximachus said, "What are we doing, Alcibiades? Are we just going to drink like this, without a word said or a song sung over the cup, the way thirsty men do?" And Alcibiades replied, "Eryximachus, best son of the best and most temperate of fathers, greetings." "And to you as well," said Eryximachus. "But what should we do?" "Whatever you say. We ought to obey you—'a physician is worth many other men'—so give whatever order you like." "Listen, then," said Eryximachus. "Before you came in, we decided that each of us in turn, going around to the right, should give the best speech he could in praise of Eros. The rest of us have all spoken already. Since you haven't spoken, and you've had your drink, it's only fair that you speak now, and once you've spoken, you can set Socrates whatever task you like, and he can set one for the man on his right, and so around the circle." "That's all very well, Eryximachus," said Alcibiades, "but it's hardly fair to match a drunk man's speeches against sober men's. Besides, my dear fellow, surely Socrates hasn't talked you into believing what he just said? Don't you know the truth is the exact opposite of what he claimed? He's the one—if I praise anyone in his presence, god or man, other than himself, he won't keep his hands off me." "Watch your tongue," said Socrates. "By Poseidon," said Alcibiades, "don't try to stop me, since I wouldn't praise anyone else while you're here, not a single person." "Well, do that then, if you like," said Eryximachus. "Praise Socrates." "You mean it?" said Alcibiades. "You think I should, Eryximachus? Should I attack the man and get my revenge in front of you all?" "Here," said Socrates, "what have you got in mind? Are you going to praise me just to make me look ridiculous? Or what will you do?" "I'll tell the truth. See if you'll allow that." "Well, the truth, certainly—that I allow, and I insist on it." "Then I won't hold back," said Alcibiades. "And you do this for me."
"If I say anything untrue, stop me partway through if you like, and say that I'm lying there—because I won't lie on purpose. But if I jump from one thing to another as memories come to me, don't be surprised; it isn't easy for someone in my condition to list your peculiarities smoothly and in order. I'm going to try to praise Socrates, gentlemen, in this way: through images. He'll probably think I mean it to make him look ridiculous, but the image is for the sake of truth, not ridicule. I say he's most like those figures of Silenus you find sitting in the sculptors' shops, the ones the craftsmen make holding pipes or flutes, which open up in the middle to reveal images of the gods inside. And I also say he's like the satyr Marsyas. Now that you resemble them in appearance, Socrates, you surely won't dispute yourself—but hear how you resemble them in other ways too. You're an insolent fellow, aren't you? If you deny it, I'll produce witnesses. And aren't you a flute-player? Far more remarkable than Marsyas was. He used instruments to charm people through the power coming from his mouth, and so does anyone today who plays what he used to play—for what Olympus played, I mean, was taught to him by Marsyas—so whether it's a good flute-player or a poor flute-girl playing his tunes, they alone can possess people and reveal who needs the gods and their rites, because they are themselves something divine. You differ from him only in this: you do the very same thing with bare words, without any instrument. Whenever we hear anyone else speak, even a very good speaker, giving other speeches, it means practically nothing to any of us; but when someone hears you, or hears your words repeated by someone else, even if the speaker is quite poor, whether it's a woman listening, or a man, or a young boy, we're struck dumb and possessed. As for me, gentlemen, if I weren't afraid you'd think I was hopelessly drunk, I would swear to you and tell you what I myself have suffered from his words, and still suffer even now. When I listen to him my heart pounds far more than it does for the corybantic dancers, and tears pour out of me because of what he says—and I see a great many others experiencing the same thing. When I listened to Pericles and other fine speakers, I thought they spoke well, but I never felt anything like this—my soul was never thrown into turmoil, never indignant at being kept, as it were, in slavish subjection. But this Marsyas here has often put me in such a state that I've felt life wasn't worth living, the way I'm living it.
And you won't say this isn't true, Socrates. Even now I know within myself that if I were willing to lend him my ears, I couldn't hold out—I'd feel the very same thing all over again. He forces me to admit that though I'm sorely lacking myself, I still neglect myself and instead handle the affairs of Athens. So by force, as if from the Sirens, I stop up my ears and flee, so that I won't just sit there beside him and grow old. He's the only man alive who's made me feel something no one would think was in me—shame, in front of anyone at all. He's the only one I feel ashamed before. I know in myself that I have no way to argue that I shouldn't do what he tells me to do, and yet when I leave him, I'm overcome again by the honor the crowd gives me. So I run away from him and avoid him, and whenever I see him, I feel ashamed of what I've already admitted to be true. Many times I would gladly see him gone from among the living, and yet if that actually happened I know I'd be far more grieved—so I simply don't know what to do with this man. That's how his flute-playing has affected me and many others, this satyr's flute-playing. But hear something else from me, how well he matches the things I compared him to, and what astonishing power he has. Know well that none of you really understands him. But I'll show you, since I've started. You see how Socrates is disposed erotically toward beautiful people, and always around them, struck with wonder—and yet he knows nothing at all, understands nothing, or so he'd have you believe. Isn't this very pose of his exactly like Silenus? Absolutely. That's just the outer shell he wraps himself in, like the carved figure of Silenus—but open him up, and how full of moderation do you think you'll find him inside, fellow drinkers? Know this: it doesn't matter to him in the least whether someone is beautiful—he looks down on that to a degree no one would believe—nor whether someone is rich, nor whether he holds any of the other honors the crowd considers blessed. He regards all these possessions as worth nothing, and regards us as nothing too—I tell you plainly—and he spends his whole life playing at irony, making a game of people.
When he grew serious and opened up, I don't know if anyone has ever seen the figures inside him. I saw them once myself, and they struck me as so godlike, golden, so beautiful and astonishing, that whatever Socrates told me to do, I felt I simply had to do it. I assumed he was serious about my youthful looks, and I thought it was a windfall, an amazing stroke of luck for me -- that by gratifying Socrates I'd get to hear everything he knew, since I was tremendously proud of my looks at the time. So with that plan in mind, I stopped doing what I'd always done before, which was never to be alone with him without an attendant present -- now I sent the attendant away and met with him alone. I have to tell you the whole truth, so pay attention, and if I'm lying, Socrates, call me out. I met with him, gentlemen, alone with him alone, and I expected he'd immediately start talking to me the way a lover talks to his beloved when they're by themselves, and I was thrilled. But none of that happened at all -- he'd just talk with me the way he always did, spend the day with me, and then leave. After that I invited him to work out with me at the gym, and we trained together, thinking something might come of it that way. So he worked out with me and even wrestled with me, often with no one else around -- but why go on? Nothing came of it. Since I wasn't getting anywhere that way, I decided I had to go after the man more forcefully and not let up, now that I'd started -- I had to find out once and for all what this was about. So I invited him to dinner, exactly like a lover scheming against his beloved. He didn't even agree to that quickly, but eventually I talked him into it. The first time he came, he wanted to eat and leave right after. That time I was too embarrassed to stop him. But I tried again -- after we'd eaten, I kept the conversation going late into the night, and when he wanted to leave, I claimed it was too late and forced him to stay. So he lay down to rest on the couch next to mine, the one where he'd had dinner, and no one else was sleeping in the room but the two of us. Up to this point in my story, it would be fine to tell it to anyone at all. But what comes next you wouldn't have heard from me if it weren't true, first, as the saying goes, that wine -- with or without children present -- speaks the truth, and second, because it seems unjust to me to hide away an act of Socrates' extraordinary pride once I've started praising him.
And besides, I feel the way someone bitten by a snake feels. They say a man who's suffered that won't describe what it was like except to others who've been bitten too, since only they will understand and forgive him for anything he dared do or say because of the pain. Well, I've been bitten by something more painful, and in the most painful place anyone can be bitten -- struck and bitten in the heart, or the soul, or whatever you want to call it, by the words of philosophy, which grip harder than any snake once they take hold of a young soul with some natural gift, and make it do and say anything at all. And I look around and see Phaedruses, Agathons, Eryximachuses, Pausaniases, Aristodemuses, and Aristophaneses here -- not to mention Socrates himself, and everyone else. All of you have shared in this philosophic madness, this Bacchic frenzy -- which is why you'll all listen; you'll forgive both what was done back then and what's being said now. But you slaves, and anyone else who's uninitiated and coarse, shut great big doors over your ears. Once the lamp had gone out, gentlemen, and the slaves had left, I decided there was no point being clever with him -- I'd just say freely what I had in mind. So I shook him and said, 'Socrates, are you asleep?' 'Not at all,' he said. 'Do you know what I've decided?' 'What exactly?' he said. 'I think,' I said, 'that you're the only lover who's ever been worthy of me, and you seem to be holding back from mentioning it to me. Here's how I feel about it: I think it would be completely foolish of me not to grant you this favor, or anything else you might need from my property or my friends. Nothing matters more to me than becoming as good as possible, and I don't think anyone could help me toward that more than you. I'd be far more ashamed in front of sensible people for not granting a favor to a man like you than I would be in front of the masses and the foolish for granting it.' Hearing this, he answered in that thoroughly ironic way of his, so typical of him: 'My dear Alcibiades, you may really turn out not to be worthless, if what you say about me happens to be true, and there really is some power in me that could make you better. You must be seeing an impossible kind of beauty in me, one very different from the good looks you have.
'Now, if you've noticed that and you're trying to strike a deal with me, exchanging beauty for beauty, you're planning to get a lot more than your share out of me -- you're trying to get true beauty in exchange for its mere appearance, and really planning to trade bronze for gold. But look more carefully, my blessed friend, so I don't slip past you as being worth nothing. The mind's sight starts to see clearly only when the eyes' sharpness begins to fade, and you're still a long way from that.' Hearing this, I said, 'Well, that's my side of things, and none of it was said any way other than how I actually think. Now it's up to you to decide what's best for both of us.' 'Well,' he said, 'that's a good point -- in the time to come, we'll think it over and do whatever seems best to us both, about this and everything else.' So after this exchange, having said my piece and let fly what I thought were arrows, I figured I'd wounded him. I got up, and without even letting him say another word, I wrapped my own cloak around him -- it was winter -- lay down under his worn coat, threw my arms around this truly superhuman and remarkable man, and spent the whole night lying there like that. And you won't say I'm lying about this either, Socrates. But after I'd done all that, he got the better of me so completely that he scorned and mocked my youthful beauty and treated it with contempt -- and that beauty was the one thing I thought I had going for me, gentlemen of the jury (yes, you're the jury judging Socrates' arrogance). Know this well, by the gods and goddesses: I got up from sleeping with Socrates having experienced nothing more than if I'd slept beside my own father or older brother. What do you suppose my state of mind was after that, feeling that I'd been insulted, yet admiring his nature, his self-control, his courage, having met a man the likes of whom I never thought I'd encounter, for wisdom and endurance? So I couldn't bring myself to be angry with him and cut myself off from his company, nor could I find a way to win him over. I knew very well that he was far harder to wound with money than Ajax was with iron, and the one weapon I thought would surely catch him had failed me. So I was at a loss, enslaved by this man as no one has ever been enslaved by anyone else. All this had already happened to me, and after it we were sent together on campaign to Potidaea, and we messed together there.
First of all, in enduring hardship he wasn't just better than me, he was better than everyone -- whenever we were cut off somewhere and forced to go without food, as happens on campaign, the rest of us were nothing compared to him for holding out. And then again at feasts, he was the only one able to enjoy himself properly, and though he didn't care to drink, whenever he was forced to, he outdrank everyone -- and most amazing of all, no one has ever seen Socrates drunk. I think you'll get proof of that soon enough. And when it came to enduring the winter -- the winters there are fierce -- he did astonishing things, and once, when there was a frost as bad as could be, and everyone either stayed inside or, if they went out, wrapped themselves up in unbelievable amounts of clothing and shoes, wound their feet in felt and sheepskins, he went out among them wearing the same kind of cloak he always used to wear before, and walked over the ice barefoot more easily than the others did in their shoes. The soldiers looked at him sideways, thinking he was showing contempt for them. So much for that. But here's another thing this tough man did and endured there once on campaign, worth hearing. He'd been thinking about something from early morning, standing there working it out, and since it wasn't coming to him, he wouldn't give up but kept standing there searching. It was already noon, and people noticed, and in amazement told one another that Socrates had been standing there thinking about something since dawn. Finally, toward evening, some of the Ionians, after they'd had dinner -- it was summer then -- brought out their bedding and slept in the cool air, partly to keep watch and see whether he'd go on standing there through the night too. And he stood there until dawn came and the sun rose; then he walked off, after saying a prayer to the sun. And if you like, in battles -- since it's only fair to give him his due there -- when the battle happened in which the generals gave me the prize for bravery, no one else saved me but him; he refused to leave me behind when I was wounded, and saved both my weapons and me myself. And I told the generals then too, Socrates, to give the prize to you, and you won't blame me for that or say I'm lying. But when the generals, looking to my rank, wanted to give the prize to me, you were more eager than they were that I should get it rather than you.
There's something else too, gentlemen, well worth seeing -- Socrates when the army was retreating in flight from Delium. I happened to be there on horseback, while he was on foot with the heavy infantry. He was retreating along with Laches, the men already scattered, and I came upon them by chance, and as soon as I saw them I told them both to keep their courage up, and said I wouldn't leave them. There I got an even better look at Socrates than I had at Potidaea, since I was less afraid myself, being on horseback. First of all, how much more collected he was than Laches; and then it seemed to me, Aristophanes, exactly as you put it once, that he walked along there just as he does here, 'strutting like a proud bird, glancing sideways,' calmly keeping an eye on both friend and enemy, making it clear to anyone, even from a great distance, that if someone laid a hand on this man, he'd defend himself with real force. That's why he got away safely, both he and his companion -- for as a rule, people in that state of mind aren't even touched in war; it's the ones who flee headlong that they chase down. One could say many other admirable things in praise of Socrates. But while for his other habits one might perhaps say similar things about someone else, the fact that he's like no one else, not among people of the past, nor among those alive now, that's a thing worth every kind of wonder. You could compare Achilles to Brasidas and others of that sort, or Pericles to Nestor or Antenor -- there are others too -- and compare the rest by the same standard. But the sheer strangeness of this man here, both himself and his way of talking, you couldn't find anything close to it if you searched, not among people now nor those of the past, unless you compared him, as I do, to no human being at all, but to the Silenus figures and the satyrs, both the man himself and his words. And in fact I left out something important earlier: that his words too are exactly like those hollow Silenus figures that open up. If you were willing to listen to Socrates talk, his words would seem completely ridiculous at first -- he wraps them up in language and phrases like that, the hide of some insolent satyr.
He talks about pack-donkeys, he says, and blacksmiths and cobblers and tanners, and he always seems to be saying the same things through the same examples, so that anyone inexperienced or thoughtless would laugh at his arguments. But if you open them up and get inside them, you'll find, first, that they're the only arguments with any sense in them, and second, that they're the most godlike, holding within them the most images of virtue, and reaching toward the widest range of things -- really, toward everything a person needs to consider who means to become truly good. That's what I have to praise Socrates for, gentlemen. And as for what I blame him for, I've mixed that in too and told you how he's mistreated me. And it isn't only me he's done this to -- Charmides son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus son of Diocles, and a great many others -- he deceives them, playing the beloved when really he's the lover, not the other way around. So I'm warning you too, Agathon, don't be taken in by him. Learn from what's happened to us, and be on your guard, and don't wait to learn it the hard way, the way the proverb says the fool does." When Alcibiades said this, there was laughter at his frankness, because he still seemed to be in love with Socrates. And Socrates said, "You seem sober to me, Alcibiades. Otherwise you'd never have tried so cleverly to wrap everything around and hide the real reason you said all this, tossing it in at the end as if it were an afterthought -- as though you hadn't said the whole thing just to set Agathon and me against each other. You think I ought to love you and no one else, and that Agathon ought to be loved by you and no one else. But you weren't as subtle as you thought -- that little satyr-and-Silenus drama of yours came through clear as day. Well, my dear Agathon, don't let him get away with it -- make sure no one turns the two of us against each other." And Agathon said, "Really, Socrates, I think you may be right. I take it as a sign that he lay down between the two of us, just to keep us apart. But it won't do him any good -- I'll come over and lie down next to you." "By all means," said Socrates, "come lie down here, below me." "Zeus!" cried Alcibiades. "Look what I put up with from this man! He thinks he has to get the better of me every way there is. But if nothing else, you remarkable man, at least let Agathon lie between us." "That's impossible," said Socrates. "You praised me, so now it's my turn to praise the man on my right. If Agathon lies down next to you, he'll have to praise me all over again instead of being praised by me, which is what he should be.
So no, dear friend, don't grudge the boy a little praise from me -- I'm quite eager to sing his praises myself." "Ha!" said Agathon. "Alcibiades, there's no way I can stay here now -- I'll get up and move at once, so that I can be praised by Socrates." "There it is," said Alcibiades, "the usual thing. Whenever Socrates is around, no one else gets a chance with the good-looking ones. See how easily, how persuasively, he's just found a reason to get this one to lie down beside him." So Agathon got up to go lie down next to Socrates. But just then a great crowd of revelers arrived at the door, and finding it open because someone was just leaving, they came straight in and took their places among the company, and everything filled up with noise, and there was no more order to anything -- people were forced to drink enormous quantities of wine. At that point, Aristodemus said, Eryximachus and Phaedrus and some of the others got up and left, while he himself fell asleep and slept a long while, since the nights were long at that season. He woke up close to dawn, when the roosters were already crowing, and when he woke he saw that the others were either asleep or had gone, and that only Agathon, Aristophanes, and Socrates were still awake, drinking from a large bowl that was being passed around to the right. Socrates was talking with them, and Aristodemus said he didn't remember most of what was said, since he hadn't been there from the beginning and kept dozing off -- but the main point, he said, was that Socrates was forcing them to agree that the same man ought to know how to write both comedy and tragedy, and that the skilled tragic poet was, by the same skill, a comic poet too. Pressed into this argument, and not following it very closely, they were nodding off -- Aristophanes fell asleep first, and then, as day was already breaking, Agathon too. Socrates, having gotten them both settled to sleep, got up and left, and Aristodemus, as usual, went with him. He went to the Lyceum, washed himself, and spent the rest of the day there just as he would any other day, and after spending it so, rested at home that evening.
SOCRATES: My dear Phaedrus, where are you off to, and where have you come from? PHAEDRUS: From Lysias, Socrates — Cephalus's son. I'm going for a walk outside the wall. I spent a long time there sitting since early morning. On the advice of your friend and mine, Acumenus, I take my walks on the roads — he says they're less tiring than the ones in the running tracks. SOCRATES: Good advice, my friend. So Lysias was in the city, it seems? PHAEDRUS: Yes, at Epicrates' house, the one near the temple of Olympian Zeus — Morychus's old house. SOCRATES: So what were you doing there? Or is it obvious — Lysias was treating you to a feast of speeches? PHAEDRUS: You'll hear, if you have the leisure to walk along and listen. SOCRATES: What? Don't you think I'd consider hearing your conversation with Lysias, to quote Pindar, "a business more pressing than business itself"? PHAEDRUS: Lead on, then. SOCRATES: Speak away. PHAEDRUS: Well, Socrates, it's really a fitting thing for you to hear. The speech we were occupied with was, in some strange way, about love. Lysias has written up an attempt at seduction aimed at some good-looking young man — but not from the position of a lover. That's actually the clever twist: he argues that one should grant favors to a man who isn't in love rather than to one who is. SOCRATES: What a noble fellow! I wish he'd write that one should favor the poor man over the rich, the older man over the younger, and all the other things that apply to me and most of us — then his speeches would really be charming and useful to the public. As it is, I'm so eager to hear it that even if you made your walk all the way to Megara and, following Herodicus's method, touched the wall there and came straight back, I wouldn't fall behind you.
PHAEDRUS: What are you saying, my excellent Socrates? Do you think that I, a mere amateur, could reproduce from memory, in a way worthy of the man, what Lysias — the cleverest writer alive today — composed over a long stretch of leisure? Far from it — though I'd rather have been able to than come into a great deal of money. SOCRATES: Phaedrus, if I don't know Phaedrus, I've forgotten myself as well. But neither of those is the case. I know perfectly well that when he was listening to a speech of Lysias, he didn't just hear it once — he kept asking him to repeat it, again and again, and Lysias obliged eagerly. But even that wasn't enough for him — in the end he got hold of the book itself and pored over the parts he wanted most. Doing just this, sitting from early morning, he wore himself out and went off for a walk — already, I'd wager by the dog, having the speech memorized by heart, unless it was extraordinarily long. And he was heading outside the wall to practice it. Then he ran into a man sick with a passion for hearing speeches — and seeing him, yes, seeing him, he was delighted, because now he'd have someone to share his frenzy with, and he urged him to lead on. But when the lover of speeches begged him to recite it, he played coy, as if he had no desire to speak — though in the end he was going to tell it by force even if no one wanted to listen willingly. So, Phaedrus, ask him to do now what he'll shortly do anyway. PHAEDRUS: It really is by far my best course to speak it as best I can, since you seem quite unwilling to let me go until I say something, one way or another. SOCRATES: You have exactly the right impression of me. PHAEDRUS: Then here's what I'll do. Truly, Socrates, I did not learn the actual wording by heart — but I can go through the gist of nearly all the points by which he claimed the position of the non-lover differs from that of the lover, one by one in order, starting from the first. SOCRATES: Only after you show me, dear friend, what you're holding under your cloak in your left hand — I suspect you have the speech itself. If that's so, think of me this way: I'm very fond of you, but with Lysias himself present too, I'm not at all inclined to let you use me for practice. Come now, show it. PHAEDRUS: Stop — you've knocked out from under me the hope I had of using you as my training partner, Socrates. Well, where do you want us to sit down and read?
SOCRATES: Let's turn off here and go along the Ilissus, and then sit down wherever seems good, in some quiet spot. PHAEDRUS: It's lucky, it seems, that I happen to be barefoot today — you always are, of course. It'll be easiest for us to walk in the little stream, wetting our feet, and not unpleasant either, especially at this time of year and this time of day. SOCRATES: Lead on, then, and look at the same time for where we might sit. PHAEDRUS: Do you see that very tall plane tree? SOCRATES: Of course. PHAEDRUS: There's shade there, and a moderate breeze, and grass to sit on, or lie down on if we'd rather. SOCRATES: Lead the way, then. PHAEDRUS: Tell me, Socrates — isn't it from somewhere around here, along the Ilissus, that Boreas is said to have carried off Oreithyia? SOCRATES: So it's said. PHAEDRUS: Was it from right here, then? The water looks lovely and clear and transparent, and just right for girls to be playing beside it. SOCRATES: No, it's about two or three stadia downstream, where we cross over toward the sanctuary of Agra — there's an altar of Boreas somewhere there, I believe. PHAEDRUS: I hadn't quite noticed that. But tell me, Socrates, in god's name — do you actually believe this myth is true? SOCRATES: Well, if I disbelieved it, as the clever folk do, I wouldn't be so out of step — and then I could go on being clever and say that a gust of Boreas pushed her off the nearby rocks while she was playing with Pharmacea, and that's how she came to die and got the story of being snatched by Boreas — or else that she was carried off from the Areopagus, since that version is told too, that she was seized from there rather than from here. For my part, Phaedrus, I find such things charming enough in their way, but they're the business of a man who's altogether too clever and hardworking and none too fortunate — for no other reason than that after this he'll have to go on to straighten out the shape of the Hippocentaurs, and then the Chimaera, and there'll come pouring in after that a whole crowd of things like Gorgons and Pegasuses and other impossible swarms and oddities of monstrous natures. If someone doesn't believe in these and wants to reduce each of them to something plausible, using a kind of rustic cleverness, he'll need a great deal of spare time.
SOCRATES: I myself have no spare time at all for such things. And the reason, my friend, is this: I'm not yet able, as the Delphic inscription demands, to know myself — so it seems ridiculous to me, while I'm still ignorant of that, to go investigating things that don't concern me. That's why I let all that go, and simply accept the common view about such stories, as I just said, and I examine not those things but myself — whether I happen to be some beast more twisted and more puffed up with passion than Typhon, or a gentler and simpler creature, sharing by nature in some divine and unassuming lot. But wait, my friend, in the middle of all this — wasn't this the tree you were leading us to? PHAEDRUS: This is the very one. SOCRATES: By Hera, what a lovely resting place. This plane tree is wonderfully spreading and tall, and the height and shade of the chaste-tree are quite beautiful, and it's at the very peak of its bloom, so it fills the whole place with fragrance. And then there's this spring, flowing most charmingly under the plane tree, with very cold water — my foot can testify to that. And judging by the figurines and statues, it looks like a shrine sacred to some nymphs and to Achelous. And if you like, notice how welcome and how very pleasant the breeziness of the place is — it has a summery, clear ring to it, answering the chorus of cicadas. And the most exquisite thing of all is the grass, growing thick enough on this gentle slope that one can lay one's head down most comfortably. You've guided us here beautifully, dear Phaedrus. PHAEDRUS: And you, amazing man, seem the strangest of creatures. Honestly, the way you talk, you seem exactly like some stranger being shown around by a guide, not a local at all — so much so that you never seem to leave the city for the country beyond, or even go outside the wall, as far as I can tell. SOCRATES: Forgive me, my excellent friend — I'm a lover of learning, and the countryside and the trees are unwilling to teach me anything, whereas the people in the city are. But you seem to have found the charm that will draw me out. Just as people lead a hungry animal along by dangling a branch or some fruit in front of it, so you, by holding speeches out to me in books, seem set to lead me around the whole of Attica, and wherever else you please. So now, since we've arrived here, I intend to lie down, and you should choose whatever position you think will let you read most comfortably, and read away. PHAEDRUS: Listen, then.
PHAEDRUS: You know my situation, and you've heard how I think it would benefit us both if this came about. I don't think it's right that I should fail to get what I'm asking simply because I don't happen to be in love with you. Lovers, after all, come to regret the good they've done once their desire has subsided — but for the others there's no point at which it becomes fitting for them to change their minds. For it isn't under compulsion but by choice, having reasoned out as well as possible about their own interests, that they act well within their means. Moreover, lovers look at what they've mismanaged in their own affairs on account of their love, and what they've done well, and adding in the trouble they've had, they think they've long since paid back the gratitude they owe their beloveds in full. But those who aren't in love can't offer neglect of their own affairs as an excuse on this account, nor can they count in past troubles, nor blame quarrels with their relations — so that, with so many bad things stripped away, nothing is left for them except to act eagerly on whatever they think will please. Further, if lovers deserve to be prized highly because they say they love their beloveds most of all, and are ready, both in word and deed, to please them at the cost of making everyone else hate them — it's easy to see that, if they're telling the truth, then whoever they fall in love with later, they'll value more than the present one, and clearly, if that new one wishes it, they'll mistreat the present one too. And yet how reasonable is it to hand over something so precious to a man suffering from a condition like that, one which no experienced person would even attempt to cure? Indeed they themselves admit that they're sick rather than in their right minds, and that they know they're thinking badly, but can't control themselves — so how, once they came to their senses, could they think well of decisions made while in such a state? And besides, if you were to choose the best from among your lovers, your choice would be from a small pool; but if you chose the one most suited to you from everyone else, it would be from a great many — so there's a far better chance, among the many, of finding one worthy of your friendship.
PHAEDRUS: Now, if you're afraid of the established custom, worried that people finding out will bring you disgrace, consider this: it's the lovers, thinking that others will envy them just as they envy themselves, who are likely to be puffed up by talking about it, and out of vanity to show off to everyone that their trouble hasn't been for nothing — whereas those who aren't in love, being masters of themselves, choose what's genuinely best over reputation among men. Furthermore, lovers are bound to be noticed and seen by many people trailing after their beloveds, making a business of it — so that whenever they're seen talking to each other, people assume their passion has been, or is about to be, satisfied; but no one even thinks to blame those who aren't in love for spending time together, since they know that talking with someone is bound to happen either through friendship or through some other pleasure. And further, if you're gripped by the fear that friendship is hard to maintain, and that while in other kinds of falling-out the misfortune would fall on you both alike, once you've given up what you value most, the harm would fall on you especially — then it would make sense to fear lovers more rather than less: for they are troubled by many things, and they think everything that happens is directed at their own harm. That's exactly why they discourage their beloveds from spending time with anyone else — fearing that men of wealth will outdo them with money, and men of education will surpass them in intelligence; and they're on guard against the power of anyone else who has some other good quality. So by persuading you to become estranged from these people, they leave you friendless and isolated; whereas if you look to your own advantage and show more sense than they do, you'll come into conflict with them. But those who were never in love, but achieved what they wanted through their own merit, wouldn't be jealous of the people you spend time with — rather, they would hate those unwilling to associate with you, thinking themselves looked down upon by them, but benefited by those who do keep company with you — so that there's a far better chance that friendship rather than enmity will come of the whole affair with them.
PHAEDRUS — And what's more, many lovers desired the body before they knew the character or became familiar with the rest of what belongs to the beloved, so that it's unclear to them whether they'll still want to be friends once their desire has stopped. But with those who aren't in love, who were already friends with each other before they did this, it's not likely that the good they receive from it will make their friendship smaller — rather those acts are left behind as reminders of what's still to come. And besides, it's fitting for you to become better by listening to me than by listening to a lover. Lovers praise what you say and do even when it goes against what's best — partly out of fear of becoming hateful to you, partly because their own judgment is worse for it, on account of their desire. That's the kind of thing love shows: when lovers are unlucky, it makes them think painful things that don't trouble anyone else; when they're lucky, it forces them to heap praise even on things not worth any pleasure at all — so that the beloved really ought to pity them far more than envy them. But if you're persuaded by me, first of all I won't be spending time with you in service of the pleasure of the moment, but of the benefit that's going to come, since I'm not overpowered by desire but master of myself, and I won't take up a strong hatred over small things, but will build only a little anger, slowly, over great ones; I'll forgive what's involuntary, and try to turn you away from what's done on purpose. These are the proofs of a friendship that's going to last a long time. But if it has occurred to you that a strong friendship can't come about unless someone happens to be in love, you should bear in mind that then we wouldn't value our sons very highly, nor our fathers and mothers, and we wouldn't have trustworthy friends either — since none of those relationships arise from that kind of desire, but from other pursuits entirely. Further, if we ought to do favors above all for those who need them most, then in other matters too it's fitting to help not the best people but the neediest — since freed from the greatest troubles, they'll feel the greatest gratitude toward us. And indeed, even at our own private feasts, it's not our friends we should be inviting, but beggars and those who need a good meal — for they're the ones who'll be fond of us, and follow us around, and come to our doors, and take the greatest pleasure in it, and feel no small gratitude, and pray many good things down on us.
PHAEDRUS — But perhaps it's not fitting to do favors for those who need them most desperately, but for those most able to return the favor — not merely to beggars, but to those worthy of the thing itself; not to those who will merely enjoy your youthful bloom, but to those who, once you've grown older, will share their own good things with you; not to those who, once they've had their way, will go boasting to others, but to those who out of modesty will keep silent before everyone; not to those whose devotion lasts only a short while, but to those who will remain friends alike through the whole of life; not to those who, once their desire stops, will go looking for a pretext to quarrel, but to those who, once the bloom of youth has stopped, will then display their own worth. So you should remember what's been said, and also keep this in mind: that friends admonish lovers, as though what they're doing were something bad, while none of a person's own family has ever blamed those who aren't in love, as though on that account they were making bad decisions about themselves. Perhaps then you'd ask me whether I'm advising you to grant your favors to all who aren't in love. Well, I think not even the lover himself would tell you to hold this attitude toward all lovers — since that wouldn't earn the recipient equal gratitude, nor would it let you keep the matter as hidden from everyone else as you'd wish; and there should be no harm coming from it, but benefit to both. So I for my part think what's been said is enough; but if there's something more you're longing for, thinking it's been left out, ask. What do you think of the speech, Socrates? Isn't it extraordinary, both in general and especially in its wording? SOCRATES — Divinely so, my friend, so much that it stunned me. And I felt this way because of you, Phaedrus, watching your face — because you seemed to me to be glowing with delight over the speech as you read it. So, thinking you understood these matters better than I do, I followed your lead, and following, I fell into a Bacchic frenzy along with you over that inspired head of yours. PHAEDRUS — Well now! Is that how you want to joke about it? SOCRATES — Do you think I'm joking and not being serious? PHAEDRUS — Not at all, Socrates — but truly, in the name of Zeus, god of friendship, tell me: do you think any other Greek could say things greater and more numerous than these on the very same subject?
SOCRATES — What, then? Must the speech be praised by both you and me on this ground too — that the poet said what needed to be said — and not only on that other ground, that the phrases are clear and rounded, and each word turned precisely on the lathe? For if that's required, I'll grant it for your sake, since it escaped me, given my own worthlessness — I was paying attention only to its rhetorical side, and I wouldn't have thought even Lysias himself would consider that part adequate. And it seemed to me, Phaedrus — unless you say otherwise — that he said the same things two or three times over, as if he weren't very resourceful at saying many things on the same subject, or perhaps he simply didn't care about that sort of thing. He struck me as showing off, like a young man flaunting his ability to say the same things in different ways and to say both versions excellently. PHAEDRUS — Nonsense, Socrates — that's exactly what the speech has going for it above all. Of everything worth saying that belongs to the subject, he's left nothing out, so that beyond what he's said, no one could ever manage to say anything else, more in quantity or more valuable. SOCRATES — That much I won't be able to grant you any longer. Ancient wise men and women who have spoken and written about these things will refute me if I concede that to please you. PHAEDRUS — Who are these people? Where have you heard anything better than this? SOCRATES — I can't say just now, off the top of my head — but clearly I've heard it from someone, perhaps from lovely Sappho, or from wise Anacreon, or even from some prose writers. What makes me infer this? My chest feels somehow full, my good man, and I sense that I could say other things, no worse than these, in addition. Now, I know well enough that none of it has occurred to me on my own — I'm well aware of my own ignorance — so what's left, I think, is that I've been filled up, like a jar, from some outside springs, by way of hearing, though out of dullness I've forgotten this very thing too — how, and from whom, I heard it. PHAEDRUS — Well, my noblest friend, that's the finest thing you could have said. As for whom and how you heard it, don't tell me even if I ask you to — just do exactly what you say: promise to say things better than what's in that book, and no fewer, keeping clear of what's written there, and I, like the nine archons, will promise to set up a golden statue, life-sized, at Delphi — not just of myself, but of you too.
SOCRATES — You're a dear, and truly golden, Phaedrus, if you think I mean that Lysias has failed entirely, and that it's possible to say altogether different things in place of everything he said. I don't think even the most mediocre writer could avoid that fate. Take the very subject of the speech: whom do you imagine, arguing that one should grant favors to the man who isn't in love rather than to the one who is, could leave out praising the good sense of the one and blaming the folly of the other — since these points are simply unavoidable — and then have something else, something different, to say? No, I think such points must be allowed and forgiven the speaker; and in cases like this it's not the invention but the arrangement that deserves praise, while for points that aren't unavoidable and are hard to invent, the invention deserves praise along with the arrangement. PHAEDRUS — I grant what you say — that seems to me a fair statement. So I'll do the same: I'll grant you as a premise that the lover is more afflicted than the one who isn't in love, but on all the rest, if you say other things, more numerous and more valuable, than these of Lysias, then stand forged in bronze beside the offering of the Cypselids at Olympia. SOCRATES — Are you taking it seriously, Phaedrus, just because I teased you a little by grabbing hold of your darling? Do you really think I'm going to try to say something more elaborate than his cleverness? PHAEDRUS — On that point, my friend, you've fallen into the very same trap yourself. You must speak as best you're able, in whatever way you can, so we won't be forced into that vulgar business of the comic poets, trading one thing for another — so be careful, and don't make me say that line, 'if I, Socrates, don't know Socrates,' and 'I've forgotten myself' — and that you wanted to speak but were being coy. Just make up your mind that we're not leaving this spot until you say what you claimed to have in your chest. We're alone here in a deserted place, and I'm stronger and younger — so from all this, understand what I'm telling you, and don't make me force it out of you rather than have you speak willingly. SOCRATES — But, my blessed Phaedrus, I'll look ridiculous, an amateur improvising on the spot next to a fine poet, on the very same subject. PHAEDRUS — You know how it is? Stop putting on airs with me. I have something, I think, that will force you to speak. SOCRATES — Then whatever it is, don't say it. PHAEDRUS — No, I'm going to say it right now — and my words will be an oath. I swear to you — by whom, though? Which god? Or would you like it to be this plane tree here? — I swear that if you don't deliver your speech facing this very tree, I will never again show you or report to you any speech by anyone, ever. SOCRATES — Ugh, you scoundrel — how well you've found the way to force a lover of speeches to do whatever you tell him! PHAEDRUS — Then why are you twisting and turning? SOCRATES — No reason anymore, now that you've sworn to that. How could I possibly hold back from such a feast?
PHAEDRUS — Speak, then. SOCRATES — Do you know what I'm going to do? PHAEDRUS — About what? SOCRATES — I'll speak with my head covered, so that I can race through the speech as fast as possible and not lose my way from shame by looking at you. PHAEDRUS — Just speak — do whatever else you like. SOCRATES — Come then, Muses, whether it's from the quality of your song that you're called clear-voiced, or from the musical race of the Ligyans that you got this name — join me in this tale, which this excellent fellow here is forcing me to tell, so that his companion, who already seemed wise to him before, may now seem even more so. There was once, then, a boy — or rather a young man just past boyhood — very beautiful, and he had a great many lovers. One of them was crafty, and though he was in love no less than the others, he had persuaded the boy that he wasn't in love. And once, in asking for his favor, he tried to convince him of this very point — that one ought to grant favors to the man who isn't in love rather than to the one who is — and he spoke like this: 'About everything, boy, there is one starting point for those who mean to deliberate well: they must know what the deliberation is about, or they're bound to miss the mark entirely. Most people fail to notice that they don't know the true nature of each thing. So, assuming they do know, they don't come to an agreement about it at the outset of their inquiry, and as they go on they pay the natural price — they don't agree, either with themselves or with each other. So let's not fall into the very fault we criticize in others, you and I. Since the question before you and me is which one we should turn to for friendship, the lover or the one who isn't in love, let's set down, by agreement, a definition of what love is and what power it has, and keeping our eyes on that, referring our inquiry back to it, let's examine whether it brings benefit or harm. Now, that love is a kind of desire is plain to everyone; and we also know that even those who aren't in love desire what is beautiful. How then shall we distinguish the lover from the one who isn't? We must further recognize that within each of us there are two ruling and guiding forces which we follow wherever they lead — one being an innate desire for pleasures, the other an acquired judgment that reaches for what is best. These two forces within us are sometimes in agreement, and sometimes at war with each other; and at one time the one prevails, at another time the other.'
SOCRATES: Now when judgment leads us toward the best by reason, and that reasoned rule prevails, we call the prevailing power moderation. But when desire drags us without reason toward pleasures, and gets the upper hand within us, that misrule is called excess. Excess goes by many names -- it has many limbs and many parts -- and whichever of its forms happens to stand out gives the person who has it a name drawn from that very form, and it is not a fine or worthy name to carry. If, in the matter of eating, it overpowers the best judgment along with the other desires, the desire is called gluttony, and the one who has it is called by that same name. If it seizes tyrannical rule over drinking and drags its possessor that way, it's obvious what title that will earn. And all the other names, kin to these and to their kindred desires, plainly belong to whichever desire happens to be ruling at the time. Now the reason all this has been said is probably clear enough already, but a thing said outright is always clearer than a thing left implied. When desire, without reason, straining toward what's right, overpowers judgment and is drawn toward the pleasure of beauty, and is driven on with full force by its kindred desires toward bodily beauty, and wins the contest by that driving -- from that very force, taking its name, it is called eros, passionate love. But tell me, dear Phaedrus, do you think, as I do of myself, that I've been struck by something divine? PHAEDRUS: Very much so, Socrates. Some unaccustomed fluency has taken hold of you. SOCRATES: Then listen to me in silence. This place really does seem to be sacred, so if I fall into a kind of nymph-possession as the speech goes on, don't be surprised -- right now I'm not far from breaking into dithyramb. PHAEDRUS: That is absolutely true. SOCRATES: And you are the cause of it. But hear the rest -- perhaps whatever's coming can still be turned aside. That will be the god's concern; our business is to go back to the boy with our argument. Well then, my fine friend -- what it is we must deliberate about has been stated and defined. Keeping our eyes on it, let's go on to say what benefit or harm will naturally come to the one who grants his favors, from a lover as against one who does not love. For a person ruled by desire and enslaved to pleasure will necessarily want to make his beloved as pleasant to himself as possible. Now to a sick mind, everything that doesn't resist is pleasant, while anything stronger or equal is hateful.
SOCRATES: So a lover will never willingly put up with a boy who is stronger than him or his equal -- he always works to make him weaker and lesser. And the ignorant is weaker than the wise, the coward than the brave man, the poor speaker than the skilled one, the slow-witted than the sharp. Given how many evils of mind like these -- and even more -- necessarily arise in the beloved, or are already present by nature, the lover must either take pleasure in them or arrange to bring them about, or else be deprived of his immediate pleasure. And he must be jealous, keeping the boy away from many other kinds of company that would benefit him and make him truly a man, from which comes great harm -- greatest of all from whatever would make him wisest. And that, of course, is philosophy, the divine pursuit -- from that, above all, a lover must keep his beloved at a distance, terrified of being despised for it. He'll scheme in every other way too, to keep the boy ignorant of everything and looking to the lover for everything, so that he'll be as pleasing as possible to the lover and as harmful as possible to himself. So as far as the mind goes, a man possessed by love is in no way a useful guardian or companion. Now we must look at the condition and care of the body that such a man -- forced to chase pleasure ahead of good -- will provide once he has control of it. You'll see him chasing something soft and not sturdy, not raised in the open sun but in mixed shade, unpracticed in manly toils and honest sweat but well practiced in a soft, unmanly way of living, decked out in borrowed colors and ornaments for lack of his own, and pursuing all the other habits that go with these -- obvious enough, not worth spelling out further; let's just fix the main point and move on. Such a body, in war and in other great crises, gives confidence to enemies and fear to friends -- even to the lovers themselves. This much we can leave as obvious; what comes next must be said -- what benefit or what harm the lover's company and guardianship will bring us where property is concerned.
SOCRATES: This much is clear to everyone, but especially to the lover himself: he would wish, above all, that the boy he loves be stripped of everything dearest, most loyal, and most sacred to him. He would gladly see him deprived of father, mother, relatives, and friends, thinking of them as obstacles and critics standing in the way of the sweetest possible time together. And if the boy has a fortune in gold or any other property, the lover will not think him so easy to catch, nor, once caught, so easy to manage. So it's inevitable that a lover resents his beloved for having property, and is glad when it's lost. What's more, a lover would wish his beloved to stay as long as possible unmarried, childless, and without a household of his own, wanting to enjoy what's sweet to him for as long as he can. Now there are other evils too, but some divine power has mixed a bit of immediate pleasure into most of them -- a flatterer, for instance, is a terrible creature and a great harm, yet nature has mixed in some pleasure that isn't without its charm; and someone might fault a courtesan as harmful, and many other creatures and practices of that sort, yet for the time being they manage to be quite pleasant day to day. But a lover, on top of being harmful to his boy, is also the most disagreeable company to spend one's days with. As the old saying goes, like delights like -- for I suppose equality in age leads to equal pleasures, and through likeness produces friendship -- yet even the company of equals in age can grow tiresome. And besides, whatever is compulsory is said to be burdensome to everyone in every case -- and that, on top of the unlikeness between them, is exactly the lover's relation to his beloved. For an older man attached to a younger one will not willingly leave his side, day or night, but is driven by compulsion and by a kind of goad, which is always giving him pleasures -- seeing, hearing, touching, and perceiving his beloved by every sense -- so that he serves him gladly and eagerly. But what comfort or what pleasures can the lover give the boy in return, to keep him, over that same span of time, from reaching the very limit of distaste -- seeing an older face no longer in its prime, and all that goes with it, which is unpleasant even to hear described in words, let alone to have to deal with in fact under constant compulsion; being watched over with suspicious jealousy at all times and before everyone; hearing praises that are ill-timed and excessive, and just as much blame that is unbearable when the lover is sober and, when he's drunk, on top of being unbearable, downright shameful, delivered with an unrestrained and unguarded frankness?
SOCRATES: And while he's in love he's harmful and unpleasant, but once his passion has passed, he becomes untrustworthy for all the time after -- the very time in which, with many promises backed by oaths and pleas, he barely managed to hold the boy to bear with a relationship that was already burdensome, for the sake of hopes of future good. And now, when the debt falls due, he has changed -- a different ruler and master has taken over inside him, sense and moderation in place of love and madness -- and he has become another person without the boy noticing it. The boy asks him for the gratitude owed for what came before, reminding him of what was done and said, as if speaking to the same man; but the lover, out of shame, doesn't dare say he has become someone else, nor can he find a way to make good the oaths and promises made under his former, foolish rule, now that he has come to his senses and regained self-control -- for fear that by doing the same things as before he'll become like his former self all over again. So he turns and runs from all this, and the former lover, now forced into default, changes into a fugitive as the coin flips; while the boy is left to chase him in outrage, calling on the gods, never having understood from the start that he should never have granted his favors to a lover -- someone necessarily without reason -- but far rather to a man who does not love and has full possession of his senses. Otherwise he's bound to hand himself over to someone faithless, difficult, jealous, disagreeable, harmful to his property, harmful to the condition of his body, and by far most harmful to the training of his soul -- than which nothing is or ever will be held in higher honor, truly, by gods or men. These are the things you must consider, my boy, and know that a lover's friendship comes with no goodwill at all, but the way one takes food -- for the sake of being filled up, as wolves love a lamb, so lovers love a boy. That's the whole of it, Phaedrus. You won't hear another word from me -- let the speech end right here. PHAEDRUS: And yet I thought it was only halfway through, and that you'd say just as much about the man who doesn't love, listing all the good things on his side. Why stop now, Socrates? SOCRATES: Didn't you notice, my dear fellow, that I'm already speaking in verse and no longer in dithyrambs -- and this while finding fault? If I start praising the other kind of man, what do you imagine will happen to me? Don't you know that the Nymphs, to whom you deliberately exposed me, will plainly carry me away? So let me just say in one sentence: whatever faults we've heaped on the one type, the opposite goods belong to the other. And what need is there for a long speech? Enough has been said about both.
SOCRATES: And so the myth will get exactly what's coming to it, and it will suffer just that. As for me, I'm crossing this river and going on my way before you force something bigger out of me. PHAEDRUS: Not yet, Socrates -- not before the heat passes. Don't you see it's nearly noon now, the hour they call the still hour? Let's wait, and talk over what's been said meanwhile, and go on once it cools off. SOCRATES: When it comes to speeches, Phaedrus, you are simply divine, altogether astonishing. Of all the speeches produced in your lifetime, I don't think anyone has caused more of them to come into being than you -- whether by speaking yourself or by compelling others to speak in one way or another (I exempt Simmias of Thebes from this; the rest you far outdo) -- and now again you seem to have been the cause of a speech being drawn out of me. PHAEDRUS: That's no declaration of war. But how so, and what speech do you mean? SOCRATES: Just as I was about to cross the river, my good man, that divine sign, the one I'm used to, came to me -- it always holds me back from whatever I'm about to do -- and I thought I heard a voice right there, which won't let me leave before I purify myself, as though I had committed some offense against the divine. Now I am a kind of seer, though not a very accomplished one -- like people who are poor at reading and writing, just barely good enough for my own use. So I already understand clearly what my offense was. The soul, my friend, does have a kind of prophetic power -- something troubled me even a while back as I was giving that speech, and I felt a certain uneasiness, as Ibycus puts it, in case I might be buying honor among men at the price of some fault against the gods. But now I've perceived my offense. PHAEDRUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: A terrible speech, Phaedrus, terrible -- one you yourself brought here, and one you forced me to deliver. PHAEDRUS: How so? SOCRATES: A foolish speech, and somewhat impious besides. What could be more terrible than that? PHAEDRUS: Nothing, if what you say is true. SOCRATES: Well then -- don't you think Eros is a god, the child of Aphrodite? PHAEDRUS: So it is said, certainly. SOCRATES: Not by Lysias, though, nor by that speech of yours, which was spoken through my mouth after you had bewitched it.
SOCRATES: But if Love is a god, or something divine — and he is — then he can't be anything bad. Yet the two speeches just given treated him as if he were. That's where they went wrong about Love. And there's something else, a kind of silly cleverness in them too: to preen and posture as if they were saying something sound and true, when really they were saying nothing of the kind — hoping only to hoodwink a few simple young men and win a reputation among them. So I, my friend, must purify myself. There's an old rite of purification for those who go wrong in telling stories about the gods — one that Homer never learned, but Stesichorus did. When he lost his sight for slandering Helen, he didn't stay ignorant of the reason the way Homer did. Being a man of the Muses, he understood the cause, and he wrote at once: 'That story is not true — you never sailed in the well-benched ships, you never reached the towers of Troy.' And having composed the whole of what's called his Palinode, his sight came back to him immediately. Now, in this one respect I intend to be wiser than they were: before I suffer anything for slandering Love, I'll try to pay him back with a recantation — bareheaded this time, not veiled in shame as I was before. PHAEDRUS: Nothing you could say, Socrates, would please me more. SOCRATES: And you see, my good Phaedrus, how shameless both speeches were — this one and the one read from the book. Suppose one of us happened to be a person of noble and gentle character, in love with someone of the same sort, or once in love that way — and he heard people saying that lovers turn savage hatreds out of small grievances, and treat their beloveds with jealousy and harm. Don't you think he'd feel he was listening to men raised among sailors, who had never once seen a free and noble love — and that he'd be nowhere near agreeing with what we said against Love? PHAEDRUS: Very likely, Socrates, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Well, out of shame before that man, and out of fear of Love himself, I want to wash the bitter taste of that speech from my ears with something wholesome. And I advise Lysias, too, to write as soon as possible that one should favor a lover over a non-lover, other things being equal. PHAEDRUS: You can be sure it will happen that way. Once you've spoken your praise of the lover, Lysias is bound to be forced by me to write another speech on the same subject. SOCRATES: That I believe — so long as you remain who you are. PHAEDRUS: Speak, then, and don't hold back. SOCRATES: Where's that boy I was speaking to before? He should hear this too, so he doesn't rush ahead and grant his favors to the non-lover before he's heard it. PHAEDRUS: He's right here beside you, always close by, whenever you want him.
SOCRATES: Consider it this way, then, fair boy: the earlier speech was spoken by Phaedrus son of Pythocles, of Myrrhinus, but the one I'm about to give belongs to Stesichorus son of Euphemus, of Himera. It must go like this: that story is not true which says that when a lover is present, one should favor the non-lover instead, on the grounds that the lover is mad and the other sound of mind. If madness were simply and purely an evil, that would be well said — but as it is, the greatest of our blessings come to us through madness, when it's given as a gift from the gods. The prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona, when out of their minds, have done Greece a world of good, both for individuals and for the whole city — but sober, they've done little or nothing. And if we spoke of the Sibyl and all the others who, seized by prophetic inspiration, have foretold the future rightly to many people many times, we'd only be stretching out something obvious to everyone. But here's something worth citing as evidence: those who gave things their names long ago didn't consider madness something shameful or disgraceful — otherwise they wouldn't have woven this very word into the name of the noblest of arts, the art that judges the future, calling it the 'maniké,' the mad art. No, they gave it that name believing madness to be a fine thing, when it comes by divine dispensation — it's only the people of today who, tastelessly inserting a 't,' have called it 'mantiké.' Even the inquiry the clear-headed make into the future, using birds and other signs, since it draws on human reasoning to supply understanding and information, they called 'oionoïstiké,' the art of thought — which people nowadays, dressing it up with a long 'o', call 'oionistiké.' So, in the same measure that prophecy, in name and in achievement, is more complete and more honored than augury, in that same measure the ancients testify that god-sent madness is nobler than the self-possession that comes from men. And what's more, when the worst diseases and hardships have beset certain families because of some ancient blood-guilt, madness has appeared among them and spoken in prophecy, finding the relief they needed by taking refuge in prayers and rites to the gods — and through purifications and sacred ceremonies it has rendered the afflicted person free from harm, for the present and for time to come, discovering a release for the one truly mad and possessed from the evils that beset him.
SOCRATES: A third kind is possession and madness from the Muses. Taking hold of a tender, untouched soul, it rouses it and drives it into Bacchic frenzy in songs and the rest of poetry, and by adorning countless deeds of the past, it educates those who come after. But whoever comes to the doors of poetry without this madness from the Muses, persuaded that skill alone will make him a competent poet, will find himself incomplete, and his poetry — the poetry of the sane man — will be eclipsed by the poetry of the mad. So many are the fine achievements of god-given madness I can tell you of, and more besides. So let's not be frightened by this point alone, and let's not let anyone unsettle us by warning that we ought to choose the level-headed friend over the one stirred by passion. Let him show this much more too before he can claim the prize: that love is not sent by the gods for the benefit of lover and beloved. We, for our part, must show the opposite — that this kind of madness is given by the gods for our greatest good fortune. Our proof will be one the clever won't believe, but the wise will. So first we must grasp the truth about the nature of the soul, divine and human both, by looking at what it undergoes and what it does. Here is the starting point of the proof. Every soul is immortal. For whatever is always in motion is immortal, while whatever moves something else and is moved by something else, since it has an end to its motion, has an end to its life as well. Only that which moves itself, since it never abandons itself, never stops moving — and it's the very source and spring of motion for everything else that moves. Now a source has no beginning. For everything that comes to be must come to be from a source, but the source itself must come from nothing — for if a source came to be from something, it would no longer be a source. And since it has no beginning, it must also be indestructible. For if a source were destroyed, it could never come to be again from anything, nor could anything else come to be from it, given that all things must come to be from a source. So the source of motion is that which moves itself, and this can neither be destroyed nor come to be, or else the whole heaven and everything that comes to be would collapse and come to a stop, and would never again have anything to set them in motion and bring them back into being. Now that what moves itself has been shown to be immortal, no one need be ashamed to say that this very thing is the essence and the defining principle of the soul.
SOCRATES: Every body that is moved from outside itself is soulless, but a body moved from within, from itself, is ensouled, since this is the nature of soul. And if that's the case — if nothing else is what moves itself except soul — then soul must, of necessity, be something that never came to be and can never be destroyed. So much, then, for the soul's immortality. As for its form, this must be said: to describe what it actually is would take a long, altogether godlike account, but to say what it resembles is a shorter, human task — so let's put it that way. Let it resemble the combined power of a winged team of horses and their charioteer. Now, the gods have horses and charioteers that are all good, and of good stock, while everyone else's are mixed. In our case, first the driver controls a pair, and of his two horses one is fine and good and of fine stock, while the other is the opposite, bred from the opposite — so that our driving is necessarily a difficult and troublesome business. Now we must try to say how a living being came to be called mortal and how another came to be called immortal. Soul, in its entirety, has charge of all that is soulless, and it patrols the whole heaven, appearing now in one form, now in another. When it is complete and fully winged, it travels the heights and governs the whole world in its course, but a soul that has shed its wings is carried along until it fastens onto something solid, where it settles and takes on an earthly body, which, seeming to move itself by the soul's power, is called, as a whole, a living being — soul and body fastened together — and takes the name 'mortal.' The name 'immortal,' though, isn't backed by any reasoned account — we simply picture a god, without ever having seen one or understood one well enough, as some immortal living thing having both soul and body, joined together for all time. But let these matters stand and be said however is pleasing to god; what we must grasp is the reason souls shed their wings and lose them. It's something like this. It's the nature of a wing's power to lift what is heavy and carry it aloft to where the race of gods dwells, and of all the things connected with the body, the wing has the greatest share in what is divine. And the divine is beautiful, wise, good, and everything of that kind — it's on these that the soul's plumage is nourished and grows, most of all, while by what is ugly and bad and their opposites it wastes away and is destroyed.
SOCRATES: Now Zeus, the great leader in heaven, drives a winged chariot and goes first, setting all things in order and taking care of them. He is followed by an army of gods and lesser spirits, arranged in eleven divisions — for Hestia alone remains behind in the house of the gods, while all the rest, ranked among the number of the twelve, lead their divisions in the order each was assigned. Within the heavens there are many blessed sights and courses to be seen, which the happy race of gods traverses, each of them doing his own work, followed by whoever wishes and is able, for envy has no place in the divine chorus. But whenever they go to feast and banquet, they travel steeply upward to the high vault beneath the heavens, where the chariots of the gods, evenly balanced and easy to guide, move along without effort, but the rest struggle — for the horse that shares in wickedness weighs its chariot down, dragging and pulling toward the earth whichever driver has not trained it well. And there the soul faces its hardest and most extreme struggle. For the souls called immortal, once they reach the summit, go outside and take their stand on the outer rim of heaven, and as they stand there the revolution carries them around, while they gaze upon what lies outside the heavens. Of that region beyond the heavens no poet here below has ever sung, nor will any sing worthily. But it is like this — for one must dare to speak the truth, especially when speaking about truth itself. It is a place occupied by being that truly is, without color, without shape, and untouchable, visible only to the intellect, the soul's pilot, the region about which the class of true knowledge is concerned. Since the mind of god is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as is the mind of every soul that is concerned to receive what is proper to it, such a soul rejoices at last in seeing what truly is, and gazing upon truth it is nourished and thrives, until the revolution carries it around again to the same point. In the course of that circuit it beholds justice itself, it beholds self-control, it beholds knowledge — not the kind that is bound up with coming-into-being, nor the kind that varies from one existing thing we now call real to another, but the knowledge that resides in that which truly is, in the fullest sense. And having in the same way beheld all the other things that truly are, and feasted upon them, it sinks back down again inside the heavens and returns home. And when it has returned, the charioteer brings the horses to a stop at the manger and sets ambrosia before them, and gives them nectar to drink besides.
SOCRATES: That, then, is the life of the gods. As for the other souls, one follows a god most closely and comes to resemble it, and so lifts the head of its charioteer up into the outer place, and is carried around with the revolution, though buffeted by its horses and barely able to see the things that truly are. Another rises at one moment and sinks at another, and because its horses fight it, it sees some things and misses others. And all the rest, straining to keep up with what is above but unable to manage it, are swept along beneath the rim, trampling and colliding with one another as each tries to get ahead of the next. So there is turmoil and rivalry and the sweat of utmost effort, in which many souls are lamed through the incompetence of their drivers, and many have feathers broken in the crush; and all of them, after great toil, go away without having achieved the sight of what truly is, and once they go away they feed on the food of mere opinion. The reason for this great eagerness to see where the plain of truth lies is that the pasture suited to the best part of the soul comes from that meadow, and it is on this that the wing's nature, which lifts the soul, is nourished. And this is a decree of Necessity: whatever soul becomes a follower of a god and catches sight of any of the truths, it remains free from harm until the next circuit, and if it can always do this, it always remains unhurt. But when a soul fails to keep up and does not see, and through some misfortune becomes filled with forgetfulness and wrongdoing and grows heavy, and being weighted down it sheds its feathers and falls to earth, then it is the law that this soul shall not, in its first birth, be planted into any animal nature, but the one that saw the most shall go into the seed of a man who will become a lover of wisdom, or a lover of beauty, or someone devoted to the Muses and to love; the second, into a lawful king or a warlike and commanding man; the third, into a statesman or a household manager or a man of business; the fourth, into someone devoted to hard exertion, a trainer of the body or a healer of it; the fifth will have the life of a prophet or someone connected with mystery rites; to the sixth a poet or some other imitative artist will be fitting; the seventh, a craftsman or a farmer; the eighth, a sophist or a flatterer of crowds; the ninth, a tyrant.
SOCRATES: In all of these, whoever lives justly gets a better lot afterward, and whoever lives unjustly, a worse one. For no soul returns to the place from which it came in less than ten thousand years — since it does not regrow its wings before that much time has passed — except the soul of one who has pursued wisdom without deceit, or has loved a boy together with the pursuit of wisdom; these souls, if they choose this life three times running, at the third thousand-year cycle grow their wings and depart in the three-thousandth year. But the rest, when they finish their first life, come to judgment, and once judged, some go to places of punishment beneath the earth and pay the penalty there, while others are lifted by Justice to some place in the heavens and live in a manner worthy of the life they led in human form. At the thousandth year both groups arrive to draw lots and choose their second life, and each chooses whichever it wishes; there a human soul may even pass into the life of a beast, and one who was once a man may return from a beast into a man again. For a soul that has never seen the truth cannot take on this human shape; a human being must grasp what is spoken of according to its form, moving from many perceptions and gathering them by reasoning into one — and this process is a recollection of those things our soul once saw when it journeyed with a god, looking down on the things we now say exist and rising up into what truly is. For this reason the mind of the philosopher alone rightly grows wings, since so far as it can it always keeps its memory fixed on those things, on which fixing his attention makes a god divine. A man who makes right use of such reminders, forever being initiated into perfect mysteries, alone becomes truly perfect; but because he stands apart from human concerns and turns toward the divine, the many admonish him as though he were out of his mind, not realizing that he is possessed by a god. This, then, is the whole point of everything said here about the fourth kind of madness — that which comes upon someone who, seeing beauty here on earth, is reminded of true beauty, and grows wings and struggles to fly upward but cannot, and like a bird gazes upward while neglecting the things below, and so is thought to be afflicted with madness. The point is that of all forms of divine possession this one is the best and comes from the best sources, both for the one who has it and for the one who shares in it, and that a person touched by this madness is called a lover of beauty.
SOCRATES: For as has been said, every human soul has by its nature beheld the things that are, or it would never have come into this living creature; but it is not easy for every soul to recall those things from what it perceives here — not for those that had only a brief glimpse then, nor for those that, once fallen here, had the misfortune of being turned toward wrongdoing through certain associations, so that they hold onto forgetfulness of the sacred things they saw then. Few are left in whom memory is present in sufficient strength; and these, whenever they see some likeness of the things above, are struck with amazement and no longer master of themselves, though they do not understand what is happening to them, because they cannot perceive it clearly enough. Now in the likenesses found here there is no brightness at all of justice or self-control or the other things honored by souls; instead, through dim instruments and with difficulty, only a few, approaching the images, make out the true nature of what is imaged. But beauty was radiant to see back then, when we, following in the blessed company — we with Zeus, others with some other god — beheld the blessed vision and sight and were initiated into that rite which is right to call the most blessed of all, which we celebrated while whole ourselves and untouched by the evils awaiting us in time to come, gazing in pure light upon whole, simple, unshakable, and blissful visions, being ourselves pure and unmarked by this thing we now carry around and call a body, shackled to it the way an oyster is shackled to its shell. Let this much be granted to memory, for whose sake, out of longing for those things, I have now spoken at some length. But concerning beauty — as we said, it shone among those things there, and coming here we have grasped it shining most clearly through the clearest of our senses. For sight is the sharpest of the perceptions that come to us through the body, though wisdom is not seen by it — for it would arouse terrible longings if it presented so clear an image of itself to sight — nor is any other of the lovable things seen by it; but beauty alone has been granted this fate, to be the most visible and the most lovely.
SOCRATES: Now the man who is not newly initiated, or who has become corrupted, does not move quickly from here to there, toward beauty itself, when he looks at what bears its name here; so he feels no reverence as he gazes at it, but gives himself over to pleasure and tries, animal-like, to mount and beget offspring, and consorting with wanton excess he feels no fear or shame in pursuing pleasure against nature. But the one freshly initiated, who saw much back then, when he sees a godlike face that reflects beauty well, or some form of body, first shudders, and something of the old fear comes over him; then, gazing at it, he reveres it as a god, and if he were not afraid of seeming utterly mad, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to a sacred image and a god. And once he has seen him, as if from the shuddering there comes a change, and sweat and an unfamiliar heat take hold of him; for having received through his eyes the emanation of beauty, he grew warm, and by this the wing's nature is watered. And once warmed, the parts around the growth of the wing, which for a long time had been closed up by hardness and prevented from sprouting, begin to melt, and as nourishment flows in, the stalk of the wing swells and rushes to grow from the root beneath the whole form of the soul — for the whole soul was once winged. In this state, then, the whole soul seethes and throbs, and just as children cutting teeth feel an itching and irritation around the gums when the teeth are just coming in, so the soul of one beginning to grow wings suffers the same thing — it seethes and is irritated and tickled as it grows its feathers. So when it gazes at the beauty of the boy and receives particles flowing to it from there — for this reason they are called longing — it is watered and warmed by this longing, and its pain eases and it rejoices. But when it is apart from him and grows parched, the mouths of the passages through which the wing pushes close up as they dry, shutting in the sprouting of the wing, and this, locked inside together with the longing, throbbing like a pulse, presses against its own outlet, so that the whole soul, stung all around, is maddened with pain, yet, holding the memory of beauty, it rejoices. And from the mixture of these two it is thrown into distress by the strangeness of its condition, and being at a loss it rages, and in its madness it can neither sleep at night nor stay still by day, but runs wherever it thinks it may see the one who holds its beauty; and once it sees him and lets the stream of longing pour in, it releases what had been blocked up, and getting relief from the stinging and the pangs, it reaps, for the moment, this sweetest of pleasures.
SOCRATES: For this reason it is not willingly left behind, and it values no one more than the beautiful one, but forgets mothers and brothers and all its companions, and thinks nothing of losing its property through neglect, and despising all the customs and proprieties in which it once took pride, it is ready to be a slave and to sleep wherever it is allowed, as near as possible to the object of its longing; for besides revering the one who possesses the beauty, it has found in him the only healer of its greatest sufferings. This condition, fair boy, to whom my speech is addressed, men call love, but if you hear what the gods call it, you will likely laugh because of your youth. Some of the descendants of Homer, I believe, quote two lines about love from the hidden verses, one of which is quite outrageous and not very well metered; they sing them like this: 'Him mortals call the winged one, Love, but the immortals call him Feather-grower, because of the necessity to grow feathers.' One may believe this or not; but the cause and the experience of lovers is, at any rate, just what has been described. Now of those who follow Zeus, the one who is caught bears the burden of the name of wings more steadily; but those who served Ares and moved about in his train, when they are captured by Love and think themselves wronged in some way by their beloved, become murderous and ready to sacrifice both themselves and the boy. And so it goes for each, according to the god whose chorus he belonged to: he lives, so far as he can, honoring and imitating that god, as long as he remains uncorrupted and is living out his first life here, and in this manner he behaves and deals with both his beloveds and everyone else. So each person chooses his love among the beautiful according to his own character, and, treating that one as though he were the god himself, fashions and adorns him for himself like a sacred image, meaning to honor and celebrate him. Those who belong to Zeus, then, seek a soul that is like Zeus in the one they love; so they look to see whether he is naturally philosophical and fit to lead, and when they find such a one and fall in love with him, they do everything they can to make him become so.
SOCRATES: So if such people haven't already been set on this course before, they take it up now, learning wherever they can and pursuing it on their own, and by tracking the nature of their own god within themselves they succeed, because they've been forced to keep their gaze fixed intently on the god; and by holding fast to him in memory, possessed as they are, they take on his habits and practices, so far as it's possible for a human being to share in a god. They credit their beloved for this, and love him all the more, and if they draw, as the Bacchic women do, from Zeus, then it is on the soul of their beloved that they pour it, making him as much like their own god as they can. Those who followed in Hera's train look for someone kingly, and once they find him do all the same things for him. And so with the followers of Apollo, and of each god in turn: going along the path of their own god, they look for a boy who is by nature suited to be his own, and once they've gotten hold of him, they imitate the god themselves, and they persuade and train their beloved, drawing him as far as each of them can toward that god's practice and character - not out of jealousy or mean-spirited ill will toward the boy, but trying with everything they have to bring him into the fullest possible likeness to themselves and to the god they honor. Such is the eagerness, and such the rite, of those who truly love, if they manage to bring off what they're eager for in the way I've described - it becomes something beautiful and blessed, coming from the friend who has gone mad through love to the boy he loves, if that boy is won over. And a boy is won over in something like the following way. Just as at the start of this story we divided each soul into three - two forms shaped like horses, and a third the form of a charioteer - let that stand for us still. Now of the horses, we say, one is good and the other is not; but we didn't spell out what the goodness of the good one is, or the badness of the bad one, and that must be said now. The one standing on the finer side is upright and clean-limbed, high-necked, somewhat hook-nosed, white to look at, black-eyed, a lover of honor joined with restraint and a sense of shame, a companion of true opinion, needing no whip, guided by command and reason alone. The other is crooked, a great hulking thing put together any old way, thick-necked, short-necked, snub-faced, black-skinned, gray-eyed, bloodshot, a companion of wanton violence and boastfulness, shaggy around the ears, deaf, barely yielding even to whip and spur.
SOCRATES: Now when the charioteer looks at the face that kindles desire, and warms his whole soul through with the sensation, and is filled with the tingling and the goading of longing, the horse that is obedient to the charioteer - constrained then as always by a sense of shame - holds himself back from lunging at the boy. But the other one no longer minds the charioteer's goad or whip at all; he bolts and plunges forward, and by giving every kind of trouble to his yoke-mate and to the charioteer, he forces them to go toward the boy and to bring up the delights of sex. At first the other two resist and balk, indignant at being forced into something so terrible and lawless; but in the end, when there's no limit to the trouble, they go along, led on, giving in and agreeing to do what they're told. And so they come close to him and see the beloved's face flashing before them. When the charioteer sees it, his memory is carried back to the true nature of beauty, and he sees it again standing together with restraint on its holy pedestal; and at the sight he is struck with fear and falls back in reverence, and at the same moment he's forced to haul back so hard on the reins that he throws both horses onto their haunches, the one willingly, since he wasn't resisting, but the violent one very much against his will. And once they've drawn back a little further, the one horse drenches his whole soul in sweat from shame and astonishment, while the other, once the pain has eased that he got from the bit and the fall, catches his breath with difficulty and then bursts out in anger, cursing the charioteer and his yoke-mate at length as cowards and weaklings who deserted their post and broke their word; and forcing them again, though they're unwilling to come near, he only grudgingly gives way when they beg him to put it off to another time. When the agreed time comes, and they pretend to have forgotten, he reminds them, forcing them, neighing, dragging them, and makes them come near the boy again with the same proposal; and once they're close, he lowers his head, stretches out his tail, takes the bit between his teeth, and hauls shamelessly. But the charioteer, gripped by the very same feeling now even more strongly, as though thrown back from a starting-gate, hauls back the bit even more violently from between the teeth of the violent horse, bloodying his slandering tongue and his jaws, and forcing his legs and haunches down to the ground, delivers him over to pain.
SOCRATES: And when the wicked horse suffers the same thing again and again until he gives up his violence, he's humbled at last and follows the charioteer's guidance, and when he sees the beautiful boy he's undone with fear - so that from then on it happens that the lover's soul follows the boy in reverence and awe. So then, since the boy is being courted with every kind of attention, as though he were the equal of a god, by someone who isn't just putting on a show of love but truly feels it, and since the boy himself is by nature disposed to be a friend to the one courting him - even if before this he had been talked against by companions or others who told him it was shameful to keep close company with a lover, and because of that he had been pushing the lover away - as time goes on, his age and what has to happen bring him around to accepting the man's company. For it is never fated that bad should be friend to bad, nor that good should fail to be friend to good. And once he has accepted him, and taken in his conversation and company, the lover's goodwill, now felt at close range, strikes the beloved with wonder, as he comes to realize that all his other friends and relations together don't offer him any share of friendship to match this god-inspired friend. And when the lover keeps doing this over time, and draws close to him, touching him in the wrestling grounds and in other kinds of company, then at last the spring of that stream which Zeus, when he loved Ganymede, named longing, flows in abundance toward the lover; and part of it sinks into him, and part, when he is filled to overflowing, flows back out; and just as a breath of air or an echo bounces back off something smooth and solid to the place it started from, so the stream of beauty travels back into the beautiful boy through his eyes, by the path nature has made for it to reach the soul; and arriving there and setting the boy's wings astir, it waters the passages of the feathers and starts them growing, and fills the beloved's soul in turn with love. So he is in love, but with what, he's at a loss; he doesn't know what has happened to him, and can't explain it - it's as if he had caught an eye infection from someone else, but he can't say what caused it; he doesn't realize that he's looking at himself, as in a mirror, in the person of his lover. And when the lover is present, his pain eases in exactly the same way as the lover's does; and when he's absent, in just the same way he longs and is longed for, holding an image of love, love in return, though he calls it, and thinks it, not love but friendship. His desire is much like the lover's, though weaker - to see him, to touch him, to kiss him, to lie down beside him; and, as one would expect, he soon does these things.
SOCRATES: So then in their lying together, the lover's unruly horse has plenty to say to the charioteer, and thinks he deserves some small enjoyment in return for all his trouble; but the beloved's horse has nothing to say - swollen with feeling and at a loss, he throws his arms around the lover and kisses him, welcoming him as someone truly good to him, and when they lie down together he's the sort who wouldn't refuse to grant the lover his own share of the favor, if he asked for it; but his yoke-mate, together with the charioteer, resists this with shame and reasoned argument. So if the better parts of their minds win out and lead them into an ordered way of life given over to philosophy, they pass their days here in blessing and harmony, masters of themselves and well-ordered, having enslaved the part that bred vice in the soul and set free the part that bred virtue; and when they die, having grown wings and become light, they have won one of the three truly Olympic contests - and neither human self-control nor divine madness can provide a person with any greater good than this. But if they instead take up a coarser way of life, without philosophy, but caught up in love of honor, then perhaps sometime, in drink or through some other carelessness, their two unruly draft-horses may catch their souls off guard, bring them together, and choose and carry out that course which is counted blessed by the many; and once they've done it, they go on doing it from then on, though rarely, since it isn't something their whole mind has approved. These two, then, are also friends, though less so than the others, both while their love lasts and after it's over, believing they've given and received from each other the greatest of pledges, which it would be wrong ever to break by falling into enmity. And at the end, though still wingless when they leave the body, they have set out on the path to growing wings, so that they carry off no small prize from their erotic madness; for it's not lawful for those who have already begun the journey beneath the sky to go down into darkness and the road under the earth, but rather, living a bright life, they journey on together in happiness, and when the time comes, for love's sake, become winged together. These gifts, so many and so godlike, my boy, will be given you by friendship with a lover; whereas closeness with one who does not love you, mixed as it is with mortal moderation, managing things in a mortal and tight-fisted way, breeding in the soul it loves the stinginess that the crowd praises as virtue, will leave that soul tumbling around the earth and beneath it, mindless, for nine thousand years.
SOCRATES: This, dear Love, is the recantation I offer and pay back to you, as beautiful and as good as I could manage, forced in particular, among other things, to use somewhat poetic language for Phaedrus's sake. Forgive me for what I said before, and accept this with favor; be kind and gracious, and don't take away or maim the art of love you gave me out of anger, but grant that I be honored even more than now among the beautiful. And if anything Phaedrus and I said earlier offended you, blame Lysias, the father of that speech, and make him stop such talk, and turn him toward philosophy, as his brother Polemarchus has turned, so that this lover of his may no longer waver both ways as he does now, but set his life simply toward love conducted with philosophical discourse. PHAEDRUS: I join you in that prayer, Socrates, if it's better for us that these things come about. But I've been marveling at your speech all this while, at how much finer a piece of work you've made it than the first one - so much so that I worry Lysias may come off looking poor, if he's even willing to set another speech up against it. In fact, my astonishing friend, someone among the politicians was recently attacking him for this very thing, and all through his abuse kept calling him a speechwriter. So perhaps out of sheer pride he might just give up writing altogether. SOCRATES: That's a ridiculous notion you're voicing, young man, and you're quite wrong about your friend, if you really think he's that easily rattled. Perhaps you also think the man who was abusing him meant what he was saying. PHAEDRUS: That's how it looked, Socrates; and you yourself surely know that the most powerful and dignified men in our cities are ashamed to write speeches and leave writings of their own behind, for fear of the reputation it might earn them with posterity - being called sophists. SOCRATES: You've forgotten, Phaedrus, the sweet bend in the river - it got that name from the long bend in the Nile. And along with that bend, you've also forgotten that it's precisely the politicians who think the most of themselves who are most in love with writing speeches and leaving writings behind; so much so that whenever they write a speech, they're so fond of their admirers that they add at the head of it, in each case, the names of whoever happens to be praising them. PHAEDRUS: What do you mean by that? I don't follow.
SOCRATES: Don't you notice that at the start of any piece written by a political man, the one who's praised is listed first? PHAEDRUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Something like: "It seemed good to the council," or "to the assembly," or "to both, and so-and-so proposed it" — the writer naming himself, very solemnly, and giving himself a compliment — and only then, after that, does he go on to display his own wisdom to his admirers, sometimes turning out quite a long piece of writing. Does that strike you as anything other than a speech that's been written down? PHAEDRUS: No, it doesn't strike me that way at all. SOCRATES: So then, if the measure holds up, the poet goes off from the theater delighted; but if it gets struck out and he ends up with no share in authorship, no standing as a writer worth reading, he's in mourning, and so are his friends. PHAEDRUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Clearly not because they look down on the craft, but because they're in awe of it. PHAEDRUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what about this: when a speaker or a king becomes capable enough that, gaining the power of a Lycurgus or a Solon or a Darius, he becomes an immortal author in his city — doesn't he consider himself equal to a god, even while still alive, and don't those who come after him think the very same thing about him, gazing at what he's written? PHAEDRUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Do you suppose, then, that any such man, however ill-disposed toward Lysias, would reproach him for the mere fact that he writes speeches? PHAEDRUS: That wouldn't be reasonable, given what you're saying — he'd be reproaching his own ambition, it seems. SOCRATES: So this much, at least, is plain to everyone: writing speeches is not itself shameful. PHAEDRUS: Of course not. SOCRATES: What's shameful, I think, is something else already — not speaking and writing well, but doing it shamefully and badly. PHAEDRUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: Then what is the manner of writing well as opposed to badly? Do we need, Phaedrus, to put Lysias to the test on this, and anyone else who has ever written or will write anything, whether a political piece or a private one, in verse as a poet or without verse as an ordinary person? PHAEDRUS: You ask whether we need to? What, I ask you, would anyone live for, so to speak, if not for pleasures of just this sort? Certainly not for those pleasures that require pain beforehand, or no pleasure at all — which is the case with nearly all the pleasures of the body, and that's exactly why they're rightly called slavish.
SOCRATES: We have plenty of leisure, it seems — and at the same time, the cicadas up over our heads, singing away in this heat and talking to each other, seem to me to be watching us too. If they saw the two of us, like most people at midday, not conversing but dozing, lulled by them out of laziness of mind, they'd have every right to laugh at us, thinking some slaves had come to their resting-place and were sleeping around the spring at noon like sheep. But if they see us conversing, sailing right past them unenchanted like the Sirens, they might just be pleased enough to grant us the gift they have to give humans from the gods. PHAEDRUS: And what gift is that? I confess I've never heard of it. SOCRATES: It really doesn't suit a lover of the Muses to be unacquainted with a thing like that. The story goes that these creatures were once human beings, from the time before the Muses existed. When the Muses came to be and song appeared, some of the people of that time were so overwhelmed with pleasure that, singing, they neglected food and drink and died without even noticing it. From them the race of cicadas was born afterward, having received this gift from the Muses: that they need no nourishment once they come into being, but sing straight through, without food or drink, until they die, and after that go to the Muses and report which of us here honors which of them. To Terpsichore they report those who have honored her in the dances, and make them more beloved to her; to Erato, those honored in matters of love, and so on for each of the others, according to the kind of honor each receives. And to the eldest, Calliope, and to Urania next after her, they report those who spend their lives in philosophy and honor the music that belongs to those two — the Muses who, more than any of the others, concern themselves with the heavens and with discourse, both divine and human, and who send forth the most beautiful voice of all. So for many reasons we ought to be talking rather than sleeping at midday. PHAEDRUS: Yes, we certainly ought to be talking. SOCRATES: Then let's look into what we set out just now to examine — in what way speaking and writing a speech is done well, and in what way it isn't. PHAEDRUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: Isn't it necessary, then, for anything that's going to be spoken well and rightly, that the mind of the speaker first know the truth about whatever he's going to speak about?
PHAEDRUS: Here's what I've heard about that, my dear Socrates: that the man who's going to be a speaker doesn't need to learn what's truly just, only what will seem so to the crowd who'll be sitting in judgment; nor what's really good or fine, only what will seem so — since it's from these, not from truth, that persuasion comes. SOCRATES: Well, Phaedrus, a saying shouldn't just be tossed aside because wise men have said it — one should look to see whether there's something in it. And this one in particular shouldn't be let go without examination. PHAEDRUS: You're right. SOCRATES: Let's look at it this way, then. PHAEDRUS: How? SOCRATES: Suppose I tried to persuade you to acquire a horse to fend off enemies, and neither of us knew what a horse was, but I happened to know this much about you — that Phaedrus thinks a horse is whichever of the tame animals has the biggest ears — PHAEDRUS: That would be ridiculous, Socrates. SOCRATES: Not yet it wouldn't. But suppose I then tried in earnest to persuade you, composing a speech in praise of the donkey, calling it a horse, and saying that the beast is worth everything — worth keeping at home and taking on campaign, useful for fighting off the enemy, and able besides to carry your baggage and do plenty of other useful things. PHAEDRUS: Now that would be completely ridiculous. SOCRATES: Well, isn't it better to be a ridiculous friend than a clever and dangerous enemy? PHAEDRUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: So when the speechmaker, not knowing what's good and what's bad, takes hold of a city in the same condition and persuades it — not praising a donkey's shadow as if it were a horse, but praising something bad as if it were good — having studied the crowd's opinions and persuaded them to do bad things instead of good ones, what kind of harvest do you think rhetoric will reap afterward from the seeds it's sown? PHAEDRUS: Nothing very decent. SOCRATES: But then, my good man, haven't we been too rough on the art of speaking, more than it deserves? It might well answer us: what on earth are you two talking nonsense about? I don't force anyone who's ignorant of the truth to learn to speak — rather, if my advice is worth anything, one should acquire the truth first and only then take me up. What I claim, and claim boldly, is only this — that without me, the man who knows the facts will be no better able to persuade people through his craft. PHAEDRUS: Well, wouldn't she be right to say that? SOCRATES: I agree — if the arguments that come at her bear witness that she really is a craft. But I seem to hear certain arguments approaching, testifying against her, saying that she's lying and that this isn't a craft at all, but a knack with no craft in it. As the Spartan says, there neither is nor ever will be a genuine craft of speaking that isn't grounded in truth.
PHAEDRUS: We need those arguments, Socrates — bring them here and put them to the test, see what exactly they say and how. SOCRATES: Come forward then, noble creatures, and persuade Phaedrus here, the father of beautiful children, that unless he philosophizes properly, he'll never be capable of speaking properly about anything either. Let Phaedrus answer. PHAEDRUS: Ask away. SOCRATES: Well then — isn't rhetoric, taken as a whole, a kind of leading of souls by means of words, not only in law courts and other public gatherings, but in private settings too, the same art applying to small matters as to great, and no more honorable when it's rightly used on serious matters than on trivial ones? Or is that not how you've heard it described? PHAEDRUS: No, by Zeus, not at all like that — it's mostly said and written, as a craft, in connection with lawsuits, and it's also said to apply to public speaking in the assembly; I haven't heard it extends further than that. SOCRATES: But surely you've heard of the arts of speaking that Nestor and Odysseus composed, in their spare time at Troy — have you really never heard of Palamedes'? PHAEDRUS: No, and by Zeus, I haven't even heard of Nestor's — unless you're turning Gorgias into some kind of Nestor, or making Thrasymachus and Theodorus into an Odysseus. SOCRATES: Perhaps. But let's leave those men aside — tell me instead, what do opposing parties in the courts do? Don't they argue against each other? Or what shall we call it? PHAEDRUS: Exactly that. SOCRATES: About what's just and unjust? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So won't the man who does this by craft make the same thing appear just to the same people at one time, and unjust whenever he wishes? PHAEDRUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And in a speech to the assembly, make the city think the same things good at one time and, at another, just the opposite? PHAEDRUS: That's so. SOCRATES: And don't we know that the Eleatic Palamedes speaks by such craft, so that the same things appear to his listeners as both like and unlike, both one and many, both at rest and in motion? PHAEDRUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: So this art of contradiction isn't confined only to the courts and public assemblies — it applies, it seems, to everything that's said. It's one single craft, if it exists at all, by which someone will be able to make everything resemble everything else, among the things that admit of such resemblance and can be compared, and to bring into the light anyone else who makes such resemblances but conceals it. PHAEDRUS: What exactly do you mean by that? SOCRATES: I think it will become clear if we look at it this way. Is deception more likely to occur among things that differ a great deal, or things that differ only a little?
PHAEDRUS: Among things that differ only a little. SOCRATES: And moving step by step, in small shifts, you'll get to the opposite of where you started without being noticed, more easily than if you move in one big leap. PHAEDRUS: How could it be otherwise? SOCRATES: Then anyone who intends to deceive someone else, while not being deceived himself, needs to know precisely the resemblances and differences among the things that exist. PHAEDRUS: Yes, that's necessary. SOCRATES: But will he really be capable of that, not knowing the truth about each thing, distinguishing the small and large resemblance of what he doesn't know among other things he also doesn't know? PHAEDRUS: Impossible. SOCRATES: So it's clear that for those who hold opinions at odds with the facts and are deceived, this condition has crept in through certain resemblances. PHAEDRUS: That's certainly how it happens. SOCRATES: Is there any way, then, that someone will become skilled at shifting people's minds bit by bit through resemblances, leading them each time away from what's true toward its opposite — or himself escaping this — without having first come to know what each of the things that exist actually is? PHAEDRUS: Never. SOCRATES: So the man who doesn't know the truth, my friend, but has only hunted down opinions, will produce, it seems, some ridiculous and craftless version of the art of speaking. PHAEDRUS: That's likely. SOCRATES: Would you like us, then, to look in the speech of Lysias that you're carrying, and in the ones we ourselves spoke, for some example of what we're calling craftless and what's genuinely crafted? PHAEDRUS: Yes, more than anything — since as it is we're speaking rather bare, without enough examples in hand. SOCRATES: And in fact, by some good luck, it seems, the two speeches that were given do contain an example of just how someone who knows the truth might lead his listeners along, playfully, through his words. And I myself, Phaedrus, put this down to the local gods — perhaps even the prophets of the Muses, the singers over our heads, have breathed this gift into us; for I certainly have no share myself in any craft of speaking. PHAEDRUS: Let it be as you say — just show me what you mean. SOCRATES: Come now, read me the beginning of Lysias's speech. PHAEDRUS: "You know my situation, and you've heard how I think it will benefit us if this happens. I ask not to be denied what I'm requesting simply because I don't happen to be in love with you. Lovers change their minds once—" SOCRATES: Stop there. Now we should say where exactly this man goes wrong and makes his speech craftless — right?
PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then isn't this much obvious to everyone: that on some matters of this kind we're of one mind, and on others we're at war with each other? PHAEDRUS: I think I follow what you mean, but say it more plainly. SOCRATES: When someone says the word "iron" or "silver," don't we all think of the same thing? PHAEDRUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: But what about when someone says "just" or "good"? Don't we scatter in different directions and disagree with each other, and even with ourselves? PHAEDRUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: So on some things we're in tune, and on others not. PHAEDRUS: That's right. SOCRATES: Then in which of the two are we more easily deceived, and in which does rhetoric have greater power? PHAEDRUS: Clearly in the matters where we wander. SOCRATES: So anyone who means to take up the art of rhetoric must first have marked out these two kinds systematically, and grasped some defining feature of each — the kind in which the multitude is bound to wander, and the kind in which it isn't. PHAEDRUS: That would certainly be a fine thing to have understood, Socrates, whoever grasps it. SOCRATES: And next, I think, when faced with a particular case, he mustn't miss it but must sharply perceive which of the two kinds whatever he's about to speak of belongs to. PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then — shall we say that love belongs among the disputed matters, or the undisputed ones? PHAEDRUS: Among the disputed, surely — or do you think you'd have been free to say what you just said about it, that it's harmful to the beloved and to the lover, and then turn around and say it's actually the greatest of goods? SOCRATES: Very well put. But tell me this too — because, what with my being possessed, I don't quite remember — did I define love at the start of my speech? PHAEDRUS: Yes, by Zeus, most emphatically. SOCRATES: My, how much more skilled at speaking you make the Nymphs of Achelous and Pan the son of Hermes out to be than Lysias son of Cephalus! Or am I wrong, and Lysias too, at the start of his speech on love, forced us to suppose love was some one definite thing — whatever he wanted it to be — and then, having settled on that, worked out the whole rest of his speech accordingly? Shall we read his opening again? PHAEDRUS: If you like — though what you're looking for isn't there. SOCRATES: Read it, so I can hear it from him directly.
PHAEDRUS: "You know how things stand with me, and you've heard how I think it would benefit us if this came about. I claim I shouldn't be denied what I'm asking for simply because I don't happen to be in love with you. For men who are in love regret the favors they've done once their desire has run its course — " SOCRATES: Well, he certainly seems far from doing what we're after — he doesn't even swim from the beginning, but from the end, on his back, working backward through the speech, starting from the point where a lover, already finished with the affair, would be addressing his boy. Or did I say nothing, Phaedrus, dear heart? PHAEDRUS: Well, Socrates, it is at least an ending, what he's making his speech about. SOCRATES: And the rest? Don't the parts of the speech seem tossed together at random? Does the second point seem to need to come second by some necessity, or any of the other things said? To me — though I know nothing about it — it seemed that the writer said whatever came to him next without much shame. But do you know of some rule of composition by which he set these points down one after another in this order? PHAEDRUS: You flatter me, thinking I'm capable of seeing through his work that precisely. SOCRATES: But this much, I think, you would grant: that every speech ought to be put together like a living creature, with a body of its own, so that it's neither headless nor footless, but has a middle and extremities, composed so as to fit each other and the whole. PHAEDRUS: How could it be otherwise? SOCRATES: Consider, then, whether your friend's speech is like that or not, and you'll find it no different from the epitaph some say is inscribed for Midas the Phrygian. PHAEDRUS: Which one is that, and what's peculiar about it? SOCRATES: It goes like this: "A bronze maiden am I, and I lie upon Midas's tomb. As long as water flows and tall trees grow green, remaining right here on this much-wept grave, I will announce to passersby that Midas lies buried here." You notice, I imagine, that it makes no difference which line is said first or last. PHAEDRUS: You're mocking our speech, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, so you won't be annoyed, let's leave that one aside — though I think it holds plenty of examples one could profitably look to, if one tried not to imitate them too closely — and let's turn to the other speeches. There was something in them, I think, worth noticing for anyone who wants to study speeches.
PHAEDRUS: What exactly do you mean? SOCRATES: The two were opposites, in a way: one argued that favor should be granted to the lover, the other that it should go to the one who isn't in love. PHAEDRUS: And very manfully too. SOCRATES: I thought you'd say the true word — madly. That's exactly what I was after. We said, didn't we, that love is a kind of madness? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And there are two kinds of madness — one arising from human sickness, the other from a divine disruption of our ordinary habits. PHAEDRUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And of the divine kind we distinguished four parts belonging to four gods — prophetic inspiration from Apollo, ritual madness from Dionysus, poetic madness from the Muses, and a fourth from Aphrodite and Love — and we said this erotic madness was the best of all. And somehow, likening the experience of love to something — perhaps touching on some truth, though perhaps carried off in another direction too — we mixed together a speech not altogether unpersuasive, and offered up a kind of mythic hymn, in measured and reverent terms, to our mutual master, Love, guardian of beautiful boys, Phaedrus. PHAEDRUS: And it was no unpleasant thing for me to hear, either. SOCRATES: Then let's take this point up right away: how the speech managed to pass from blame to praise. PHAEDRUS: What exactly do you mean by that? SOCRATES: To me it looks as if the rest was really said in play — but some of what was said by chance touches on two forms, and if one could grasp their power by art, that wouldn't be without charm. PHAEDRUS: Which forms do you mean? SOCRATES: The ability to take in at a single view, and bring under one form, things that are scattered in many places, so that by defining each thing one can make clear whatever one wishes to teach about at any given time — just as, a moment ago, in speaking of Love, whether well or badly said, our speech was at least able to say something clear and consistent with itself because of this. PHAEDRUS: And what is the other form you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: The ability, again, to cut things up by forms, along their natural joints, and not to try to break any part, in the manner of a bad butcher — but rather, just as our two speeches took, in common, one single form for the mindless side of the soul, and just as, out of one body, a pair of limbs naturally grow that share a name — some called left, some called right — so too our two speeches treated derangement as one form naturally present in us; one speech, cutting off the portion on the left, went on cutting it further until it found within it a kind of love rightly called "left-handed," and denounced it, quite justly; while the other led us into the region on the right side of madness, and, discovering a love that shares its name with the first but is in fact divine, held it out and praised it as the cause of the greatest goods for us. PHAEDRUS: Very true. SOCRATES: Now I myself, Phaedrus, am a lover of these divisions and collections, so that I may be able to speak and to think; and if I judge anyone else capable of seeing what is naturally one and many, that man I pursue, "following in his footsteps as if he were a god." And whether those who can do this are rightly called by this name or not, god knows — but up to now I've been calling them dialecticians. Now tell me what one ought to call what you've learned from Lysias and me — or is this that very thing, the art of speeches, which Thrasymachus and the rest use to become clever speakers themselves, and to make others so, provided they're willing to bring gifts as to kings? PHAEDRUS: Kingly men, certainly, but hardly knowledgeable about what you're asking. But this form you seem to me right to call dialectic; the rhetorical form, though, still seems to escape us. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Surely there could be something fine that, though set apart from these, is still grasped by art? At any rate neither of us should dismiss it without honor — we should say what indeed remains of rhetoric. PHAEDRUS: Oh, plenty remains, Socrates, at least in what's written in the handbooks on the art of speaking. SOCRATES: And you're right to remind me. First, I believe, there's the preamble — how it should be spoken at the beginning of a speech. That's what you mean, isn't it — these fine points of the art? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Second, the narration, and testimony to back it up; third, proofs; fourth, probabilities; and then confirmation and further confirmation, I believe, is what the best word-craftsman of Byzantium calls them. PHAEDRUS: You mean the worthy Theodorus?
SOCRATES: Of course. And refutation and counter-refutation, how they should be handled in accusation and defense. And shall we not bring in the excellent Evenus of Paros, who first discovered indirect suggestion and indirect praise — some say he also composes indirect blame in verse, as an aid to memory, for he's a clever man? Shall we let Tisias and Gorgias sleep, who saw that probabilities deserve more honor than truths, who make small things appear great and great things small by the force of language, who present new things in an old style and old things in a new one, and who invented both compression of speech and boundless length on any subject? Prodicus laughed once when he heard me say this, and claimed he alone had discovered what speeches require in the way of art: that they should be neither long nor short, but of moderate length. PHAEDRUS: Very wise indeed, Prodicus. SOCRATES: And shall we not mention Hippias? I think the stranger from Elis would agree with him. PHAEDRUS: Why wouldn't he? SOCRATES: And how shall we describe Polus's verbal museum — his doubling of words, his maxims, his figures of speech — and the vocabulary Licymnius gave him as a gift for crafting fine phrasing? PHAEDRUS: But weren't there also things of Protagoras's kind, Socrates, of that sort? SOCRATES: A certain correctness of diction, my boy, and many other fine things. As for speeches that drag old age and poverty along to stir pity, the strength of the Chalcedonian seems to me to have mastered that art with skill; the man has also proved terribly able to rouse many people to anger at once, and then, when they're angered, to charm them back with incantations, as he used to say; and he's most capable, too, at both leveling slanders and clearing them away. As for the conclusion of speeches, everyone seems to have agreed on it in common, though some call it recapitulation and others give it some other name. PHAEDRUS: You mean summing up each point at the end, to remind the hearers of what's been said? SOCRATES: That's what I mean — and anything else you can add about the art of speeches. PHAEDRUS: Only small things, not worth mentioning.
SOCRATES: Let's leave the small stuff aside, then, and look at this larger question in full daylight: what power does this art actually have, and when does it have it? PHAEDRUS: A very considerable power, Socrates, at least in gatherings of the crowd. SOCRATES: It does have that. But look here, my good man — see whether the fabric of their claims seems as full of holes to you as it does to me. PHAEDRUS: Just show me. SOCRATES: Tell me this. Suppose someone went up to your friend Eryximachus, or to his father Acumenus, and said: 'I know how to apply certain things to bodies that will heat them or cool them, as I please, and make them vomit if I decide to, or purge them from below, and any number of other things like that — and because I know these things I claim to be a doctor, and to be able to make anyone else a doctor too, by handing on this knowledge of mine.' What do you suppose they'd say on hearing that? PHAEDRUS: What else but ask whether he also knows who to do each of these things to, and when, and how far to go? SOCRATES: And if he said, 'Not at all — I expect that whoever learns these things from me will be able to do what you're asking on his own'? PHAEDRUS: I imagine they'd say the man is out of his mind — he's heard something from a book somewhere, or stumbled on some drug recipes, and thinks he's become a doctor, when he understands nothing of the art. SOCRATES: And what if someone went up to Sophocles and Euripides and said he knows how to compose enormously long speeches on a trifling subject and very short ones on a great subject, pitiful when he wants, and, on the other hand, terrifying and threatening, and so on — and thinks that in teaching this he's handing on the composition of tragedy? PHAEDRUS: They too, I think, Socrates, would laugh at anyone who imagined tragedy was anything other than the fitting arrangement of these elements with each other and with the whole. SOCRATES: But I don't think they'd scold him crudely — rather the way a musician, coming across a man who thinks he understands harmony because he happens to know how to produce the highest and lowest possible notes on a string, wouldn't say harshly, 'You wretch, you're out of your mind,' but, being a musician, would say more gently: 'My good fellow, it's true that anyone who's going to understand harmony must know these things too, but someone in your position need not understand the first thing about harmony itself. What you know are the necessary preliminaries to harmony, not harmony itself.' PHAEDRUS: Quite right.
SOCRATES: And in just the same way Sophocles would tell anyone showing off to them that what he knows are the preliminaries to tragedy, not tragedy itself; and Acumenus would say the preliminaries to medicine, not medicine itself. PHAEDRUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And what about honey-voiced Adrastus, or Pericles for that matter — if they heard the fine techniques we were just going through, the compressed styles and the vivid-imagery styles and all the rest we said needed examining in full daylight — do you think they'd react the way you and I would, and, out of sheer crudeness, blurt out some uneducated remark against the people who've written these things down and teach them as the art of rhetoric? Or, being wiser than we are, would they rebuke us instead, saying: 'Phaedrus and Socrates, you shouldn't be so harsh — you should make allowances, if some people, not knowing how to conduct a discussion, have proven unable to define what rhetoric actually is, and as a result of this deficiency, possessing only the necessary preliminaries to the art, they've imagined they've discovered rhetoric itself, and in teaching these preliminaries to others they believe they've taught them rhetoric completely, and that the real work — speaking persuasively about each particular case and assembling the whole into a unified composition — is nothing at all, something their students must supply for themselves in their speeches.' PHAEDRUS: Well, Socrates, it does seem likely that this is more or less what the art these men teach and write about as rhetoric amounts to, and I think what you say is true. But how, and from where, could one actually acquire the art of the true rhetorician, the truly persuasive speaker? SOCRATES: As for having the capacity to become a complete competitor in this, Phaedrus, it's likely — indeed probably necessary — that it works the same way as in everything else: if you have a natural aptitude for rhetoric, you'll become a distinguished speaker once you add knowledge and practice; whatever of these you lack, in that respect you'll fall short. But so far as there's an art to it, the method doesn't seem to me to lie in the direction Lysias and Thrasymachus are going. PHAEDRUS: Then which direction does it lie in? SOCRATES: It's likely, my good man, that Pericles became the most accomplished of all in rhetoric, and for good reason. PHAEDRUS: Why is that?
SOCRATES: All the great arts require, in addition, a good deal of talk and speculation about nature at large — this loftiness of mind and this thoroughgoing effectiveness seem to come from somewhere in that direction. This is exactly what Pericles acquired on top of his natural gifts. Falling in, I think, with Anaxagoras, who was a man of just that sort, and getting his fill of speculation about the heavens, and arriving at the nature of mind and intelligence — the very things Anaxagoras talked about at such length — he drew from that source whatever was relevant to the art of speaking. PHAEDRUS: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: The same approach applies to medicine as to rhetoric. PHAEDRUS: How so? SOCRATES: In both, one must analyze a nature — the nature of the body in the one case, the nature of the soul in the other — if you're going to proceed not merely by knack and experience but by genuine art, supplying health and strength to the body by means of medicines and regimen, and supplying the soul, by means of arguments and lawful practices, with whatever conviction and virtue you want to instill. PHAEDRUS: That's likely, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then do you think it's possible to understand the nature of the soul adequately without understanding the nature of the whole? PHAEDRUS: If we're to trust Hippocrates, of the school of Asclepius, not even the body can be understood apart from that method. SOCRATES: He's right to say so, my friend. Still, one should examine what the argument itself says, and see whether it agrees with Hippocrates. PHAEDRUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Then consider what it is that Hippocrates — and true reasoning — actually say about nature. Isn't this how one must think about the nature of anything at all? First, is the thing about which we intend to become skilled ourselves, and capable of making others skilled, simple or complex? Then, if it's simple, we must examine its power — what it is naturally suited to act upon and how, or what it's suited to be acted upon by and by what. And if it has several forms, we must enumerate them, and then, as with the simple case, see for each one what it naturally does and to what, or what it naturally undergoes and from what. PHAEDRUS: That does seem likely, Socrates. SOCRATES: At any rate, any method that skips this would resemble the progress of a blind man. But surely one who pursues any subject by art should not be compared to someone blind or deaf — clearly, anyone who teaches speech-making as an art will show with precision the essential nature of that to which he means to apply his speeches; and this, presumably, will be the soul. PHAEDRUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: So all his effort is directed entirely at this — he's trying to produce conviction in the soul. Isn't that right? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Clearly, then, Thrasymachus, or anyone else who seriously teaches an art of rhetoric, will first describe and depict the soul with total precision, showing whether it is by nature one and uniform, or, like the shape of the body, takes many forms — for this is what we mean by demonstrating its nature. PHAEDRUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And second, what it naturally does to something, or what it undergoes from something. PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Third, having classified the kinds of speeches and the kinds of soul, and their various conditions, he'll go through all the causes, fitting each type to each, and teaching which kind of soul is necessarily persuaded by which kind of speech, and for what reason — why this one is convinced and that one resists. PHAEDRUS: That would certainly be the ideal way to have it, it seems. SOCRATES: Indeed, my friend — nothing demonstrated or spoken in any other way, on this or any other subject, will ever be spoken or written with genuine art. But the writers you've been listening to, the current crop, are cunning, and they conceal the fact that they know the soul extremely well. So until they speak and write in this manner, let's not believe that they write with art. PHAEDRUS: What manner is that? SOCRATES: The exact words are not easy to produce, but I'm willing to say how one must write, if it's to be as scientific as possible. PHAEDRUS: Go on, then. SOCRATES: Since the power of speech is in fact a leading of the soul, anyone who intends to become a rhetorician must know how many kinds of soul there are. There are so many, of such and such kinds, which is why some people turn out one way and others another; and once these have been distinguished in this way, there are, correspondingly, so many kinds of speeches, each of a certain sort. People of one type are easily persuaded toward certain conclusions by speeches of a certain sort, for a certain reason, while people of another type are hard to persuade for other reasons. One must grasp all this adequately, and then observe these types actually at work in real situations and being put into practice, and be able to follow them with sharp perception — otherwise nothing more is gained than what he heard back when he was merely being lectured on the theory.
SOCRATES: And when he's able to say adequately what sort of person is persuaded by what sort of argument, and, recognizing someone present, can point out to himself, 'This is that very type, that very nature, we talked about then — now actually here before me — to whom I must apply these particular arguments in this particular way to produce that particular conviction' — once he has all this, and adds to it a sense of the right moments for speaking and for holding back, and knows when compression is called for and when appeals to pity, when exaggeration for effect, and the right and wrong occasions for each of the styles he's learned — then, and only then, has the art been brought to full and complete perfection, and not before. But if anyone falls short in any of this, whether in speaking, teaching, or writing, and yet claims to be speaking by art, the one who refuses to believe him has the better of it. 'Well then,' our writer might say, 'is that how it seems to you, Phaedrus and Socrates? Should the art of speaking not be accepted in some other way?' PHAEDRUS: There's no other way it could be, Socrates — though it appears to be no small undertaking. SOCRATES: True. And that's exactly why one must turn every argument over, upside down and every which way, and examine whether some easier and shorter road toward it appears anywhere, so as not to go the long, rough way for nothing when a short, smooth one is available. And if you have any help to offer, from something you've heard from Lysias or anyone else, try to recall it and tell me. PHAEDRUS: For the sake of trying, I could, but not as things stand right now. SOCRATES: Then would you like me to tell you an argument I've heard from some people concerned with these matters? PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: There's a saying, Phaedrus, that it's only fair to speak up even for the wolf. PHAEDRUS: Then you do just that. SOCRATES: Well, they say there's no need to make such a solemn business of it, or take such a long way round from on high — since, as we said at the very start of this discussion, the man who intends to be an adequate rhetorician has no need whatsoever to share in the truth about what's just or good, or about people who are so by nature or upbringing. In the courts, they say, nobody cares in the least about the truth of any of this — only about what's persuasive. And that is the plausible, which is what the man who intends to speak by art must attend to. Indeed, sometimes one shouldn't even mention the actual facts, if they happen not to be plausible, but only the plausible version, whether prosecuting or defending; and whatever one says, one must pursue the plausible and let the truth go hang — since doing this consistently, throughout the whole speech, is what secures the entire art.
PHAEDRUS: Socrates, you've gone right through the very things that the professionals in speechwriting claim as their own — it reminded me that we touched on this briefly before, and yet the experts in the field think it's an enormous matter. SOCRATES: But surely you've walked through Tisias himself with great care. Then let Tisias tell us this too — does the probable mean anything other than what the majority happens to believe? PHAEDRUS: What else could it mean? SOCRATES: And it was this clever and technical discovery, it seems, that led him to write: if a weak but brave man beats up a strong but cowardly one, robs him of his cloak or something else, and is hauled into court, neither party should tell the truth — the coward shouldn't admit he was beaten up by the brave man alone, but should argue that there were two of them, while the brave man should counter that only the two of them were present and fall back on the line, 'How could a man like me have attacked a man like him?' The coward, of course, won't confess his own cowardice, but in trying to invent some other lie he'll probably hand his opponent an opening to catch him out. And all the other cases that go by the name of technique are, I imagine, of just this sort. Isn't that so, Phaedrus? PHAEDRUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well, Tisias — or whoever else it really is, and whatever name he likes to go by — seems to have hit upon a remarkably well-hidden art. Still, my friend, should we say something to him, or not — PHAEDRUS: Say what? SOCRATES: This: 'Tisias, long before you came along, we ourselves were saying that this so-called probability gets its hold on the crowd through its resemblance to truth — and we just went through the point that the person who knows the truth is in every case the one best equipped to find the resemblances. So if you have something else to say about the art of speaking, we'd be glad to hear it; but if not, we'll stick with what we just worked out — that unless someone can enumerate the types of people who will be listening, divide existing things according to their forms, and grasp each particular thing under a single unifying idea, he will never be skilled in speech to the degree a human being can be. And he will never acquire this without a great deal of hard work — work that the sensible man should undertake not for the sake of speaking and acting before other men, but so that he may be able to say what is pleasing to the gods, and act in every way, as far as he can, so as to please them.'
SOCRATES: For it isn't the case, Tisias, as those wiser than we are say, that a sensible man should practice his craft to please his fellow slaves — except incidentally — but rather to please masters who are good, and born of good stock. So don't be surprised if the road is long; it must be traveled for great ends, not for the ones you have in mind. Still, the argument tells us this destination will be reached, if one is willing, and that these greater results will follow from those very things. PHAEDRUS: What you say strikes me as altogether splendid, Socrates — assuming someone is capable of it. SOCRATES: But then again, even to attempt fine things is itself fine, whatever one happens to suffer in the attempt. PHAEDRUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, that should be enough on the subject of skill and lack of skill in speeches. PHAEDRUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: What remains is the question of propriety and impropriety in writing — under what conditions it turns out well, and under what conditions poorly. Isn't that right? PHAEDRUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you know, then, how you might best please a god in what you do or say about speeches? PHAEDRUS: Not at all — do you? SOCRATES: I can tell you what I've heard from the men of old, though only they themselves know the truth of it. But if we could discover the truth ourselves, would we still care at all about human opinions? PHAEDRUS: That's a silly question — just tell me what you say you've heard. SOCRATES: Well, I heard that at Naucratis in Egypt there lived one of the ancient gods of that region — the one whose sacred bird they call the Ibis — and the name of this god was Theuth. He was the first to discover number and calculation, geometry and astronomy, and besides these, draughts and dice, and, above all, writing. Now the king of all Egypt at that time was Thamus, who ruled from the great city in the upper region that the Greeks call Egyptian Thebes, and they call the god himself Ammon. Theuth came to him and displayed his arts, saying they ought to be passed on to the rest of the Egyptians. Thamus asked what use each one had, and as Theuth explained them, he judged some well spoken and others not, criticizing this and praising that. Thamus is said to have had a great deal to say to Theuth about each art, both for and against — too much to go through here — but when they came to writing, Theuth said: 'This branch of learning, O king, will make the Egyptians wiser and will improve their memory, for I have discovered a remedy for both memory and wisdom.'
SOCRATES: But Thamus replied: 'O most skilled Theuth, one man has the ability to father the arts, but another has the ability to judge what measure of harm or benefit they hold for those who will use them. And now you, as father of writing, have out of goodwill said the very opposite of what it can actually do. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who learn it, through neglect of memory, since, trusting in writing, they will call things to mind no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks; what you have discovered is a remedy not for memory, but for reminding. And as for wisdom, you are giving your students the appearance of it, not the reality; for by taking in a great deal of information without proper teaching, they will appear to know a great deal when for the most part they know nothing, and they will be difficult to be around, since they have become men who seem wise instead of being wise.' PHAEDRUS: Socrates, you make up Egyptian tales, or tales from wherever you please, with the greatest of ease. SOCRATES: But they say, my friend, that at the shrine of Zeus at Dodona the first prophetic words came from an oak tree. The people of that time, not being wise like you young people today, were content in their simplicity to listen to an oak, or even a rock, so long as it spoke the truth. For you, apparently, it matters who is speaking and where he's from — you don't just consider whether what's said is so or not. PHAEDRUS: You're right to correct me, and it seems to me the matter of writing does stand just as the man from Thebes says. SOCRATES: So then, anyone who supposes he is leaving behind an art by writing it down, and anyone else who accepts it as though it will yield something clear and certain out of what has been written, must be full of a great deal of simple-mindedness, and truly ignorant of the prophecy of Ammon, if he imagines that written words amount to more than a reminder, for one who already knows, of the matters the writing is about. PHAEDRUS: Perfectly true. SOCRATES: For writing, Phaedrus, has this strange feature, which makes it truly like painting. The offspring of painting stand there as if alive, but if you question them, they maintain a most solemn silence. The same is true of written words. You might think they were speaking as if they had some understanding, but if you ask them anything about what they're saying, wanting to learn more, they just go on signifying that same single thing forever. And once a thing has been written, the composition is tossed about everywhere, reaching those who understand it as well as those for whom it's not at all suited, and it doesn't know how to address the right people and not others. And when it's mishandled or unfairly abused, it always needs its father to come to its defense; for it's incapable of guarding or helping itself. PHAEDRUS: That too is quite rightly said.
SOCRATES: Well then — do we see another kind of speech, a legitimate brother of this one, and notice by what process it comes about, and how much better and more capable it is by birth? PHAEDRUS: What kind of speech do you mean, and how does it come about? SOCRATES: The kind that is written together with knowledge in the soul of the learner — one capable of defending itself, and knowing to whom it should speak and before whom it should keep silent. PHAEDRUS: You mean the living, breathing speech of the man who knows, of which the written kind might fairly be called an image. SOCRATES: Exactly so. Now tell me this: would a sensible farmer, who cared about certain seeds and wanted them to bear fruit, plant them in earnest in some garden of Adonis in the heat of summer and take delight in watching them spring up beautiful in eight days? Or would he do that, if he did it at all, only as play and for the sake of a festival — while for the seeds he was serious about, he would use the proper art of farming, sow them in suitable ground, and be content to see, in the eighth month, what he had sown come to completion? PHAEDRUS: That's how he would do it, Socrates, I should think — seriously in one case, in some other way, as you say, in the other. SOCRATES: And shall we say that the man who has knowledge of what is just and fine and good has less sense than the farmer, when it comes to his own seeds? PHAEDRUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then he won't, in all seriousness, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen together with words that are unable to defend themselves by argument and unable to teach the truth adequately. PHAEDRUS: No, that's not likely at all. SOCRATES: No indeed. Rather, it seems he will sow and write his gardens of letters, when he does write them, for the sake of play — storing up reminders for himself, against the old age of forgetfulness, should it come to that, and for anyone else following the same track — and he will take pleasure in watching them grow up tender. And when others turn to other kinds of play, watering themselves with drinking parties and all else akin to that, he, it seems, will instead pass his time in play of the sort I'm describing. PHAEDRUS: A splendid kind of play indeed you're describing, Socrates, next to a poor one — the play of a man able to amuse himself with words, spinning tales about justice and the other things you mention.
SOCRATES: That's exactly how it is, my dear Phaedrus. But I think a far finer seriousness attends these matters, when someone, using the art of dialectic, takes a soul suited to it and plants and sows within it words joined with knowledge — words able to defend both themselves and the one who planted them, not barren but bearing seed, from which others grow in turn in other characters, sufficient to keep this seed forever immortal, and to make the one who has it as happy as it is possible for a human being to be. PHAEDRUS: What you describe now is finer still. SOCRATES: And now, Phaedrus, since we've agreed on these things, we can finally judge the matter we set out to examine. PHAEDRUS: Which matter? SOCRATES: The one we came here wanting to look into in the first place — so that we might examine the reproach leveled at Lysias concerning the writing of speeches, and consider speeches themselves, both those composed with skill and those without it. Now, what belongs to art and what doesn't seems to me to have been shown well enough. PHAEDRUS: So it seemed to me too — but remind me again how. SOCRATES: Not until someone knows the truth about each thing he speaks or writes about, and is able to define the whole of it in itself, and having defined it, knows how to cut it up again according to its natural kinds down to what can no longer be divided, and in the same way, having seen through the nature of the soul, discovers the form of speech suited to each nature, and so arranges and orders his speech, giving complex speeches to a complex soul and simple ones to a simple soul — not until then will it be possible for the whole class of speeches to be handled skillfully, so far as its nature allows, whether for teaching or for persuading, as our whole discussion up to now has shown. PHAEDRUS: Yes, that's exactly how it appeared to us. SOCRATES: And what about the question whether it's a fine or a shameful thing to speak and write speeches, and under what conditions this practice would rightly be called a reproach, or not — hasn't what we said a little earlier made that clear— PHAEDRUS: Made what clear? SOCRATES: That whether Lysias, or anyone else, ever has written or ever will write, privately or in a public capacity, laying down laws in the form of a political treatise, and believing there is great reliability and clarity in it — that in itself is a reproach to the writer, whoever says so or not. For to be ignorant of what is just and unjust, good and bad, whether awake or dreaming, cannot in truth escape being blameworthy, even if the whole crowd applauds it. PHAEDRUS: No, indeed it can't.
SOCRATES: But the man who thinks that in a written speech on any subject there must be much that is playful, and that no speech, whether in verse or prose, has ever been worth serious attention -- who thinks, too, that the speeches recited in public, without cross-examination or teaching, are meant only to persuade, and were never really composed to convey knowledge to those who already know the best of what is said -- but who reserves his real seriousness for the case where, teaching and learning are truly the aim, and words are truly written in the soul concerning what is just and beautiful and good -- such words alone he considers to have clarity and completeness and to be worth taking seriously, since they are, so to speak, his own legitimate children: first the one born within himself, if it has been found there, and then any offspring and siblings of that one that have grown, as they deserve, in other souls besides -- and who bids the rest of his writings good day -- that man, Phaedrus, is likely to be the sort of person that you and I might pray to become. PHAEDRUS: That is exactly what I want and pray for. SOCRATES: Well then, we have had our fill of playing with speeches for now. Go and tell Lysias that you and I went down to the spring and shrine of the Nymphs and heard words there, words that instructed us to say to Lysias -- and to anyone else who composes speeches -- and to Homer, and to anyone else who has composed poetry, whether spoken or sung, and third to Solon and whoever else has written political compositions calling them laws: if such a person composed his work knowing where the truth lies, and is able to come to its defense when questioned about what he has written, and can himself show by argument that his writings are of little worth, then he should not be called by a name taken from these writings, but rather by the name of what he has taken seriously. PHAEDRUS: Then what names do you give him? SOCRATES: To call him wise, Phaedrus, seems to me too grand a thing, fitting for a god alone; but to call him a lover of wisdom, or something of that sort, would suit him better and be more fitting. PHAEDRUS: And that's not at all off the mark. SOCRATES: And on the other hand, the man who has nothing more valuable than what he has composed or written, turning it over this way and that over time, gluing bits together and taking others apart -- him you would rightly call a poet, or a speechwriter, or a lawmaker. PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Tell this, then, to your friend. PHAEDRUS: And what about you? What will you do? We mustn't leave out your own friend either. SOCRATES: Which friend do you mean? PHAEDRUS: The handsome Isocrates. What will you announce to him, Socrates? What shall we say he is?
SOCRATES: Isocrates is still young, Phaedrus; but I am willing to say what I foresee for him. PHAEDRUS: What is that? SOCRATES: It seems to me that he has a nature superior to that of Lysias's kind of speeches, and that it is mixed, besides, with a nobler character; so it would be no surprise, as he grows older, if in the very kind of speeches he now attempts he should surpass, by as much as a grown man surpasses children, all who have ever put their hand to speechmaking -- and if that does not satisfy him, that some more divine impulse should carry him on to greater things. For by nature, my friend, there is a certain love of wisdom present in that man's mind. This, then, is the message I send from these gods here, to Isocrates as my favorite, and you may send yours, in turn, to Lysias as your own. PHAEDRUS: It will be done. But let us go, since the heat has grown gentler now. SOCRATES: Shouldn't we pray before setting out? PHAEDRUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Dear Pan, and all you other gods here present, grant that I become beautiful within; and as for what is outside me, may it be friendly to what is within. May I consider the wise man rich, and may I have as much gold as no one but a man of sound mind could bear to carry or spend. Do we need anything else, Phaedrus? For my part, I have prayed enough. PHAEDRUS: Pray the same for me too; friends hold all things in common. SOCRATES: Let us go.
MENO: Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is something that can be taught? Or if not taught, then trained into a person by practice? Or is it neither taught nor practiced, but comes to people by nature, or in some other way? SOCRATES: Meno, in times past the Thessalians had a fine reputation among the Greeks, admired for their horsemanship and their wealth. Now, it seems to me, they're admired for wisdom too — not least your friend Aristippus's fellow citizens, the Larisans. And you have Gorgias to thank for that. When he arrived in your city he won the devotion of your leading men as lovers of wisdom — the Aleuadae first, among them your own admirer Aristippus, and the rest of the Thessalians besides. And he's given you this habit too, of answering fearlessly and grandly whenever someone asks a question, the way people do who actually know the answer — since he offers himself to any Greek who wants to ask him anything at all, and never refuses to answer.
SOCRATES: But here, my dear Meno, it's just the opposite. A kind of drought of wisdom has settled on us, and it looks as though wisdom has packed up and left our part of the world for yours. If you tried asking that question of anyone here, there's no one who wouldn't laugh and say: 'Stranger, you must think I'm some blessed soul, to know whether virtue can be taught, or however it is people come to have it — but I'm so far from knowing whether it can be taught or not that I don't even know what virtue itself actually is, at all.' And that's exactly my own condition, Meno. I share in my fellow citizens' poverty on this score, and I blame myself for knowing nothing whatsoever about virtue. And if I don't know what a thing is, how could I know what qualities it has? Do you think it's possible for someone who has no idea at all who Meno is to know whether he's handsome, or rich, or well-born, or the opposite of these things? Does that seem possible to you? MENO: Not to me. But Socrates, is it really true you don't even know what virtue is? Is that the report we're to carry home about you? SOCRATES: Not only that, my friend, but that I've never yet met anyone else who did know, as far as I can tell. MENO: What? Didn't you meet Gorgias when he was here? SOCRATES: I did. MENO: And you didn't think he knew? SOCRATES: I don't have a very good memory, Meno, so I can't tell you offhand what I thought at the time. But he probably does know, and you know what he used to say — so remind me how he put it. Or better, tell me yourself, since presumably your view matches his. MENO: It does. SOCRATES: Then let's leave him out of it, since he isn't here anyway. But you yourself, Meno, in the gods' name — what do you say virtue is? Tell me, and don't begrudge me the answer, so that I may have the good luck of being proven wrong in the happiest way possible — if it turns out that you and Gorgias do know, while I've been going around saying I've never met anyone who did. MENO: Well, it's not hard to say, Socrates. First, if you want the virtue of a man, that's easy: a man's virtue is to be capable of managing the city's affairs, and in doing so to benefit his friends and harm his enemies, while taking care that nothing of the sort happens to himself. Or if you want the virtue of a woman, that's not hard to explain either: she must manage the household well, keeping safe what's inside it and being obedient to her husband. And there's a different virtue for a child, whether a girl or a boy, and another for an older man — a free man's virtue, if you like, or if you prefer, a slave's.
MENO: And there are a great many other virtues besides, so there's no shortage of things to say about what virtue is. For each activity and each stage of life, in relation to each task, there's a virtue suited to each of us — and the same goes, I think, Socrates, for vice as well. SOCRATES: I seem to have had a great stroke of luck, Meno — I was looking for one single virtue, and I've turned up a whole swarm of them sitting there in your keeping. But tell me, Meno, sticking with this image of the swarm — if I asked you what a bee actually is, in its essence, and you told me there are many different kinds of bees, what would you say if I then asked: is it by being bees that they're many and various and different from one another? Or do they not differ at all in that respect, but rather in some other way — in beauty, say, or size, or something of that kind? Tell me, what would you answer if asked that? MENO: I'd say this: that as bees, they don't differ from one another at all. SOCRATES: And suppose I then said: then tell me this very thing, Meno — that in which they don't differ at all, but are all the same — what do you say that is? You'd surely have some answer for me? MENO: I would. SOCRATES: Well, it's the same with the virtues. Even if they're many and various, they all share one single form that makes them virtues — and it's to that form, presumably, that one ought to look in answering the question of what virtue really is, when someone asks it. Or don't you follow what I mean? MENO: I think I follow — though I don't yet have as firm a grasp of the question as I'd like. SOCRATES: And does it seem to you this way only about virtue, Meno — that there's one virtue for a man and another for a woman and so on — or is it the same with health, and size, and strength as well? Does health seem to you to be one thing in a man and another in a woman? Or is it the same form everywhere, whether it's found in a man or in anyone else at all? MENO: Health seems to me to be the same, both for man and for woman. SOCRATES: And what about size and strength? If a woman is strong, will she be strong by that same form and that same strength? By 'the same' I mean this: strength doesn't differ at all as strength, whether it's found in a man or in a woman. Or does it seem to you to differ at all? MENO: Not to me.
SOCRATES: And will virtue differ at all, as virtue, whether it's found in a child or an old man, in a woman or a man? MENO: Somehow, Socrates, this case seems to me no longer quite like those others. SOCRATES: Really? Didn't you say that a man's virtue was to manage a city well, and a woman's to manage a household? MENO: I did. SOCRATES: Well, is it possible to manage a city well, or a household, or anything else at all, without managing it with restraint and justice? MENO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: So if they manage justly and with restraint, they'll manage by means of justice and restraint? MENO: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Then both of them need the same things, if they're to be good — the woman and the man alike — namely justice and restraint. MENO: It appears so. SOCRATES: And what about a child and an old man? Could they ever become good while being undisciplined and unjust? MENO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But by being restrained and just? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So all human beings are good in the same way — since it's by getting hold of the same things that they become good. MENO: So it seems. SOCRATES: And surely, if their virtue weren't the same, they wouldn't be good in the same way. MENO: No, they wouldn't. SOCRATES: Since, then, the virtue of all is the same, try to say — try to recall — what Gorgias says it is, and you along with him. MENO: What else but this: to be capable of ruling over people — if indeed you're looking for some single thing that holds in every case. SOCRATES: Well, that is exactly what I'm looking for. But is it also a child's virtue, Meno, and a slave's, to be capable of ruling over his master? And do you think someone ruling would still be a slave? MENO: That doesn't seem right to me at all, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, it's not likely, my good man. Consider this too: you say virtue is 'being capable of ruling.' Shouldn't we add to that 'justly, and not unjustly'? MENO: I think so, yes — for justice, Socrates, is virtue. SOCRATES: Is it virtue, Meno, or a virtue? MENO: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: What I'd mean about anything else. Take roundness, for instance — I would say it's a shape, not simply that it is shape, full stop. And I'd say it that way because there are other shapes as well. MENO: And you'd be right to put it that way — just as I say there isn't only justice but other virtues as well.
SOCRATES: What are these others? Tell me. Just as I could tell you other shapes, if you asked me to, so you tell me other virtues. MENO: Well, courage seems to me to be a virtue, and restraint, and wisdom, and magnificence, and a great many others besides. SOCRATES: We're in the same fix again, Meno — we've once more turned up many virtues while looking for one, though by a different route than before. But the one virtue that runs through all of these, we still can't find. MENO: No — I still can't manage, Socrates, to grasp one single virtue covering every case, the way you're asking, the way I could with those other things. SOCRATES: Naturally enough. But I'll do my best, if I can, to help us make some progress. You understand, I take it, that the same holds for everything: if someone asked you the question I just asked — what is shape, Meno? — and you told him 'roundness,' and he then asked you, as I did, whether roundness is shape or a shape, you'd surely say it's a shape. MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And that's because there are other shapes as well? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And if he pressed you further to say what kinds, you'd tell him? MENO: I would. SOCRATES: And suppose he asked the same question about color — what it is — and when you said 'white,' he then asked in turn: is white a color, or a color? You'd say 'a color,' because there happen to be other colors too? MENO: I would. SOCRATES: And if he told you to name other colors, you'd name others, which are no less colors than white is? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Now suppose he pursued the argument the way I have, and said: we always end up with many things, but don't answer me that way — since you call all these many things by one single name, and say that not one of them fails to be a shape, even though they're opposites of one another, tell me what this is, this thing that contains the round no less than the straight, this thing you call shape — and you don't say the round is any more a shape than the straight is. Isn't that how you'd put it? MENO: I would. SOCRATES: Then when you speak that way, are you not saying that the round is no more round than straight, nor the straight any more straight than round? MENO: Certainly not, Socrates. SOCRATES: But you are saying that the round is no more a shape than the straight is, nor one more than the other. MENO: That's true.
SOCRATES: So what is this thing, then, whose name is 'shape'? Try to say. Suppose someone asked you the same question about shape or color, and you answered, 'But I don't even understand what you want, sir, and I don't know what you mean' -- he might well be puzzled and say, 'Don't you understand that I'm looking for the one thing that is the same in all these cases?' Or can't you even answer that, Meno, if someone asked you: what is it that is the same in the round and the straight and the other things you call shapes? Try to say it, so you'll get some practice for answering about virtue. MENO: No, you say it, Socrates. SOCRATES: You want me to do you the favor? MENO: I certainly do. SOCRATES: And will you then be willing to tell me about virtue in return? MENO: I will. SOCRATES: Then I should put some effort into it -- it's worth the trouble. MENO: It certainly is. SOCRATES: Come then, let's try to tell you what shape is. See whether you accept this account of it: let this be shape for us -- the one thing among all beings that always follows along with color. Is that enough for you, or are you after something else? I myself would be satisfied if you gave me an answer like that about virtue. MENO: But that's a silly answer, Socrates. SOCRATES: How do you mean? MENO: Because shape, on your account, is whatever always follows along with color. Fine -- but suppose someone said he didn't know what color was either, and was just as stuck about it as about shape -- what do you think your answer would have accomplished? SOCRATES: The truth, as far as I'm concerned. And if the questioner happened to be one of those clever debaters, fond of contention and showing off, I'd tell him: I've said my piece; if I'm wrong, it's your job to take up the argument and refute it. But when two people are friends, as you and I are now, and want to talk things through together, the answers need to be gentler, more suited to genuine discussion. And perhaps the more properly dialectical way is not just to answer truly, but to answer through things the person being asked will agree that he knows. That's how I'll try to put it to you. Tell me: do you have a word for 'end'? I mean something like a limit, an extremity -- I take all these to mean the same thing. Prodicus might quibble with us about it, but you, at any rate, speak of something as having been limited, or having come to an end. That's the sort of thing I mean -- nothing subtle. MENO: Yes, I do use it that way, and I think I understand what you mean.
SOCRATES: Well then -- do you have a word for 'flat surface,' and again another for 'solid,' the sort of things they use in geometry? MENO: I do. SOCRATES: Then from these you should already be able to grasp what I mean by shape. For I say of every shape, that whatever a solid comes to an end in, that is shape -- or, putting it in a single phrase, I'd say shape is the limit of a solid. MENO: And what do you say color is, Socrates? SOCRATES: You're a bully, Meno -- you order an old man around, making him answer, while you yourself won't take the trouble to recall and say what Gorgias claims virtue is. MENO: But once you've told me this, Socrates, I'll tell you. SOCRATES: Even blindfolded, Meno, a person could tell from the way you talk that you're handsome and still have lovers. MENO: Why do you say that? SOCRATES: Because all you ever do in conversation is give orders, the way spoiled young men do, playing the tyrant while their good looks last -- and no doubt you've also sized me up as a pushover for handsome men. Well, I'll indulge you and answer. MENO: Please do, by all means. SOCRATES: Would you like me to answer in Gorgias's manner, the style you'd find easiest to follow? MENO: I would -- why not? SOCRATES: You people speak of certain effluences from things, following Empedocles? MENO: Very much so. SOCRATES: And of passages into which and through which these effluences travel? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And that some of the effluences fit some of the passages, while others are too small or too large? MENO: That's so. SOCRATES: And you have a word for 'sight' too? MENO: I do. SOCRATES: From all this, then, 'grasp what I'm telling you,' as Pindar says. For color is an effluence from shapes, commensurate with sight and perceptible by it. MENO: That strikes me as an excellent answer, Socrates. SOCRATES: Perhaps it appeals to you because it's in a familiar style -- and I imagine you also realize that from it you could say what sound is, and smell, and many other such things. MENO: Quite so. SOCRATES: Yes, it's a showy answer, Meno, and that's why you like it better than the one about shape. MENO: I do. SOCRATES: But it isn't the better one, son of Alexidemus, or so I persuade myself -- the other is better. And I don't think you'd think otherwise either, if you didn't have to leave before the Mysteries, as you said yesterday, but could stay and be initiated.
MENO: Well, I would stay, Socrates, if you'd tell me many more things like that. SOCRATES: Then I certainly won't be lacking in eagerness, for your sake and my own, to say such things -- only I hope I'll be able to keep saying many more of them. But come now, try in turn to make good on your promise to me, by telling me, taken as a whole, what virtue is -- and stop making many things out of the one, the way people joke about those who break things apart. Instead, leave it whole and sound, and say what virtue is. You have the examples from me to go by. MENO: Well then, Socrates, it seems to me that virtue is, as the poet says, to delight in fine things and to have the power for them -- and I say this is virtue: to desire fine things and be capable of procuring them. SOCRATES: Do you mean that the one who desires fine things is a desirer of good things? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Meaning there are some who desire bad things, and others who desire good things? Don't all people, in your view, best of men, desire good things? MENO: Not in my view. SOCRATES: But some desire bad things? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Thinking the bad things are good, do you mean, or knowing they are bad and desiring them all the same? MENO: I think both happen. SOCRATES: Do you really think, Meno, that anyone, knowing bad things to be bad, desires them nonetheless? MENO: I certainly do. SOCRATES: Desires them how do you mean -- to come to possess them? MENO: To possess them -- what else? SOCRATES: Thinking that the bad things benefit the one they come to, or knowing that they harm whoever has them? MENO: Some think the bad things benefit them; others know they cause harm. SOCRATES: And do you think those who suppose bad things beneficial actually know that they are bad? MENO: No, I don't think that at all. SOCRATES: So clearly these people, who don't recognize the bad things as bad, don't desire the bad, but rather what they took to be good, which is in fact bad. So those who don't recognize it, and think it good, clearly desire the good. Isn't that so? MENO: It looks that way, in their case. SOCRATES: And what about those who, as you say, desire bad things while believing that the bad things harm whoever they come to -- surely they know they'll be harmed by them?
MENO: Necessarily. SOCRATES: But don't these people think that those who are harmed are wretched, precisely to the extent they're harmed? MENO: That too is necessary. SOCRATES: And the wretched are unhappy? MENO: I think so, yes. SOCRATES: Is there anyone who wants to be wretched and unhappy? MENO: I don't think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then no one wants bad things, Meno, if indeed no one wants to be that sort of person. For what else is being wretched but desiring bad things and getting them? MENO: You're probably right, Socrates -- no one wants bad things. SOCRATES: Now, didn't you just say a moment ago that virtue is wanting good things and being able to get them? MENO: Yes, I said that. SOCRATES: But given what's been said, the 'wanting' part belongs to everyone, and in that respect no one is any better than anyone else? MENO: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then clearly, if one person is better than another, it must be in respect of the ability. MENO: Quite so. SOCRATES: This, then, it seems, is virtue by your account: the ability to procure good things. MENO: I think that's exactly how it stands, Socrates, just as you now understand it. SOCRATES: Let's see, then, whether what you say is true -- you may well be right. You say that being able to procure good things is virtue? MENO: I do. SOCRATES: And by good things you mean things like health and wealth? MENO: Yes, and I mean acquiring gold and silver, and honors and offices in the city. SOCRATES: You don't mean any other sort of good things besides these? MENO: No, I mean all things of that kind. SOCRATES: Very well -- procuring gold and silver is virtue, according to Meno, the hereditary guest-friend of the Great King. But tell me, Meno, do you add to this 'procuring' the words 'justly and piously,' or does it make no difference to you, but even if someone procures these things unjustly, you'd call it virtue just the same? MENO: Certainly not, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then you'd call it vice. MENO: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So it seems that justice, or moderation, or piety, or some other part of virtue must attach to this procuring -- otherwise it won't be virtue, even though it does supply good things. MENO: Yes, how could it be virtue without these? SOCRATES: And failing to procure gold and silver, when it wouldn't be just to do so, for oneself or for another -- isn't this failure itself also virtue?
SOCRATES: So it's no more the procuring of such goods than the failure to procure them that would be virtue -- rather, it seems, whatever comes about with justice will be virtue, and whatever comes about without any such thing will be vice. MENO: It seems necessary, as you say. SOCRATES: Now didn't we say a little earlier that each of these -- justice and moderation and all the rest -- is a part of virtue? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Then, Meno, are you playing games with me? MENO: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Because just now, after I asked you not to break virtue into pieces or chop it up, and gave you examples of how you ought to answer, you paid no attention to that, and instead you tell me that virtue is being able to procure good things along with justice -- and this, you say, is a part of virtue? MENO: I do say that. SOCRATES: Then it follows from what you've agreed to, that doing whatever one does along with a part of virtue is itself virtue -- since you say justice is a part of virtue, and likewise each of the others. Why do I say this? Because when I asked you to tell me virtue as a whole, you're far from telling me what it is itself, and instead you say every action is virtue provided it's done along with a part of virtue -- as though you'd already told me what virtue as a whole is, and I'd already know it, just from your chopping it up into parts. So it seems to me you need to be asked the very same question again, from the beginning, dear Meno: what is virtue, if every action done with a part of virtue is virtue? For that's what it amounts to, when someone says that every action done with justice is virtue. Or don't you think you need the same question asked again, and instead suppose that someone can know a part of virtue, what it is, without knowing virtue itself? MENO: I don't think so. SOCRATES: For if you remember, when I answered you just now about shape, we rejected that kind of answer -- one that tries to answer by means of things still being investigated and not yet agreed upon. MENO: And we were right to reject it, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then don't you, my good friend, while virtue as a whole is still in question, think you can make it clear to anyone by answering through its parts, or by any other such approach -- you'll only need the same question asked again: what virtue is, that you're talking about, when you say what you say. Or don't I seem to be saying anything? MENO: You seem to me to be right. SOCRATES: Then answer again, from the beginning: what do you and your friend say virtue is?
MENO: Socrates, even before I met you, I used to hear that you do nothing but find yourself at a loss and bring everyone else to the same state. And now, it seems to me, you are working some spell on me, drugging me, simply casting a charm over me, so that I have become completely stuck. And if I may even make a little joke, you seem to me, in appearance and in every other way, exactly like that flat sting-ray of the sea. It numbs anyone who comes near and touches it, and you seem to have done something like that to me now, made me numb. Truly, both my soul and my tongue are numb, and I have nothing to answer you. Yet I have spoken about excellence countless times, in a great many speeches, before many people, and quite well too, or so I thought at the time. But now I cannot even say what it is at all. And I think you are wise not to sail off or travel away from here. If you were a foreigner behaving this way in another city, you would probably be arrested as a sorcerer. SOCRATES: You are a rascal, Meno, and you nearly fooled me. MENO: How do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: I know why you compared me that way. MENO: Why do you think? SOCRATES: So that I would compare you back. But I know this about all beautiful people: they enjoy being compared to things, since it works to their advantage—the images of beautiful things are beautiful too, I suppose. But I will not compare you back. As for me, if the sting-ray itself is numb and that is how it makes others numb too, then I resemble it. But if not, I don't. It isn't that I am myself resourceful and make others be at a loss; rather, I am utterly at a loss myself, and that is exactly how I make others be at a loss too. And so now, about excellence—what it is—I myself don't know, though perhaps you knew before you came into contact with me; but now you are like someone who doesn't know either. All the same, I am willing to examine it together with you and search out what in the world it is. MENO: But how will you search for something, Socrates, when you don't know at all what it is? Which of the things you don't know will you set up as your object of inquiry? And even if you happen to meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing you didn't know? SOCRATES: I understand what you mean to say, Meno. Do you see what a quarrelsome argument you are dragging in—that it is impossible for a person to search for either what he knows or what he doesn't know? He wouldn't search for what he knows, since he knows it, and there is no need of searching for that; nor for what he doesn't know, since he doesn't even know what he is to search for.
MENO: Well then, Socrates, does this argument seem well put to you? SOCRATES: Not to me. MENO: Can you say how it fails? SOCRATES: I can. I have heard from men and women who are wise about divine matters— MENO: Saying what? SOCRATES: Something true, I think, and beautiful. MENO: What is it, and who are the ones saying it? SOCRATES: Those who say it are among the priests and priestesses who have made it their concern to be able to give an account of the things they handle; and Pindar says it too, and many other poets, all those who are divinely inspired. What they say is this—but consider whether it seems true to you. They say that the soul of a human being is immortal, and at one time comes to an end—which people call dying—and at another is born again, but is never destroyed; and that because of this one must live out one's life as righteously as possible. For those from whom Persephone receives requital for ancient grief, in the ninth year she gives their souls back again to the sun above; and from these grow glorious kings and men mighty in strength and greatest in wisdom, and for the rest of time they are called sacred heroes by mankind. Since, then, the soul is immortal and has been born many times, and has seen all things both here and in the house of Hades—everything there is—there is nothing it has not learned. So it is no wonder that it is able to recollect, about excellence and about other things too, what it already knew before. For since the whole of nature is akin to itself, and the soul has learned everything, nothing prevents someone who recollects one single thing—what people call learning—from discovering all the rest for himself, provided he is courageous and does not tire in the search; for searching and learning, as it turns out, are entirely recollection. So one must not be persuaded by that quarrelsome argument, for it would make us lazy, and it is pleasant for soft-minded people to hear; but this other one makes us hard-working and inclined to search. Trusting that it is true, I am willing to search together with you into what excellence is. MENO: Yes, Socrates, but how do you mean this—that we do not learn, but that what we call learning is recollection? Can you teach me that this is really so?
SOCRATES: I just said, Meno, that you're a rascal, and now you ask me whether I can teach you—I, who say there is no such thing as teaching, only recollection—so that I will immediately appear to be contradicting myself. MENO: No, by Zeus, Socrates, I didn't say it looking at that, but out of habit. But if you have some way of showing me that it is as you say, show me. SOCRATES: Well, it isn't easy, but still I am willing to make the effort for your sake. Call over one of these many attendants of yours here, whichever one you like, so that I can demonstrate it to you using him. MENO: Certainly. Come here, you. SOCRATES: He is Greek, and speaks Greek? MENO: Very much so, indeed—born in my household. SOCRATES: Pay close attention to whether he seems to you to be recollecting or learning from me. MENO: I will pay attention. SOCRATES: Tell me, boy, do you know that a square figure is like this? BOY: I do. SOCRATES: Is a square figure, then, one that has all these lines equal, there being four of them? BOY: Certainly. SOCRATES: And doesn't it also have these lines through the middle equal? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: And couldn't such a figure be larger or smaller? BOY: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now if this side were two feet, and this side two feet, how many feet would the whole be? Look at it this way: if it were two feet this way, and only one foot that way, wouldn't the figure be just once two feet? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: But since it is two feet this way too, doesn't it become twice two? BOY: It does. SOCRATES: So it becomes twice two feet? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: How many feet, then, is twice two? Work it out and tell me. BOY: Four, Socrates. SOCRATES: Now couldn't there be another figure, double the size of this one, but of the same kind, having all its lines equal like this one? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: How many feet will it be? BOY: Eight. SOCRATES: Come then, try to tell me how long each of its lines will be. This one's line is two feet—what about the line of that double figure? BOY: Clearly, Socrates, it will be double. SOCRATES: You see, Meno, I am not teaching him anything, only asking questions throughout? And right now he thinks he knows what line the eight-foot figure will come from—or don't you think so? MENO: I do. SOCRATES: Does he actually know it? MENO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But he thinks it comes from the double line? MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Watch him now recollecting, step by step, the way one ought to recollect. Tell me: do you say that the double figure comes from the double line? I mean something like this—not long on one side and short on the other, but equal in every direction like this one, only double its size, eight feet. See whether it still seems to you it will come from the double line. BOY: It does to me. SOCRATES: And doesn't this line become double that one, if we add another equal one on from here? BOY: Certainly. SOCRATES: From this line, then, you say, will come the eight-foot figure, if four such lines are made? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Then let's draw four equal lines from it. Wouldn't this be what you say the eight-foot figure is? BOY: Certainly. SOCRATES: And in it aren't there these four squares, each equal to this four-foot one? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: How big does it come to, then? Isn't it four times this one? BOY: Of course. SOCRATES: Is what is four times as big double, then? BOY: No, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Then how many times as big is it? BOY: Four times. SOCRATES: So from the double line, boy, comes a figure not double but four times as large. BOY: That's true. SOCRATES: For four times four is sixteen. Isn't it? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Then from what line does the eight-foot figure come? Doesn't the double line give four times the size? BOY: I agree. SOCRATES: And doesn't this half-length line here give a four-foot figure like this one? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Very well. Now isn't the eight-foot figure double this one, and half of that one? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Won't it come, then, from a line longer than this one but shorter than that one? Or not? BOY: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: Good. Just answer what seems so to you. And tell me: wasn't this line two feet, and that one four? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: The line of the eight-foot figure, then, must be longer than this two-foot one, but shorter than the four-foot one. BOY: It must. SOCRATES: Try, then, to tell me how long you say it is. BOY: Three feet. SOCRATES: Then if it is to be three feet, shall we add half of this one on and it will be three feet? For here are two, and here one; and from this side likewise two and one; and that makes the figure you're speaking of. BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Now if it is three this way and three that way, doesn't the whole figure come to three times three feet? BOY: So it appears. SOCRATES: And three times three feet, how many is that? BOY: Nine. SOCRATES: And how many feet was the double figure supposed to be? BOY: Eight. SOCRATES: So the eight-foot figure doesn't come from the three-foot line either, after all. BOY: No, it doesn't.
SOCRATES: Then from what line does it come? Try to tell us exactly. And if you don't want to reckon it in numbers, at least show us from what line. BOY: But by Zeus, Socrates, I really don't know. SOCRATES: Do you notice again, Meno, how far along he already is in the path of recollection? At first he did not know what the line of the eight-foot figure is—just as he still doesn't know now—but at that time he thought he knew it, and answered boldly as one who knew, and did not think himself at a loss. Now, though, he does think himself at a loss, and just as he doesn't know, he doesn't think he knows either. MENO: That's true. SOCRATES: So isn't he now in a better position with regard to the matter he didn't know? MENO: That seems so to me too. SOCRATES: By bringing him to a loss, then, and numbing him like the sting-ray, have we done him any harm? MENO: I don't think so. SOCRATES: In fact it seems we have accomplished something useful toward discovering how things stand. For now, not knowing, he would search gladly; but before, he would easily have thought—speaking often and before many people—that he was speaking well about the double figure, saying that its line must be double in length. MENO: So it seems. SOCRATES: Do you think, then, that he would have attempted to search out or learn what he thought he knew, though he didn't, before he fell into a state of being at a loss, realized he did not know, and felt a longing to know? MENO: I don't think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So he has profited from being made numb? MENO: I think so. SOCRATES: Now watch what he will discover, searching along with me, out of this state of being at a loss—by my simply asking questions and not teaching him. Be on guard, in case you catch me anywhere teaching him and explaining things to him, rather than questioning him about his own opinions. Tell me now: isn't this a four-foot figure we have here? Do you follow? BOY: I do. SOCRATES: And couldn't we add on another equal figure here? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: And a third here, equal to each of these? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: And couldn't we fill in this one in the corner as well? BOY: Certainly. SOCRATES: So wouldn't these come to four equal figures? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then—how many times the size of this one does the whole figure become? BOY: Four times. SOCRATES: But it was supposed to come out double for us—or don't you remember? BOY: I certainly do.
SOCRATES: So this line, running from corner to corner, cuts each of these areas in half? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: So we get four equal lines here, enclosing this area? BOY: We do. SOCRATES: Now think — how big is this area? BOY: I don't follow. SOCRATES: Given that there are four of these squares, hasn't this line cut off half of each one, on the inside? Or not? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: So how many pieces that size are contained in this area? BOY: Four. SOCRATES: And how many in this one? BOY: Two. SOCRATES: And four is what, compared to two? BOY: Double. SOCRATES: So how many feet is this area, then? BOY: Eight feet. SOCRATES: Drawn from which line? BOY: From this one. SOCRATES: From the line stretching corner to corner of the four-foot square? BOY: Yes. SOCRATES: The experts call that line the diagonal. So if 'diagonal' is its name, then according to you, son of Meno, the double area would come from the diagonal. BOY: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: What do you think, Meno? Has he given a single answer that wasn't his own opinion? MENO: No, they were his own. SOCRATES: And yet he didn't know the answer — as we said a little while ago. MENO: True. SOCRATES: But these opinions were in him all along, weren't they? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So in someone who doesn't know a given subject, there are true opinions about the very things he doesn't know? MENO: So it appears. SOCRATES: And right now these opinions have just been stirred up in him, like a dream. But if he's asked these same questions repeatedly, in many different ways, you understand that in the end he'll grasp the truth about them as accurately as anyone. MENO: It seems so. SOCRATES: So he'll come to know it without anyone teaching him — simply by being questioned, recovering the knowledge out of himself? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't recovering knowledge that's already in oneself the same thing as recollecting it? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now the knowledge he has at this moment — did he either acquire it at some point, or has he always had it? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, if he's always had it, then he's always known it. But if he acquired it at some point, he can't have acquired it in his present life — unless someone has taught him geometry. This boy would give the same correct answers about every point of geometry, and about every other subject as well. So is there anyone who has taught him all of that? You'd surely know, especially since he was born and raised in your household. MENO: Well, I know for a fact that no one has ever taught him. SOCRATES: And yet he has these opinions, doesn't he? MENO: It seems he must, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And if he didn't acquire them in his present life, isn't it now clear that he had them, and had learned them, at some other time? MENO: It appears so. SOCRATES: And that time must be when he wasn't yet a human being? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So if, both during the time he is a human being and the time he isn't, true opinions are present in him — opinions that turn into knowledge when stirred awake by questioning — then his soul must have possessed this learning for all time. For clearly he either is or is not a human being for the whole of time. MENO: It appears so. SOCRATES: And if the truth about things is always present in our soul, then the soul must be immortal — which means you should take courage, and whatever you don't presently know — that is, whatever you don't remember — you should set about searching for it and recollecting it. MENO: What you say strikes me as right, Socrates, though I can't say why. SOCRATES: So it strikes me too, Meno. I wouldn't stake too much on most of the argument. But on this point — that believing we ought to search for what we don't know will make us better, braver, and less idle than believing that what we don't know is neither discoverable nor worth searching for — on that I would fight hard, in word and in deed, if I were able. MENO: On that point too, I think you're right, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, since we agree that one should search for what one doesn't know, shall we join forces and try to find out what virtue actually is? MENO: By all means. But really, Socrates, what I'd most like to examine — the very thing I asked about first — is whether one should approach virtue as something taught, or as something that comes to people by nature, or in whatever other way it comes to them. SOCRATES: Well, if I were in command — not only of myself but of you too, Meno — we wouldn't have examined whether virtue can be taught before first asking what it actually is. But since you don't even try to govern yourself, wanting to stay free, while you do try to govern me, and succeed at it, I'll give way — what else can I do? So, it seems, we must examine what sort of thing this is, when we don't yet know what it is. At least loosen your grip on me a little, and allow the question to be examined from a hypothesis — whether virtue can be taught, or however else it may come to be.
SOCRATES: By 'from a hypothesis' I mean the way geometers often proceed, when someone asks them, say about a figure, whether it's possible for this particular area to be inscribed as a triangle within this circle. One of them will say: I don't yet know whether this is so, but I think I have, so to speak, a hypothesis useful for the problem, along these lines — if this area is such that, when you apply it alongside the circle's given line, it falls short by a figure similar to the one applied, then I think one result follows, and a different one follows if it's impossible for that to happen. So working from the hypothesis, I'm willing to tell you what follows about inscribing it in the circle — whether it's impossible or not. In just the same way, let's proceed about virtue: since we don't know either what it is or what sort of thing it is, let's examine, working from a hypothesis, whether it can be taught or not, putting it like this — supposing virtue is one of the things belonging to the soul, of a certain kind, would it be teachable or not? First, then, if it's different in kind from knowledge, is it teachable, or is it — as we were just saying — a matter of recollection? It makes no difference to us which name we use — but is it teachable? Or is this obvious to everyone, that a human being is taught nothing except knowledge? MENO: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: And if virtue is a kind of knowledge, clearly it would be teachable. MENO: Of course. SOCRATES: So we've quickly settled this much — that if virtue is of one sort it is teachable, and if of another sort, it is not. MENO: Quite so. SOCRATES: The next thing to examine, it seems, is whether virtue is knowledge, or something different from knowledge. MENO: Yes, I think that's what we should examine next. SOCRATES: Well then — don't we say that virtue is itself something good, and doesn't this claim stand as our hypothesis, that it is good? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now if there's some good thing that is separate from knowledge, virtue might turn out not to be a form of knowledge at all. But if there is no good thing that knowledge doesn't encompass, then we'd be right to suspect it's some form of knowledge. MENO: That's so. SOCRATES: And it's by virtue that we are good? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And if we're good, we're beneficial — for all good things are beneficial. Isn't that so? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: So virtue too is beneficial? MENO: That follows necessarily from what we've agreed. SOCRATES: Let's examine, then, taking them one by one, what sort of things benefit us. Health, we say, and strength, and beauty, and wealth as well — these and things like them we call beneficial. Isn't that right? MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: But we also say these very same things sometimes cause harm — or would you put it differently? MENO: No, that's how I'd put it. SOCRATES: Then consider — when each of these is under the guidance of what, does it benefit us, and under the guidance of what does it harm us? Isn't it that when the use is right, it benefits, and when it isn't, it harms? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now let's examine, further, the things that belong to the soul. Do you call something 'temperance,' and 'justice,' and 'courage,' and 'quickness to learn,' and 'memory,' and 'magnanimity,' and all things of that kind? MENO: I do. SOCRATES: Then consider, of these, whichever ones seem to you not to be knowledge but something other than knowledge — don't they sometimes harm and sometimes benefit? Take courage, for instance: if courage isn't wisdom but a kind of boldness — isn't it true that when a person is bold without sense, he is harmed, but when he is bold with sense, he is benefited? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't temperance the same way, and quickness at learning? Things learned and things trained, when accompanied by sense, are beneficial, but without sense, harmful? MENO: Very much so. SOCRATES: So, in short, don't all the soul's undertakings and endurances end in happiness when wisdom leads them, and in the opposite when folly does? MENO: It seems so. SOCRATES: So if virtue is something belonging to the soul, and it must be beneficial, then it must be wisdom — since all the qualities of the soul are, in themselves, neither beneficial nor harmful, but become harmful or beneficial depending on whether wisdom or folly is added to them. By this reasoning, since virtue is beneficial, virtue must be a kind of wisdom. MENO: I think so too. SOCRATES: And as for the other things we mentioned just now, wealth and the like, being sometimes good and sometimes harmful — isn't it the case that, just as wisdom, when it governs the rest of the soul, makes the soul's own qualities beneficial, while folly makes them harmful, so too the soul, when it uses and directs these external things rightly, makes them beneficial, and wrongly, harmful? MENO: Quite so. SOCRATES: And the wise soul directs them rightly, the foolish soul wrongly? MENO: That's so.
SOCRATES: So can't we say the same of everything, in general — that for a human being, everything else depends on the soul, and the soul's own qualities depend on wisdom, if they are to be good? And by this reasoning, wisdom would be the beneficial thing — and we say virtue is beneficial? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: So we're saying virtue is wisdom — either the whole of it, or some part of it? MENO: What's been said seems to me well said, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, if that's how things stand, then good people couldn't be good by nature. MENO: I don't think so either. SOCRATES: Because here's something else that would follow: if good people came to be good by nature, we would surely have people able to recognize which of the young had good natures, and we could take the ones they pointed out and keep them under guard on the Acropolis, sealed up far more carefully than gold, so that no one could corrupt them, and so that when they reached the right age they'd become useful to their cities. MENO: That would be reasonable, Socrates. SOCRATES: So, since good people don't become good by nature, is it by learning? MENO: It now seems to me this must be so — and it's clear, Socrates, given our hypothesis, that if virtue is knowledge, it is teachable. SOCRATES: Yes, by Zeus, perhaps — but I wonder if we weren't right to agree to that. MENO: Yet it did seem, just now, to be well said. SOCRATES: Well, it's not enough for it to seem well said just now — it needs to seem so now and later too, if there's to be anything sound in it. MENO: What is it, then? What are you looking at that makes you uneasy and doubtful about whether virtue is knowledge? SOCRATES: I'll tell you, Meno. That it's teachable, if it is knowledge — that part I don't take back as poorly argued. But as for whether it is knowledge, see if you think my doubt is reasonable. Tell me this — if anything at all is teachable, not just virtue, mustn't there necessarily be both teachers and students of it? MENO: I think so. SOCRATES: And conversely, if something has neither teachers nor students, wouldn't we be right to guess that it isn't teachable? MENO: That's so — but don't you think there are teachers of virtue?
SOCRATES: Time and again, in fact, when I've looked to see whether there are any teachers of it, I've tried everything and can't find one. And yet I search with plenty of company, and especially with those I'd guess to be most experienced in the matter. And right now, Meno, here's Anytus, who has sat down beside us at just the right moment — let's bring him into the inquiry. It's only fitting that we should: Anytus here is, to begin with, the son of a rich and capable father, Anthemion, who became wealthy not by luck or by anyone's gift — the way Ismenias of Thebes just recently came into Polycrates' fortune — but earned it through his own skill and diligence. And besides that, he's not thought arrogant as a citizen, nor puffed up and overbearing, but a decent, well-ordered man. And on top of that, he raised and educated this son of his well, or so the Athenian public thinks — at any rate they elect him to the highest offices. So it's right to look, along with a man like this, for teachers of virtue, whether there are any and who they might be. So, Anytus, join the search with me and your friend Meno here, and help us find out who might be teachers of this thing. Look at it this way: if we wanted Meno here to become a good doctor, whom would we send him to study with? Doctors, wouldn't we? ANYTUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if we wanted him to become a good shoemaker, wouldn't it be shoemakers? ANYTUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And so on for everything else? ANYTUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then tell me again, in the same way, about these same cases. When we say we'd be sending him properly to the doctors if we wanted him to become a doctor, do we mean this: that in sending him to them we'd be acting sensibly, since they're the ones who claim the skill rather than those who don't, and who charge a fee for exactly this, having declared themselves teachers for anyone who wishes to come and learn? Isn't it with this in view that we'd be sending him well? ANYTUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same with flute-playing and everything else? It would be sheer folly, wanting to make someone a flute-player, to refuse to send him to those who promise to teach the skill and charge for it, and instead go bothering other people, seeking to learn from those who neither claim to be teachers nor have a single student in this subject we're insisting our man learn from them. Don't you think that would be absurd? ANYTUS: Yes, by Zeus, I do — and ignorant besides.
SOCRATES: Well said. Now then, you can join me in thinking through the case of our friend here, Meno. He's been telling me for some time, Anytus, that he longs for that wisdom and virtue by which people manage their households and their cities well, care for their own parents, and know how to welcome and send off citizens and strangers in a manner worthy of a good man. So consider: to whom should we rightly send him to acquire this kind of virtue? MENO: Isn't it obvious, Socrates, from what we just said, that it's those who promise to be teachers of virtue and declare themselves available to any Greek who wishes to learn, setting a fee and charging for it? ANYTUS: And who do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: You know as well as I do — the ones people call sophists. ANYTUS: Heracles! Watch your words, Socrates. May no madness like that ever seize anyone of mine — kinsman, friend, citizen, or stranger — driving him to go to those men and be ruined, since it's plain as day that they ruin and corrupt anyone who spends time with them. SOCRATES: What do you mean, Anytus? These men alone, among those who claim to know how to benefit people, differ from everyone else to this extent: not only do they fail to help, as everyone else does, whatever's entrusted to them, but they actually do the opposite and corrupt it? And for this they openly expect to be paid? I really don't know how I can believe you. I know of one man, Protagoras, who earned more money from this wisdom of his than Pheidias, whose works were so famously beautiful, or any ten sculptors together. Yet what you're saying is a marvel — if those who mend old shoes and patch up worn cloaks couldn't get away with returning them in worse shape than they received them for even thirty days without being found out — and if they did that, they'd quickly starve — then how could Protagoras go on corrupting everyone he dealt with, and sending them away worse than he found them, for more than forty years, without the whole of Greece noticing? I believe he died close to seventy years old, having practiced his craft for forty of them —
SOCRATES: — and throughout all that time, right up to this very day, he has never stopped being held in the highest regard. And it's not only Protagoras — there are countless others too, some who lived before him, some still living now. Are we to say, on your account, that they knowingly deceive and corrupt the young, or that they don't even realize it themselves? Are we really to declare that men some people call the wisest of all human beings are, in fact, out of their minds? ANYTUS: Far from being out of their minds, Socrates — it's rather the young men who hand over their money to them who are out of their minds, and even more so those who allow it — their guardians — but most of all the cities, which let these men come in and don't drive them out, whether it's a foreigner trying to pull off something like this or a citizen. SOCRATES: But has one of the sophists wronged you, Anytus? Or why are you so harsh with them? ANYTUS: No, by Zeus, I've never once kept company with any of them, nor would I let any relation of mine do so either. SOCRATES: So you're entirely without experience of these men? ANYTUS: And may I stay that way. SOCRATES: Then how, my good man, could you know whether this activity has anything good or bad in it, when you're entirely without experience of it? ANYTUS: Easily enough — I know well enough who they are, whether or not I have experience of them. SOCRATES: Perhaps you're a prophet, Anytus — since, judging by what you yourself say, I'd be amazed if you knew about them in any other way. But look — we're not trying to find out who these men are that would corrupt Meno if he went to them — let them be the sophists, if you like — but tell us instead about the others: do our friend here, whose father was your friend, the favor of naming those he might go to in so great a city and become worthy of the virtue I described a moment ago. ANYTUS: Why didn't you tell him yourself? SOCRATES: Well, I did name the men I thought were teachers of this, but it turns out I was talking nonsense, as you say — and perhaps you're right. So now it's your turn — you tell him which Athenians he should approach. Name whoever you like. ANYTUS: Why does he need to hear just one man's name? Any decent, respectable Athenian he happens to meet will make him a better man than the sophists would, so long as he's willing to listen.
SOCRATES: But did these decent, respectable men become what they are all on their own, learning from no one, yet somehow able to teach others what they themselves never learned? ANYTUS: I'd say they learned it too, from their predecessors, who were themselves decent and respectable men. Or don't you think many good men have arisen in this city? SOCRATES: I do think so, Anytus — I think there are men here good at public affairs, and have been no less in the past than now. But have they also proven good teachers of their own virtue? That's really the question we're asking — not whether there are, or have been, good men here, but whether virtue can be taught, which is what we've been examining all along. And in examining that, this is what we're examining: whether the good men, both of the present and of former times, knew how to pass on to someone else this virtue by which they themselves were good, or whether it's something that can't be handed from one person to another, or received by one from another. That's what Meno and I have been searching for all this time. Look at it this way, going by your own reasoning: wouldn't you say Themistocles was a good man? ANYTUS: I would, more than anyone. SOCRATES: And if anyone was ever a good teacher of his own virtue, wasn't he one too? ANYTUS: I suppose so, if he'd wanted to be. SOCRATES: But don't you think he'd have wanted others to become good men — his own son most of all? Or do you think he begrudged him, and deliberately withheld the virtue he himself possessed? Haven't you heard that Themistocles taught his son Cleophantus to be an excellent horseman? He could stand upright on a horse's back and hurl a javelin from that position, and performed all sorts of other remarkable feats that his father trained him in and made him skilled at — everything that depends on good teachers. Haven't you heard this from your elders? ANYTUS: I have. SOCRATES: So no one could blame his son's nature for being bad. ANYTUS: Perhaps not. SOCRATES: But what about this — have you ever heard, from anyone young or old, that Cleophantus, Themistocles' son, turned out to be a good and wise man in the way his father was? ANYTUS: No, never. SOCRATES: Then are we to suppose he wanted to train his son in those other things, but had no interest in making him better than the neighbors in the very wisdom he himself possessed — if indeed virtue could be taught? ANYTUS: Perhaps not, by Zeus.
SOCRATES: So much, then, for this teacher of virtue, whom you yourself agree was among the best men of former times. Let's look at another — Aristides, son of Lysimachus. Don't you agree he was a good man? ANYTUS: I do, without question. SOCRATES: And didn't he too train his son Lysimachus, as far as teachers go, better than any Athenian? Yet do you think he's made him a better man than anyone else? You've kept company with him yourself and can see what he's like. And if you like, take Pericles, so magnificently wise a man — you know he raised two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus? ANYTUS: I do. SOCRATES: These two, as you also know, he had trained as horsemen second to none in Athens, and educated in music and athletics and everything else that skill can teach, second to none — but did he not want them to become good men? I think he did want that — but it simply isn't something that can be taught. And so you won't think it's only a few of the lowliest Athenians who've failed at this, consider that Thucydides too raised two sons, Melesias and Stephanus, and trained them well in everything else — they were the finest wrestlers in Athens, for he gave one to Xanthias and the other to Eudorus to train, and these were considered the best wrestlers of their day — don't you remember? ANYTUS: I do, by report. SOCRATES: So it's clear that this man, who spent money teaching his sons things that required expense, would surely have taught them, at no cost at all, to become good men — if that could be taught. But perhaps Thucydides was a lowly man, without many friends among the Athenians and their allies? No — he was of a great house, and held great power in the city and among the other Greeks, so that if this thing could be taught, he would have found someone to make his sons good men, whether a local or a foreigner, even if he himself had no time for it because of his public duties. But no, my friend Anytus — it seems virtue simply cannot be taught.
ANYTUS: Socrates, you seem to me altogether too free with your abuse of people. I'd advise you, if you'll listen to me, to be careful — perhaps in another city it's easier to do people harm than good, but in this one it's very much easier. I imagine you know that yourself. SOCRATES: Meno, Anytus seems to be angry with me, and I'm not at all surprised — he thinks, first, that I'm speaking ill of these men, and second, he takes himself to be one of them. But if he ever comes to understand what it means to speak ill of someone, he'll stop being angry — right now he doesn't understand it. Tell me, though — aren't there among you men who are admired as fine and good? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then — are these men willing to offer themselves as teachers to the young, and to agree that they are teachers, and that virtue can be taught? MENO: No, by Zeus, Socrates — sometimes you'd hear them say it can be taught, sometimes that it can't. SOCRATES: Should we call these men teachers of the subject, when they don't even agree among themselves on this very point? MENO: I don't think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then — what about the sophists, the only ones who actually advertise themselves as such — do they seem to you to be teachers of virtue? MENO: That's exactly what I admire in Gorgias, Socrates — you'd never hear him promising any such thing, and in fact he laughs at the others when he hears them promising it. What he thinks he ought to produce is skilled speakers. SOCRATES: So you don't think the sophists are teachers either? MENO: I can't say, Socrates. I'm in the same condition as most people — sometimes I think they are, sometimes not. SOCRATES: Do you know that it isn't only you and other public men who waver on whether this can be taught — the poet Theognis says exactly the same thing? MENO: In which verses? SOCRATES: In the elegies, where he says — Eat and drink with such men, sit among them, and please those whose power is great. For from good men you'll learn good things; but if you mix with bad ones, you'll destroy even the sense you have. You see that here he speaks as though virtue can be taught? MENO: So it seems.
SOCRATES: But elsewhere, shifting his ground slightly, he says — If understanding could be made and put into a man, then — those who could do this would earn many great rewards, and — never would a good father's son turn out bad, persuaded by wise words. But teaching will never turn a bad man good. Do you notice that he's contradicting himself on the very same subject? MENO: It does seem so. SOCRATES: Can you name any other subject where the men who claim to be teachers of it are not only unacknowledged as teachers of others, but not even admitted to understand the thing themselves — indeed are said to be poor at the very thing they claim to teach — while the ones who are acknowledged to be fine and good men say at one time that it can be taught and at another that it can't? Would you say people so confused about anything are, in any proper sense, teachers of it? MENO: No, by Zeus, I would not. SOCRATES: Then if neither the sophists nor the men acknowledged to be fine and good are teachers of the subject, clearly no one else could be either? MENO: I don't think so. SOCRATES: And if there are no teachers, there are no students either? MENO: I think that follows, as you say. SOCRATES: And we've agreed that where there are neither teachers nor students of a thing, that thing cannot be taught? MENO: We have agreed to that. SOCRATES: So virtue turns out nowhere to have teachers? MENO: That's so. SOCRATES: And if it has no teachers, it has no students? MENO: It appears so. SOCRATES: Then virtue could not be something taught? MENO: It doesn't seem so, if we've examined this correctly. And so I find myself wondering, Socrates, whether there really are good men at all, or what manner of coming-to-be there could be for those who do become good. SOCRATES: It looks, Meno, as though you and I are rather worthless fellows — Gorgias hasn't educated you well enough, nor Prodicus me. So we'd better pay the closest attention to ourselves, and look for someone who can make us better in some way or other. I say this with an eye on the inquiry we've just made — how ridiculously it escaped us that it isn't only under the guidance of knowledge that people act rightly and well, which is perhaps why we're missing how it is that good men come to be. MENO: What do you mean by that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Like this. That good men must be beneficial — we were right to agree that this can't be otherwise, weren't we? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And that they'll be beneficial if they guide our affairs rightly — that too we agreed to soundly enough? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: But that one cannot guide rightly unless one has understanding — in agreeing to that, it looks as though we agreed wrongly. MENO: What do you mean, that we were right just now? SOCRATES: I'll explain. If a man knows the road to Larisa, or wherever else you like, and walks it and guides others, wouldn't he guide them rightly and well? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: But what about someone who has a correct opinion about which road it is, but has never gone there and doesn't actually know it — wouldn't he too guide correctly? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And as long as he holds a true opinion about the very thing the other man knows, he'll be just as good a guide, thinking truly though without understanding, as the man who does understand. MENO: Just as good. SOCRATES: So true opinion is no worse a guide to correct action than knowledge — and this is exactly what we passed over a moment ago in examining what sort of thing virtue is, when we said that only understanding guides right action. It turns out true opinion does the same. MENO: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then right opinion is no less beneficial than knowledge. MENO: Except in this respect, Socrates — the man with knowledge will always hit the mark, while the man with right opinion will hit it sometimes and miss it other times. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Won't the man who always holds right opinion always hit the mark, so long as his opinions remain right? MENO: That does seem necessary — and so I'm puzzled, Socrates, given that this is so, why knowledge is held in so much higher honor than right opinion, and why the two are different at all. SOCRATES: Do you know why you're puzzled, or shall I tell you? MENO: Please, tell me. SOCRATES: It's because you've never paid attention to the statues of Daedalus. Perhaps you don't even have them where you come from. MENO: What are you getting at? SOCRATES: That those statues, if not tied down, run off and escape, but if tied down, they stay put. MENO: What of it?
SOCRATES: To own one of his works unfastened isn't worth very much — it's like owning a runaway slave, since it won't stay; but fastened down, it's worth a great deal, for the workmanship is truly beautiful. And why am I saying this? Because of true opinions. True opinions too, for as long as they stay in place, are a fine thing and accomplish nothing but good — but they're not willing to stay put for long; they run off out of a person's soul, and so they aren't worth much until someone ties them down by working out the reason why. And that tying-down, my friend Meno, is recollection, as we agreed earlier. Once they're tied down, they become, first of all, knowledge, and then also stable. That's exactly why knowledge is worth more than right opinion, and why knowledge differs from right opinion in being bound. MENO: By Zeus, Socrates, it does seem to be something like that. SOCRATES: And yet I too am speaking not from knowledge but from guesswork. That there is some difference between right opinion and knowledge, though, is not something I'm merely guessing — if there's anything at all I'd claim to know — and I'd claim to know very few things — this would be one of the things I'd count among them. MENO: And rightly so, Socrates. SOCRATES: And isn't this also right — that true opinion, guiding the performance of any action, achieves the result no worse than knowledge does? MENO: That too seems true to me. SOCRATES: So right opinion is in no way inferior to knowledge, nor any less useful for action, nor is the man who has right opinion any less use than the man who has knowledge. MENO: That's so. SOCRATES: And we've agreed that the good man is beneficial to us. MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: Since, then, men could be good and beneficial to their cities not only through knowledge, if they were good at all, but also through right opinion, and since neither of these — neither knowledge nor true opinion — belongs to people by nature, nor is acquired — or does it seem to you that either one is present in people by nature? MENO: Not to me. SOCRATES: So since they aren't there by nature, good men wouldn't be good by nature either. MENO: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And since it isn't by nature, we went on to ask whether it could be taught. MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And it seemed it could be taught, if virtue is understanding? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And if it could be taught, it would be understanding? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if there were teachers, it could be taught, but if there were none, it couldn't? MENO: So it seemed. SOCRATES: But we've agreed there are no teachers of it? MENO: That's so. SOCRATES: Then we've agreed it can neither be taught nor is understanding? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: But we do agree that it's something good? MENO: Yes. SOCRATES: And that whatever guides rightly is both beneficial and good? MENO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that there are only these two things that guide rightly — true opinion and knowledge — which a person has when he guides rightly. Things that turn out right by some stroke of luck don't come about through human guidance — but where a human being is the guide toward what is right, these are the two things, true opinion and knowledge. MENO: I think that's so. SOCRATES: Then since virtue can't be taught, it no longer follows that virtue is knowledge? MENO: It doesn't seem so. SOCRATES: So of the two good and beneficial things, one has been ruled out, and knowledge cannot be the guide in political action. MENO: I don't think so. SOCRATES: Then it isn't through any wisdom, nor because they were wise men, that men of this sort have guided their cities — men like Themistocles, and those Anytus mentioned just now. That's exactly why they can't produce others like themselves — since it isn't through knowledge that they are what they are. MENO: It does seem to be as you say, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then if not through knowledge, what remains is that they act through good judgment, sound as it turns out — the very thing by which statesmen keep their cities upright, being no different in their capacity for understanding from soothsayers and diviners who speak by inspiration. For these too, in their inspired state, say many true things, but know nothing of what they're saying. MENO: That's probably how it is. SOCRATES: Then, Meno, wouldn't it be right to call these men divine — men who, without possessing understanding, succeed at many great things in what they do and say? MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: So we'd be right to call divine those we just spoke of — the soothsayers and diviners, and all the poets besides — and we'd say the statesmen, no less than these, are divine and inspired, breathed into and possessed by a god, whenever they succeed in speaking of many great matters while knowing nothing of what they're saying. MENO: Certainly. SOCRATES: And women too, I suppose, Meno, call good men divine — and the Spartans, when they praise a good man, say, 'That man is divine.' MENO: And they seem to be right, Socrates — though I suppose Anytus here is annoyed at you for saying so.
SOCRATES: That's no trouble to me. We can go over this again another time, Meno. But if what we've searched out and said through this whole discussion holds up, then excellence would be present neither by nature nor by teaching, but comes to whoever it comes to as a gift from the gods, without any understanding on their part -- unless there's some statesman capable of making another man a statesman too. And if there is such a person, he might almost be said to stand among the living as Homer says Tiresias stood among the dead, when he says of him that he alone keeps his wits in Hades, while the rest are flitting shadows. In just the same way, a man like that would be, here among us, a true reality standing out among shadows, when it comes to excellence. MENO: I think that's a beautiful way to put it, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, from this reasoning, Meno, excellence appears to come to us as a gift from the gods, to whoever it comes to. But we'll know the clear truth of it only when, before asking in what way excellence comes to people, we first set out to inquire, all on its own, what excellence actually is. For now, though, it's time for me to be off somewhere, and you should go persuade our friend Anytus here of these very things you've come to believe yourself, so that he's gentler for it. Because if you can persuade him, you'll be doing the Athenians a favor as well.
CALLICLES: They say, Socrates, that this is how one should turn up for war and battle. SOCRATES: Have we really come, as the saying goes, after the feast, and arrived too late? CALLICLES: Yes, and a very elegant feast it was too — Gorgias just gave us a wonderful display, all sorts of fine things. SOCRATES: Well, Callicles, the blame for that falls on Chaerephon here, who kept us dawdling in the marketplace. CHAEREPHON: No harm done, Socrates — I'll set it right myself. Gorgias is a friend of mine, so he'll give us a display too, now if he's willing, or later if you'd rather. CALLICLES: What's this, Chaerephon? Does Socrates want to hear Gorgias? CHAEREPHON: That's exactly why we're here. CALLICLES: Well then, whenever you like, come to my house — Gorgias is staying with me and will give you a display there. SOCRATES: Good, Callicles. But would he be willing to have a discussion with us? I want to find out from him what the power of the man's art is, and what it is he professes and teaches. The rest of the display he can save for later, as you say. CALLICLES: There's nothing like asking the man himself, Socrates. In fact that was one part of his display — he was just now inviting anyone inside to ask whatever they liked, and said he'd answer anything at all. SOCRATES: Excellent. Chaerephon, ask him. CHAEREPHON: Ask him what? SOCRATES: Who he is. CHAEREPHON: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean, if he happened to be a maker of shoes, he'd presumably answer you that he's a cobbler — or don't you follow what I'm saying? CHAEREPHON: I follow, and I'll ask him. Tell me, Gorgias, is it true, as Callicles here says, that you promise to answer whatever anyone asks you?
GORGIAS: It's true, Chaerephon. In fact I was just now promising exactly that, and I'll say too that no one has asked me anything new for years now. CHAEREPHON: Then you must find it easy to answer, Gorgias. GORGIAS: You're welcome to put that to the test, Chaerephon. POLUS: Yes indeed — and if you like, Chaerephon, test it on me instead. Gorgias looks worn out to me; he's just been through a great deal. CHAEREPHON: What's this, Polus? Do you think you'd answer better than Gorgias? POLUS: What does that matter, so long as it's good enough for you? CHAEREPHON: It doesn't matter — since you want to, go ahead and answer. POLUS: Ask away. CHAEREPHON: Very well, I will. If Gorgias happened to have expert knowledge of the same art as his brother Herodicus, what would we rightly call him? The same as we call his brother? POLUS: Certainly. CHAEREPHON: Then we'd be right to call him a doctor. POLUS: Yes. CHAEREPHON: And if he had expertise in the same art as Aristophon son of Aglaophon, or his brother, what would we rightly call him? POLUS: Obviously a painter. CHAEREPHON: Well then, since he has expert knowledge of some art, what would we rightly call him? POLUS: Chaerephon, there are many arts among men that have been discovered by experience, through experience — for experience makes our life proceed by art, while lack of experience makes it proceed by chance. Different people share in each of these in different ways, and the best people share in the best arts. Gorgias here is one of these, and he has a share in the finest of the arts. SOCRATES: Gorgias, Polus does seem well prepared for speeches — but he isn't doing what he promised Chaerephon. GORGIAS: What exactly, Socrates? SOCRATES: He doesn't seem to me to be answering the question at all. GORGIAS: Then you ask him yourself, if you like. SOCRATES: No — not if you yourself are willing to answer; I'd much rather ask you. It's clear to me from what Polus has said that he's practiced what's called rhetoric more than he's practiced conversation. POLUS: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Because, Polus, when Chaerephon asked what art Gorgias has expert knowledge of, you sang the praises of his art as if someone were finding fault with it, but you never answered what it actually is. POLUS: Didn't I answer that it's the finest?
SOCRATES: You certainly did. But no one is asking what kind of thing Gorgias's art is, but what it is — and what we ought to call Gorgias. Just as Chaerephon put it to you earlier, and you answered him well and briefly, now tell me in the same way — what is the art, and what should we call Gorgias? Better still, Gorgias, tell us yourself — what should we call you, as an expert in what art? GORGIAS: Rhetoric, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then we should call you an orator? GORGIAS: A good one, Socrates — if you want to call me what I claim to be, in Homer's words. SOCRATES: Well, I do want to. GORGIAS: Then call me that. SOCRATES: And should we say you're capable of making others into orators too? GORGIAS: That's exactly what I profess to do — not only here but elsewhere as well. SOCRATES: Then would you be willing, Gorgias, to keep on as we're doing now — one of us asking, the other answering — and set aside for later that long-windedness Polus started into? Keep your promise and don't break it: be willing to answer each question briefly. GORGIAS: Some answers, Socrates, necessarily require lengthy speeches. Still, I'll try to be as brief as possible — since this too is one of the things I claim: that no one could say the same things in fewer words than I can. SOCRATES: That's exactly what's needed, Gorgias. Give me a display of just this — your skill at brevity; save the long speeches for another time. GORGIAS: I will, and you'll say you've never heard anyone briefer. SOCRATES: Well then — you say you have expert knowledge of the art of rhetoric, and could make someone else an orator too. What, among the things that exist, does rhetoric actually concern? Weaving, for instance, concerns the production of clothing, doesn't it? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And music concerns the composition of melodies? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: By Hera, Gorgias, I do admire your answers — you answer as briefly as possible. GORGIAS: Yes, Socrates, I think I do this rather well. SOCRATES: Good. Come then, answer me the same way about rhetoric — what, among the things that exist, is it knowledge of? GORGIAS: Speeches. SOCRATES: What kind of speeches, Gorgias? The kind that show the sick how they should live to get well? GORGIAS: No. SOCRATES: Then rhetoric isn't concerned with all speeches. GORGIAS: No indeed. SOCRATES: But it does make people capable of speaking. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And of understanding, about the very things it makes them able to speak of? GORGIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: Now, does medicine — the art we were just discussing — make the sick capable of understanding and speaking? GORGIAS: It must. SOCRATES: So medicine too, it seems, concerns speeches. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Speeches about diseases? GORGIAS: Exactly. SOCRATES: And doesn't gymnastics too concern speeches — those about the good or bad condition of the body? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And indeed, Gorgias, it's the same with all the other arts — each one concerns those speeches that have to do with whatever subject that art is about. GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then why on earth don't you call the other arts forms of rhetoric, since they too concern speeches, if you're going to call rhetoric the art that concerns speeches? GORGIAS: Because, Socrates, with the other arts the knowledge is almost entirely about manual work and actions of that sort, whereas with rhetoric there's no such manual work at all — its whole activity and effect happens through speech. That's why I hold that rhetoric is rightly said to concern speeches, and I think I'm right to say so. SOCRATES: Do I understand, then, what kind of thing you want to call it? I'll soon know more clearly. Just answer me this — we have arts, don't we? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now among all the arts, I think, some consist mostly of doing and need little speech — some need none at all, and their work could be carried out even in silence, like painting, sculpture, and many others. These are the sort you seem to mean when you say rhetoric isn't concerned with them — am I right? GORGIAS: You've grasped it exactly right, Socrates. SOCRATES: But there are other arts that accomplish everything through speech, and need hardly any action at all, or very little — arithmetic, for instance, and calculation, and geometry, and even board games like draughts, and many other arts. Some of these have speech and action in roughly equal measure, but in most, speech predominates — indeed the whole activity and effect is carried out through speech. I think it's one of these you mean when you say rhetoric is such an art. GORGIAS: You're right. SOCRATES: But surely you don't want to call any of these rhetoric either — not that your words literally said 'the art whose effect is through speech is rhetoric,' so that someone looking to pick a quarrel over words might say, 'So you're calling arithmetic rhetoric, Gorgias?' No, I don't think you mean to call either arithmetic or geometry rhetoric.
GORGIAS: You're right to think so, Socrates, and your judgment is fair. SOCRATES: Come then, finish giving me the answer I asked for. Since rhetoric turns out to be one of those arts that mostly make use of speech, and there happen to be other such arts too, try to say what subject it is, among things spoken of, that rhetoric's effect actually concerns. Suppose someone asked me about any of the arts I just mentioned — 'Socrates, what is the art of arithmetic?' I would tell him, just as you did a moment ago, that it's one of the arts whose effect is through speech. And if he asked further, 'Concerning what?' I would say, concerning knowledge of the odd and the even, however many of each there happen to be. And if he then asked, 'What do you call the art of calculation?' I would say that this too is one of those whose whole effect is achieved through speech. And if he asked further, 'Concerning what?' I would answer, as those who draft public proposals do, that in other respects calculation is like arithmetic — for it concerns the same subject, the odd and the even — but it differs in this: calculation examines how much odd and even there is, both in relation to themselves and to each other. And if someone asked about astronomy, and I said that this too achieves everything through speech, and he then asked, 'And what are astronomy's speeches about, Socrates?' I would say, about the motion of the stars, the sun, and the moon, and their speeds relative to one another. GORGIAS: You're quite right to put it that way, Socrates. SOCRATES: Now it's your turn, Gorgias. Rhetoric too turns out to be one of those arts whose whole business is carried out and achieved through speech — isn't that so? GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Then tell me — concerning what? What, among the things that exist, is the subject of those speeches that rhetoric employs? GORGIAS: The greatest of human affairs, Socrates, and the best. SOCRATES: But Gorgias, that too is disputable, and still nothing is clear. Surely you've heard, at drinking parties, men singing that drinking song in which they list off, as they sing, that health is the best thing, being handsome second, and third — as the poet of the song says — being honestly wealthy. GORGIAS: I have heard it — but what's your point in bringing it up?
SOCRATES: Because if you had standing right beside you the craftsmen of the very things that composer of the drinking-song praised — a doctor, a trainer, a moneymaker — and the doctor spoke first and said, "Socrates, Gorgias is deceiving you: his art isn't concerned with the greatest good for human beings, mine is" — suppose I then asked him, "And who are you, to say this?" He'd probably say, "A doctor." "What do you mean, then — that the product of your art is the greatest good?" "Of course, Socrates," he'd probably say, "what else — health? What greater good is there for people than health?" And if after him the trainer said, "I'd be astonished myself, Socrates, if Gorgias could point to a greater good produced by his art than the one I produce by mine" — I'd say to him in turn, "And who are you, my friend, and what's your work?" "A trainer," he'd say, "and my work is making people's bodies beautiful and strong." And after the trainer the moneymaker would speak up, looking down on everyone else, I imagine: "Consider, Socrates, whether any greater good than wealth appears to you, whether in Gorgias' hands or anyone else's." We'd say to him, "Well then — are you a craftsman of this?" He'd say yes. "Which one?" "A moneymaker." "Well then — do you judge wealth to be the greatest good for human beings?" "Of course," he'll say. "And yet," we'd say, "this man Gorgias here disputes that his art is responsible for a greater good than yours." Clearly the next question would be, "And what is this good? Let Gorgias answer." So, Gorgias, consider yourself questioned by them and by me, and answer: what is this thing you say is the greatest good for human beings, and that you are a craftsman of? GORGIAS: It is, Socrates, in truth the greatest good, and the cause at once of freedom for people themselves, and at the same time of each person's ruling over others in his own city. SOCRATES: And what exactly do you mean by that? GORGIAS: I mean the ability to persuade by speech — judges in a courtroom, councilmen in the council chamber, assemblymen in the assembly, and in any other gathering whatever, any political gathering that may take place. And indeed, with this power you will have the doctor as your slave, and the trainer as your slave; and this moneymaker of yours will turn out to be making money for someone else, not for himself — for you, the one able to speak and persuade the crowds.
SOCRATES: Now, Gorgias, you seem to me to have come very close to showing what art you take rhetoric to be — and if I understand at all, you're saying that rhetoric is a craftsman of persuasion, and that its whole business and its sum total comes down to this. Or can you say that rhetoric is capable of anything more than producing persuasion in the souls of its listeners? GORGIAS: Not at all, Socrates — you seem to me to define it well enough; that is indeed its sum. SOCRATES: Listen, then, Gorgias. I, you should know well, am convinced myself that if anyone else engages in discussion with another wanting to know the very thing the discussion is about, I am one of them — and I claim you are too. GORGIAS: Well then, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll say it now. This persuasion coming from rhetoric — whatever it may be that you speak of, and whatever matters it concerns — I clearly don't know for certain, though I do suspect what I think you mean and what it concerns. Nonetheless I'll ask you all the same what you mean by the persuasion that comes from rhetoric, and what it concerns. Why, when I already suspect, do I ask instead of saying it myself? Not for your sake, but for the argument's — so that it may proceed in whatever way makes clearest to us what it's actually about. Consider whether I seem to you to be asking you fairly. It's as if I happened to ask you who among painters Zeuxis is, and you told me, "the one who paints living creatures" — wouldn't I fairly ask you next, which living creatures, and where? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And would that be because there are also other painters who paint many other creatures? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: But if no one painted except Zeuxis, your answer would have been sufficient? GORGIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: Come, then, tell me the same about rhetoric: does it seem to you that rhetoric alone produces persuasion, or do other arts too? I mean something like this — whoever teaches anything at all, does what he teaches persuade, or not? GORGIAS: It certainly does, Socrates — persuades more than anything. SOCRATES: Let's speak again of the same arts we just mentioned. Doesn't arithmetic teach us all the properties of number, and the arithmetician too? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it also persuades? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then arithmetic too is a craftsman of persuasion? GORGIAS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: So if someone asks us what kind of persuasion, and about what, we'll answer him, I suppose, that it's the teaching kind, concerned with how much odd and even number there is. And we'll be able to show that all the other arts we just mentioned are craftsmen of persuasion too, and of what kind, and about what — won't we? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So rhetoric isn't the only craftsman of persuasion. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: Then since it isn't the only one producing this effect, but others do too, we would fairly, just as we did with the painter, next ask the one making the claim: what kind of persuasion, persuasion about what, is rhetoric the art of? Doesn't it seem right to you to ask this further question? GORGIAS: It does to me. SOCRATES: Answer, then, Gorgias, since you agree it's right. GORGIAS: I mean, Socrates, the persuasion that occurs in law courts and other crowds, as I said just now, and concerning matters of justice and injustice. SOCRATES: And I too suspected that this was the persuasion you meant, and about these matters, Gorgias. But so you won't be surprised if a little later I ask you something similar again — something that seems obvious, and yet I ask it again — I do it, as I say, for the sake of carrying the argument through in order, not for your sake, but so we don't fall into the habit of snatching at each other's meaning from mere suspicion. Rather, you should carry through your own position however you wish, on your own terms. GORGIAS: And I think you're right to do so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come, then, let's look at this too. Do you speak of something as "having learned"? GORGIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And what of "having come to believe"? GORGIAS: That too. SOCRATES: Do you think having learned and having come to believe are the same, and learning and belief the same, or something different? GORGIAS: I would think, Socrates, something different. SOCRATES: You think rightly, and you'll see it from this: if someone asked you, "Is there, Gorgias, a false belief and a true one?" you'd say yes, I think. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, is there false knowledge and true knowledge? GORGIAS: Not at all. SOCRATES: So it's clear again that they aren't the same. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: And yet those who have learned have been persuaded, and so have those who have come to believe. GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Do you want us, then, to posit two kinds of persuasion — one that provides belief without knowledge, and one that provides knowledge? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Which kind, then, does rhetoric produce in courts and other crowds, concerning matters of justice and injustice? The kind from which belief arises without knowledge, or the kind from which knowledge arises? GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, the kind that produces belief.
SOCRATES: Rhetoric, then, it seems, is a craftsman of persuasion that produces belief, not of the kind that teaches, concerning justice and injustice. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the orator isn't a teacher of law courts and other crowds about matters of justice and injustice, but only a producer of belief — for surely he couldn't teach so great a crowd such important matters in so short a time. GORGIAS: No indeed. SOCRATES: Come, then, let's see what exactly we're saying about rhetoric — for I myself am not yet able to grasp what I mean by it. Whenever there's a public meeting in the city to choose doctors, or shipbuilders, or any other body of craftsmen, surely the rhetorical man won't give advice there? For clearly in each such choice the most skilled person must be chosen. Nor when the discussion concerns building walls, or constructing harbors or dockyards, but rather the architects. Nor again when the discussion concerns choosing generals, or arranging troops against an enemy, or occupying strongholds — rather the military men will advise then, not the rhetoricians. Or how do you account for such things, Gorgias? Since you yourself claim to be an orator and to make others orators, it's worth learning about your art from you. And consider that in asking now, I'm also pursuing your interest — for perhaps someone here among your listeners wants to become your student, as I sense quite a few do, who might be embarrassed to ask you themselves. So when questioned by me, consider yourself questioned by them too: what will we gain, Gorgias, if we study with you? On what matters will we be able to advise the city? On justice and injustice alone, or on the other things Socrates just mentioned too? Try, then, to answer them. GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I'll try to reveal to you clearly the whole power of rhetoric — for you yourself have led the way well. You know, I suppose, that these dockyards and the walls of Athens and the construction of the harbors came about from Themistocles' advice, and some from Pericles' — not from the craftsmen. SOCRATES: So it's said about Themistocles, Gorgias; and as for Pericles, I myself heard him when he advised us about the middle wall.
GORGIAS: And whenever there's a choice of the kind you just mentioned, Socrates, you'll see that it's the orators who give the advice and who win out in their opinions on these matters. SOCRATES: That's exactly what astonishes me, Gorgias, and why I've long been asking what on earth the power of rhetoric is. For its scope appears almost supernatural to me, looking at it this way. GORGIAS: If only you knew everything, Socrates — that it gathers up under itself, so to speak, all other powers. And I'll tell you a striking proof of this: many times already I have gone in, together with my brother and with other doctors, to see some patient who wasn't willing to take his medicine, or to submit to the knife or the cautery for the doctor; and when the doctor couldn't persuade him, I did — by no other art than rhetoric. And I say further, that if a rhetorical man and a doctor came to any city you like, and had to contend in speech before the assembly or some other gathering over which of the two should be chosen as doctor, the doctor would be nowhere, and the one able to speak would be chosen, if he wished it. And if he contended against any other craftsman whatever, the rhetorical man would persuade them to choose him rather than anyone else — for there is nothing about which the orator could not speak more persuasively before a crowd than any other craftsman whatsoever. Such, then, and so great, is the power of this art. Yet one must use rhetoric, Socrates, as one uses any other form of combat. For in other forms of combat too, one must not use them against everybody just because one has learned boxing, or the pankration, or fighting in armor, so as to be stronger than both friends and enemies — that's no reason to strike or stab or kill one's friends. Nor, by Zeus, if someone who has gone to the wrestling school and gotten his body in good condition and become a boxer should then strike his father and mother or some other relative or friend — that's no reason to hate and banish from their cities the trainers and those who teach fighting in arms. For they handed down these skills to be used justly, against enemies and wrongdoers, in self-defense, not as the aggressor; but some pervert them and use their strength and their art wrongly.
GORGIAS: So it's not the teachers who are wicked, and the craft itself is neither responsible nor wicked on that account—it's the people who misuse it, I'd say. The same holds for rhetoric. The orator can speak to everyone about everything, so as to be more persuasive before a crowd than anyone else on practically any subject—but that's no reason to strip doctors of their good name, on the grounds that he could do this instead of them, nor any other craftsmen either. He ought to use rhetoric justly, just as one uses any competitive skill. And if someone becomes a skilled speaker and then uses that power and craft unjustly, it isn't the teacher we should hate and drive out of our cities. The teacher handed over his craft to be used justly; the other one uses it in the opposite way. So it's the one who misuses it who deserves our hatred, banishment, even death—not the one who taught him. SOCRATES: I imagine, Gorgias, that you too have taken part in a great many discussions and have noticed this about them: that people who set out to argue a point rarely manage to define their terms, teach each other, and part having actually settled the matter. Instead, if they come to disagree about something and one says the other isn't speaking correctly or clearly, they get irritated and think the other is speaking out of spite rather than genuinely investigating the question at hand—competing to win rather than searching for the truth. And some of them end up parting on the ugliest terms, having hurled such insults at each other, and having heard such things said about themselves, that even the bystanders are pained on their behalf, distressed that they ever thought such people worth listening to. Why do I say this? Because right now it seems to me that what you're saying doesn't quite follow from, or agree with, what you said at first about rhetoric. So I'm afraid to cross-examine you, in case you take me to be arguing not to get the matter clear but simply to score a point against you.
SOCRATES: For my part, if you're the kind of man I am, I'd gladly go on questioning you; if not, I'll let it drop. And what kind of man am I? One who is glad to be refuted if I say something untrue, and just as glad to refute someone else who says something untrue—though, mind you, no less glad to be refuted myself than to refute another. I count it the greater good, insofar as it's a greater good for oneself to be rid of the worst thing there is than to rid someone else of it. And I don't think there's any evil worse for a person than a false belief about the very things we're now discussing. So if you say you're that kind of man too, let's continue the discussion; but if you think we should let it go, then let's drop it here and end the conversation. GORGIAS: No, Socrates, I do say I'm that kind of man myself—the kind you describe. Though perhaps we should also consider the people here. Well before you two arrived, I gave a long display for this company, and now, if we keep discussing, we may run on for quite a while. So we ought to think of them too, in case we're keeping some of them from other things they'd rather be doing. CHAEREPHON: You can hear for yourselves, Gorgias and Socrates, the noise these men are making—they want to hear whatever you have to say. And speaking for myself, may I never be so busy that I'd give up a discussion like this, conducted this way, for anything more pressing. CALLICLES: By the gods, Chaerephon, I've sat in on many discussions myself, and I don't know that I've ever enjoyed one as much as this. So as far as I'm concerned, you could talk all day and you'd be doing me a favor. SOCRATES: Well, Callicles, nothing stops me, for my part, if Gorgias is willing. GORGIAS: It would be shameful of me now, Socrates, not to be willing, after announcing myself ready to answer whatever anyone asks. So if it suits this company, go ahead and question me on whatever you like. SOCRATES: Listen then, Gorgias, to what puzzles me in what you've said. Perhaps you're speaking correctly and I'm simply not following you correctly. You say you're able to make someone a skilled speaker, if he wants to learn from you? GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: On every subject, then, so as to be persuasive before a crowd—by persuading, not by teaching? GORGIAS: Exactly so. SOCRATES: In fact you were just saying that even on matters of health the orator will be more persuasive than the doctor. GORGIAS: Yes, I did say that—before a crowd, that is. SOCRATES: And 'before a crowd' means before people who don't know, doesn't it? Surely he won't be more persuasive than the doctor among people who do know. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: So if he's going to be more persuasive than the doctor, he becomes more persuasive than someone who knows. GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Without being a doctor himself—yes? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the non-doctor, presumably, is ignorant of what the doctor knows. GORGIAS: Clearly. SOCRATES: So the one who doesn't know will be more persuasive, among those who don't know, than the one who does—whenever the orator is more persuasive than the doctor. Does that follow, or something else? GORGIAS: That's what follows, in this case at least. SOCRATES: And doesn't the same hold for the orator and for rhetoric with respect to all the other crafts as well? Rhetoric has no need to know how matters actually stand—it has simply discovered some device of persuasion so as to appear, to those who don't know, to know more than those who do. GORGIAS: And isn't that a great convenience, Socrates—that without having learned all the other crafts, but only this one, a man is no worse off than the specialists? SOCRATES: Whether the orator is worse off or not on account of being like this, we'll look into shortly, if it bears on our discussion. But for now let's examine this first: does the orator stand in the same relation to justice and injustice, to shame and honor, good and bad, as he does to health and the other things the other crafts deal with—not knowing himself what is good or bad, honorable or shameful, just or unjust, but having devised some persuasion about them so as to seem, among those who don't know, to know more than the one who does, without actually knowing? Or is it necessary that he know these things, and must whoever intends to learn rhetoric already know them before coming to you? And if not, will you, the teacher of rhetoric, simply not teach the newcomer any of this—since that isn't your business—but make him seem, before the many, to know such things when he doesn't, and to seem good when he isn't? Or will you be altogether unable to teach him rhetoric at all, unless he already knows the truth about these matters beforehand? How does this stand, Gorgias? For god's sake, as you said a moment ago, pull back the veil and tell us what exactly the power of rhetoric is.
GORGIAS: Well, Socrates, I think that if it happens he doesn't know, he'll learn that from me too. SOCRATES: Hold on there—well said. If you make someone a skilled speaker, he must know what's just and unjust, either before he comes to you or afterward, once he's learned it from you. GORGIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then—someone who has learned carpentry is a carpenter, isn't he? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And someone who has learned music is a musician? GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And someone who has learned medicine is a doctor? And so on by the same reasoning in every case—whoever has learned a given subject becomes the sort of person that knowledge of it produces? GORGIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So by this same reasoning, whoever has learned what is just is just? GORGIAS: Surely, at any rate. SOCRATES: And the just man does just things. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the skilled speaker must be just, and the just man must want to do just things? GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then the just man will never want to act unjustly. GORGIAS: He must not. SOCRATES: And by our reasoning, the skilled speaker must be just. GORGIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the skilled speaker will never want to act unjustly. GORGIAS: It doesn't appear so. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, saying a little earlier that we shouldn't blame the athletic trainers or drive them out of our cities if the boxer misuses his boxing skill and acts unjustly with it—and likewise, if the orator misuses rhetoric, we shouldn't blame the teacher or banish him from the city, but rather the one who does wrong and misuses rhetoric? Was that said, or not? GORGIAS: It was said. SOCRATES: But now this same man, the skilled speaker, turns out never to be capable of acting unjustly at all. Isn't that so? GORGIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And right at the start, Gorgias, it was said that rhetoric deals with speeches not about odd and even, but about the just and the unjust. Wasn't that so? GORGIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well then, when you were saying that earlier, I took it to mean that rhetoric could never be an unjust thing, since it always makes its speeches about justice. But then a little later you said that the orator might well use rhetoric unjustly. So I was puzzled, and thinking these statements didn't harmonize, I said what I said—that if you counted it a gain to be refuted, as I do, it would be worth continuing the discussion, but if not, we should let it drop. And now, as we've gone on examining it, you can see for yourself that it's been agreed all over again that the skilled speaker cannot possibly use rhetoric unjustly or be willing to do wrong. Now which way this really stands, by the dog, Gorgias, would take no small discussion to work out properly. POLUS: What's this, Socrates? Is that really your own view of rhetoric, what you're saying now? Or do you imagine—because Gorgias was ashamed not to concede to you that the skilled speaker must also know what's just and honorable and good, and that if he came to him without knowing these things he'd teach him himself—and then perhaps some contradiction turned up in the argument as a result of that concession (something you're delighted with, having led him yourself into such questions)—for who do you think would deny knowing justice himself and being able to teach it to others? No, dragging the discussion into that sort of thing is simply boorish. SOCRATES: My dear Polus, it's precisely for this reason that we acquire companions and sons—so that when we ourselves, grown older, stumble, you younger men will be there to set our life straight again, both in deed and in word. So now, if Gorgias and I have stumbled somewhere in our argument, you're here to correct us—as is only fair—and I for my part am willing to take back anything that's been agreed, if it seems to you not rightly agreed, provided you keep just one thing for my sake. POLUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Reining in that long-windedness, Polus, which you tried to indulge in at first. POLUS: What? Won't I be allowed to say as much as I like? SOCRATES: It would be a terrible thing indeed, my excellent friend, if on coming to Athens—where there's more freedom of speech than anywhere else in Greece—you alone, of all people, should be denied it here.
SOCRATES: Well, turn it around. If you go on at length and won't answer what's actually asked, wouldn't it be a real hardship for me if I weren't allowed to leave and stop listening to you? No — if you care at all about the argument we were making and want to set it right, take back whatever you like, as I said just now, and question and be questioned in turn, the way Gorgias and I were doing — test and be tested. You say you know the same things Gorgias knows, don't you? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: And don't you also invite anyone to ask you whatever they like, on the assumption that you'll know how to answer? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, do whichever of the two you like right now — ask, or answer. POLUS: All right, I'll do that. Answer me this, Socrates: since Gorgias seems to you to be at a loss about what rhetoric is, what do you say it is? SOCRATES: Are you asking what art I say it is? POLUS: I am. SOCRATES: None at all, Polus, if I'm to tell you the truth. POLUS: Well then, what do you think rhetoric is? SOCRATES: A thing which you say, in that treatise of yours I read recently, you've made into an art. POLUS: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: I mean a kind of knack. POLUS: So you think rhetoric is a knack? SOCRATES: I do, unless you mean something else. POLUS: A knack for what? SOCRATES: For producing a kind of gratification and pleasure. POLUS: So you think rhetoric is a fine thing, then — being able to gratify people? SOCRATES: What's this, Polus? Have you already learned from me what I say it is, that you're now asking whether I think it's fine? POLUS: Haven't I learned that you call it a kind of knack? SOCRATES: Since you set such store by gratifying people, would you like to do me a small favor? POLUS: I would. SOCRATES: Then ask me now what sort of art I think cookery is. POLUS: All right, I'm asking — what art is cookery? SOCRATES: None, Polus. POLUS: Then what is it? Tell me. SOCRATES: I say it's a kind of knack. POLUS: What kind? Tell me. SOCRATES: A knack for producing gratification and pleasure, Polus. POLUS: So cookery and rhetoric are the same thing? SOCRATES: Not at all — but they're parts of the same practice. POLUS: What practice is that, in your view?
SOCRATES: I'm afraid the truth might sound rather crude to say — I hesitate to say it for Gorgias's sake, in case he thinks I'm making fun of his own profession. Whether this is what Gorgias practices as rhetoric, I don't know — nothing in our conversation just now made clear what he actually thinks it is — but what I call rhetoric is a part of something, and none of it fine. GORGIAS: A part of what, Socrates? Tell me — don't be shy on my account. SOCRATES: Well, Gorgias, it seems to me there's a certain practice — not a skill at all, but the mark of a soul that's shrewd, bold, and naturally clever at dealing with people — and I call the essence of it flattery. This practice, I think, has many parts, and cookery is one of them. It looks like a skill, but by my account it isn't a skill at all — it's a knack, a matter of routine. Rhetoric is a part of this same thing, I say, and so are cosmetics and sophistry — four parts applied to four subjects. So if Polus wants to find out, let him ask — he still hasn't learned what part of flattery I say rhetoric is; he doesn't realize I haven't yet answered that, and instead he asks me the next question, whether I think it's a fine thing. I won't answer him whether I think rhetoric is fine or shameful until I first answer what it is. That wouldn't be fair, Polus. But if you do want to find out, ask what part of flattery I say rhetoric is. POLUS: I'm asking, then — answer, what part is it? SOCRATES: Will you actually understand my answer? By my account, rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics. POLUS: Well then — do you call it fine or shameful? SOCRATES: Shameful, I'd say — I call bad things shameful — since you're making me answer as if you already knew what I mean. GORGIAS: By Zeus, Socrates, I don't even understand what you mean myself. SOCRATES: Naturally, Gorgias — I haven't yet said anything clear, and this Polus here is young and quick to the chase. GORGIAS: Never mind him — tell me how you mean that rhetoric is the counterfeit of a part of politics.
SOCRATES: Well, I'll try to explain what rhetoric appears to me to be. If it turns out not to be this, Polus here will refute me. You do speak of something called body, and something called soul? GORGIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: And you think each of these has some state of well-being? GORGIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And what about a well-being that only seems to be, but isn't really? Take this example: many people seem to be in good bodily condition, whom no one would easily notice weren't — except a doctor, or one of the trainers. GORGIAS: True. SOCRATES: I say there's something like this in the body and in the soul as well, which makes the body or the soul seem to be in good condition, though it's really nothing of the sort. GORGIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Come then, let me show you more clearly what I mean, if I can. Given that there are two things, I say there are two arts. The one concerned with the soul I call politics; the one concerned with the body I have no single name to give you, but since caring for the body is one thing, I speak of two parts of it: gymnastics and medicine. Within politics, corresponding to gymnastics, there's legislation, and corresponding to medicine, there's justice. These pair off with each other, since they deal with the same subject — medicine with gymnastics, justice with legislation — yet they differ somewhat from each other. Now, there being these four, and each of them always caring for the best — one pair for the body, the other for the soul — flattery has caught on to this — not by understanding it, I mean, but by guesswork — and has divided itself into four, and has crept in under each of these parts, pretending to be the very thing it has crept beneath. It has no concern at all for what's best, and instead uses whatever is most pleasant at any moment as bait for foolishness, and deceives it, so that it seems to be worth the most. So cookery has crept in under medicine, pretending to know the best foods for the body, with the result that if a cook and a doctor had to compete before children, or before men just as senseless as children, over which of the two understands good food and bad, the doctor would die of hunger.
SOCRATES: This, then, I call flattery, and I say a thing of this kind is shameful, Polus — this is what I'm saying to you — because it aims at what's pleasant without regard for what's best. And I say it isn't a skill but a knack, because it has no rational account of the nature of the things it applies, so that it can't state the cause of each thing it does. I don't call anything a skill that has no reasoned basis. If you dispute this, I'm willing to give an account of it. So, as I say, cookery, a form of flattery, lies concealed under medicine; in just the same way, cosmetics lies concealed under gymnastics — a mischievous, deceptive, base, and slavish thing, deceiving people with shapes and colors and smooth surfaces and clothes, so that people chase after a borrowed beauty and neglect the beauty that's their own, the kind that comes through gymnastics. So as not to go on at length, let me put it to you the way the geometers do — you may be able to follow now — that what cosmetics is to gymnastics, sophistry is to legislation, and what cookery is to medicine, rhetoric is to justice. This is the natural division I mean, though because these things lie so close to each other, sophists and orators get mixed up together in practice, working on the same subjects, and neither they themselves nor other people know what use to make of them. Indeed, if the soul didn't govern the body, but the body governed itself, and if cookery and medicine weren't examined and distinguished by the soul, but the body itself judged them, weighing them by the pleasures they gave it, then Anaxagoras's saying would hold true many times over, my dear Polus — you know all about this — everything would be jumbled together in one mass, with no distinction between what belongs to medicine, to health, and to cookery. So now you've heard what I say rhetoric is — the counterpart, in the soul, of cookery in the body. Perhaps I've done something odd, in that I wouldn't let you make long speeches, and yet I've drawn out a long speech of my own. But I deserve to be forgiven for it: when I spoke briefly you didn't understand, and you weren't able to make any use of the answer I gave you — you needed a full explanation.
SOCRATES: So if I, in turn, can't make use of your answer, you stretch out a speech too; but if I can, let me use it — that's only fair. And now, if you can make some use of this answer, use it. POLUS: Well then, what do you say? Do you think rhetoric is flattery? SOCRATES: I said a part of flattery. Don't you remember, at your age, Polus? What will you do when you're older? POLUS: Do you think, then, that good orators are regarded as base flatterers in their cities? SOCRATES: Is that a question you're asking, or the start of some speech? POLUS: I'm asking. SOCRATES: It seems to me they aren't even regarded at all. POLUS: What do you mean, not regarded? Don't they have the greatest power in their cities? SOCRATES: No — not if by having power you mean something good for the one who has it. POLUS: But that is what I mean. SOCRATES: Then it seems to me orators have the least power of anyone in the city. POLUS: What? Don't they, like tyrants, put to death whoever they wish, and confiscate property and banish from their cities whoever seems good to them? SOCRATES: By the dog, Polus, I honestly can't tell, with each thing you say, whether you're stating your own view, or asking me. POLUS: I'm asking you. SOCRATES: Well then, my friend — are you asking me two things at once? POLUS: How, two things? SOCRATES: Didn't you just say something like this: don't orators put to death whoever they wish, just like tyrants, and confiscate property and banish from their cities whoever seems good to them? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Well, I tell you these are two questions, and I'll answer you on both. I say, Polus, that both orators and tyrants have the least power in their cities, as I was just saying — they do practically nothing that they actually want, though they do whatever seems best to them. POLUS: And isn't that having great power? SOCRATES: No, not as Polus describes it. POLUS: I don't describe it that way? I do describe it that way. SOCRATES: By — no, you don't, since you said having great power was a good thing for the one who has it. POLUS: And so I do say that. SOCRATES: So you think it's good, if someone does whatever seems best to him, without having any sense? Is that what you call having great power? POLUS: No, I don't.
SOCRATES: So will you prove that speechmakers have sense and that rhetoric is a skill rather than flattery, by refuting me? But if you leave me unrefuted, then the speechmakers who do whatever they see fit in their cities, and the tyrants too, will have gained nothing good by it—if power really is a good thing, as you say, while doing what one sees fit without sense is, as you yourself agree, a bad thing. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then how could speechmakers or tyrants have great power in their cities, unless Socrates gets refuted by Polus and shown wrong that they do what they want? POLUS: This man— SOCRATES: I say they don't do what they want. Go on, refute me. POLUS: Didn't you just now agree that they do what seems best to them? Didn't you say that a moment ago? SOCRATES: And I still say it now. POLUS: So don't they do what they want? SOCRATES: I say they don't. POLUS: Even though they do what seems fit to them? SOCRATES: Yes. POLUS: That's outrageous, Socrates—monstrous, even! SOCRATES: Don't abuse me, my excellent Polus—to address you in your own style—but if you're able to question me, show that I'm wrong; otherwise, answer the questions yourself. POLUS: Well, I'm willing to answer, so I can find out what you mean. SOCRATES: Then tell me—do you think people want the very thing they do on any given occasion, or do they want that for the sake of which they do what they do? Take people drinking medicine from their doctors: do you think they want what they're doing—drinking the medicine and suffering pain—or do they want health, the thing for whose sake they drink it? POLUS: Health, clearly. SOCRATES: And in the same way, people who sail the sea or engage in any other business, making money—that isn't what they want, what they're doing at any given moment. Who wants to sail and run risks and have all that trouble? No, I think what they want is that for whose sake they sail—getting rich. It's for the sake of wealth that they sail. POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same with everything? If someone does something for the sake of something else, he doesn't want the thing he's doing, but that for whose sake he does it. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now is there anything that exists which isn't either good or bad, or in between—neither good nor bad? POLUS: There has to be, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you'd say that wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things are good, and their opposites are bad? POLUS: I would.
SOCRATES: And the things that are neither good nor bad—do you mean the sort that sometimes share in the good, sometimes in the bad, and sometimes in neither, like sitting, walking, running, sailing, and again things like stones and sticks and so on? Isn't that what you mean? Or do you call something else the things that are neither good nor bad? POLUS: No, those are what I mean. SOCRATES: Then do people do these in-between things for the sake of the good things, when they do them, or do they do the good things for the sake of the in-between ones? POLUS: The in-between things, surely, for the sake of the good ones. SOCRATES: So it's the good we're pursuing when we walk, whenever we walk—thinking it's better—and conversely we stand still, whenever we stand, for the very same reason, for the sake of the good. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't we also kill someone, if we kill anyone, and banish him and confiscate his property, thinking it's better for us to do these things than not? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So it's for the sake of the good that people who do all these things do them. POLUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Now didn't we agree that when we do things for the sake of something else, we don't want those things themselves, but that for whose sake we do them? POLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So we don't want, simply as such, to slaughter people or banish them from their cities or confiscate their property—but if these things are beneficial, we want to do them, while if they're harmful, we don't want to. For we want the good things, as you say, and we don't want the things that are neither good nor bad, nor the bad things. Isn't that right? Do you think I'm speaking the truth, Polus, or not? Why don't you answer? POLUS: It's true. SOCRATES: Then since we're agreed on this, if someone kills another, or banishes him from his city, or confiscates his property—whether he's a tyrant or a speechmaker—thinking it's better for himself, when it actually turns out worse, this man is doing what seems fit to him. Isn't that so? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then is he also doing what he wants, given that these things happen to be bad? Why don't you answer? POLUS: No, he doesn't seem to me to be doing what he wants. SOCRATES: Then is it possible for such a man to have great power in his city, if having great power is, by your own admission, something good? POLUS: It isn't possible. SOCRATES: So what I said was true, when I said it's possible for a man doing what seems fit to him in a city to lack great power and not to be doing what he wants. POLUS: As if you, Socrates, wouldn't accept the chance to do whatever seemed fit to you in your city rather than not, and as if you don't envy someone when you see him killing whomever he thinks fit, or confiscating property, or throwing people in chains. SOCRATES: Justly, do you mean, or unjustly?
POLUS: Whichever way he does it, isn't it enviable either way? SOCRATES: Watch your words, Polus. POLUS: Why? SOCRATES: Because we shouldn't envy the unenviable or the wretched, but pity them. POLUS: Really? Is that how you feel about the people I'm talking about? SOCRATES: Of course. POLUS: So someone who kills whomever he thinks fit, killing him justly—do you think he's wretched and pitiable? SOCRATES: Not to me, no—but not enviable either. POLUS: But didn't you just say he was wretched? SOCRATES: The one who kills unjustly, my friend—yes, and pitiable besides; but the one who kills justly is not enviable. POLUS: Surely it's the one who dies unjustly who's pitiable and wretched. SOCRATES: Less so than the one who kills him, Polus, and less so than the one who dies justly. POLUS: How can that be, Socrates? SOCRATES: It's because doing wrong happens to be the worst of evils. POLUS: Is that really the worst? Isn't suffering wrong worse? SOCRATES: Not in the least. POLUS: So you'd rather suffer wrong than do it? SOCRATES: I wouldn't want either, myself—but if it were necessary to do wrong or to suffer it, I'd choose to suffer wrong rather than do it. POLUS: So you wouldn't accept being a tyrant? SOCRATES: Not if by being a tyrant you mean what I mean. POLUS: But what I mean is just what I said before—being free to do whatever one thinks fit in the city, killing and banishing and doing everything according to one's own judgment. SOCRATES: My good man, then take hold of my argument as I make it. Suppose I, in a crowded marketplace, took a dagger under my arm and said to you: Polus, some wonderful power and tyranny has just come to me—if it seems fit to me that any one of these people you see here ought to die right away, he'll be dead, this very one I decide on; and if it seems fit to me that someone's skull ought to be cracked, it'll be cracked instantly; or that his cloak should be torn, it'll be torn—that's how much power I have in this city. Now if you doubted me and I showed you the dagger, perhaps you'd say, on seeing it: Socrates, at that rate everyone would have great power, since a house could be burned down that way, whichever one you liked, and the Athenians' shipyards too, and their triremes, and all their vessels, public and private. But that isn't what having great power means—doing what seems fit to one. Or do you think it is? POLUS: No, certainly not that way.
SOCRATES: Can you say, then, why you find fault with that kind of power? POLUS: I can. SOCRATES: Why? Tell me. POLUS: Because someone who acts that way is bound to be punished. SOCRATES: And isn't being punished a bad thing? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Then, my remarkable friend, having great power turns out again to look like this: if doing what seems fit is accompanied by acting beneficially, that's good, and that, it seems, is having great power; but if not, it's bad, and it's having little power. Let's also consider this: don't we agree that sometimes it's better to do these things we were just talking about—killing people, banishing them, confiscating their property—and sometimes not? POLUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well, that much, it seems, we both agree on. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then when do you say it's better to do these things? Tell me where you draw the line. POLUS: You answer that yourself, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, I say, Polus, if it's more pleasing to you to hear it from me, that it's better when one does these things justly, and worse when unjustly. POLUS: It's hard to refute you, Socrates—but couldn't even a child refute you and show that what you're saying isn't true? SOCRATES: Then I'll be very grateful to the child, and just as grateful to you, if you refute me and rid me of this nonsense. Come, don't tire of doing a friend a good turn—refute me. POLUS: Well look, Socrates, you don't need me to refute you with ancient history—what happened just yesterday and the day before is enough to refute you and show that many wrongdoers are happy men. SOCRATES: What events do you mean? POLUS: You see this Archelaus, son of Perdiccas, ruling Macedonia? SOCRATES: If not with my own eyes, at least I've heard of him. POLUS: Do you think he's happy or wretched? SOCRATES: I don't know, Polus—I've never met the man. POLUS: What? Would you know if you met him, but you can't tell right off that he's happy? SOCRATES: No, by Zeus, I certainly can't. POLUS: Clearly then, Socrates, you'll say you don't even know whether the Great King is happy. SOCRATES: And I'll be telling the truth—for I don't know how he stands with respect to education and justice. POLUS: What? Does all happiness depend on that? SOCRATES: That's how I see it, Polus—I say that the fine and good man or woman is happy, and the unjust and wicked one is wretched.
POLUS: So by your account this Archelaus is wretched? SOCRATES: Yes, my friend, if he's unjust. POLUS: But how could he not be unjust? He had no claim at all to the rule he now holds, being the son of a woman who was a slave of Alcetas, Perdiccas's brother; by rights he was Alcetas's slave, and if he'd wanted to do what was just, he'd have been Alcetas's servant and would be happy by your account. But as things stand he's turned out amazingly wretched, since he's committed the greatest wrongs. First he sent for this very man—his own master and uncle—pretending he'd restore to him the rule that Perdiccas had taken from him; then, after entertaining him and getting him and his son Alexander (his own cousin, about the same age) drunk, he threw them into a wagon, drove them out at night, slit their throats, and made them both disappear. And having done this wrong, he never noticed he'd become the most wretched of men, and felt no regret—instead, a little later, he refused to make his brother happy by justly raising him and restoring to him the rule that rightfully belonged to him—the legitimate son of Perdiccas, a boy of about seven—but threw him into a well and drowned him, then told the boy's mother, Cleopatra, that he'd fallen in chasing a goose and died. And so now, since he's committed the greatest wrongs of anyone in Macedonia, he's the most wretched of all Macedonians, not the happiest—and I daresay there's more than one Athenian, starting with you, who'd rather be any other Macedonian at all than Archelaus. SOCRATES: Right at the start of our conversation, Polus, I praised you for being, it seemed to me, well trained in rhetoric, but for having neglected the art of discussion. And now is this the argument by which even a child could refute me, and by which you now think you've refuted me, when you say the wrongdoer isn't happy? Where does that follow, my good man? I don't agree with a single thing you've said. POLUS: That's because you don't want to—since deep down you think it's just as I say.
SOCRATES: My blessed friend, you're trying to refute me the way lawyers do, the way people argue in court. There too one side thinks it refutes the other by producing many respectable witnesses for what it says, while the opponent brings forward only one witness, or none. But that kind of proof is worth nothing when it comes to truth, since a man can sometimes be falsely testified against by a great many people who seem to be somebodies. And in the case we're discussing, nearly everyone would agree with you against me, Athenians and foreigners alike, if you wanted to produce witnesses that what I say isn't true. You could call Nicias son of Niceratus, if you like, and his brothers along with him, whose tripods stand in a row in the precinct of Dionysus; or, if you prefer, Aristocrates son of Scellias, whose fine dedication stands in the temple of Apollo; or, if you like, the entire house of Pericles, or any other family you care to pick from this city. But I, standing alone, don't agree with you—you haven't compelled me to. You've simply produced a crowd of false witnesses against me and are trying to drive me out of my property and out of the truth. But if I can't produce you yourself as my single witness, agreeing with what I say, then I don't think I've achieved anything worth mentioning on the subject we're discussing. And I don't think you have either, unless I alone testify in your favor, while you let all these others go their way. Now there's one kind of proof, the kind you and most people believe in—and there's another kind, which I believe in. Let's set them side by side and see whether they differ at all. And in fact the matters we're disputing aren't small ones—they're about as close as anything can be to what it's most splendid to know and most shameful not to know. The heart of it is simply this: knowing or not knowing who is happy and who isn't. Take the very question before us right now: do you think it's possible for a man to be happy while doing wrong and being unjust—given that you consider Archelaus unjust, yet happy? Are we to take it that this is your view? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And I say it's impossible. That's one point where we disagree. Very well—will a man who does wrong be happy if he actually pays the penalty and is punished for it? POLUS: Not at all—in that case he'd be most wretched. SOCRATES: But if the wrongdoer escapes punishment, then by your account he'll be happy? POLUS: That's what I say. SOCRATES: Whereas in my view, Polus, the man who does wrong and is unjust is wretched in every case—more wretched if he escapes justice and isn't punished for his wrongdoing, less wretched if he pays the penalty and is punished, by gods and men alike.
POLUS: What strange things you're trying to argue, Socrates! SOCRATES: And I'll try to make you say the same things I do, my friend—because I consider you a friend. Now here's where we differ; look at it yourself too. I said earlier that doing wrong is worse than suffering it. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And you said suffering it is worse. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And I said that wrongdoers are wretched, and you refuted me on that. POLUS: Yes, by Zeus. SOCRATES: So you believe, Polus. POLUS: And rightly so. SOCRATES: Perhaps. And you in turn say that wrongdoers are happy, provided they aren't punished. POLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And I say they're the most wretched of all, while those who are punished are less so. Do you want to refute this claim too? POLUS: But that one's even harder to refute than the other, Socrates. SOCRATES: Not harder, Polus—impossible. Because truth is never refuted. POLUS: What do you mean? Suppose a wrongdoer is caught plotting to seize tyranny, and once caught he's racked and mutilated and has his eyes burned out, and suffers many other terrible torments of every kind, and watches his own children and wife suffer the same, and finally is impaled or coated in pitch and burned alive—will such a man be happier than one who escapes, becomes tyrant, and lives out his life ruling the city, doing whatever he wants, envied and considered blessed by the citizens and by foreigners as well? Do you say it's impossible to refute this? SOCRATES: Now you're trying to scare me with monsters, noble Polus, rather than refuting me—a moment ago you were calling witnesses. Still, remind me of one small thing: you said 'plotting for tyranny unjustly'? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: Then neither of them will ever be happier than the other—not the one who seizes the tyranny unjustly, nor the one who's punished for trying—since between two wretched men, neither can be happier than the other. But the one who escapes and becomes tyrant is more wretched. Why are you laughing, Polus? Is this another kind of refutation—when someone makes a claim, to laugh at it instead of refuting it? POLUS: Don't you think you've already been refuted, Socrates, when you say things nobody on earth would agree to? Just ask any of these men here.
SOCRATES: Polus, I'm no politician. Last year, when I was chosen by lot to sit on the council, and my tribe held the presidency and it fell to me to call for a vote, I made everyone laugh because I didn't know how to conduct it properly. So don't ask me now to poll the people present either. Instead, if you have no better proof than the kind I was just describing, hand the argument over to me for a turn, and let me try the kind of proof I think is called for. Because I know how to produce one witness for whatever I claim—the very man I'm arguing with—and I let the majority go their way; and I know how to take one man's vote, though I don't even converse with the majority. So see whether you're willing to take your turn giving proof by answering my questions. I believe that you and I and everyone else consider doing wrong worse than suffering it, and escaping punishment worse than being punished. POLUS: And I believe nothing of the sort—not for myself, not for anyone else. Would you rather suffer wrong than do it? SOCRATES: Yes, and so would you, and so would everyone else. POLUS: Far from it—not I, not you, not anyone. SOCRATES: Then won't you answer? POLUS: I certainly will—I'm curious to hear what you'll say. SOCRATES: Tell me then, so you'll know, as if I were asking you from the beginning: which seems to you worse, Polus, doing wrong or suffering it? POLUS: Suffering it, in my view. SOCRATES: And which is more shameful—doing wrong or suffering it? Answer. POLUS: Doing wrong. SOCRATES: And isn't the more shameful also the worse, if it's more shameful? POLUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: I see—apparently you don't think the fine and the good are the same thing, nor the bad and the shameful. POLUS: No, I don't. SOCRATES: Well, what about this: when you call things fine—bodies, colors, shapes, sounds, ways of life—do you call them fine without reference to anything? Take fine bodies first: don't you call them fine either in respect of their usefulness, for whatever purpose each is useful, or in respect of some pleasure, if they give pleasure to those who look at them as they look? Can you name anything about bodily beauty apart from these? POLUS: I can't. SOCRATES: And don't you likewise call everything else fine—shapes and colors too—either because of some pleasure or some benefit, or both? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: And the same goes for sounds and everything in music? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And surely laws and ways of life aren't outside this either—things are called fine because they're beneficial or pleasant or both.
POLUS: I don't think so, no. SOCRATES: And isn't the beauty of studies the same way? POLUS: Certainly—and you're defining it well now, Socrates, marking off the fine by pleasure and benefit. SOCRATES: And the shameful by their opposites, then—pain and harm? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So whenever, of two fine things, one is finer than the other, it's finer by exceeding the other in one of these—pleasure or benefit or both. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And whenever, of two shameful things, one is more shameful, it will be more shameful by exceeding in pain or in harm. Isn't that necessary too? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then—how did we put it just now about doing wrong and suffering it? Didn't you say that suffering wrong is worse, but doing wrong is more shameful? POLUS: I did. SOCRATES: So if doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, then it must be either more painful, and more shameful by an excess of pain, or more shameful by an excess of harm, or both. Isn't that necessary too? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Then first let's examine whether doing wrong exceeds suffering it in pain—whether wrongdoers feel more pain than those who are wronged. POLUS: Not at all, Socrates, not that. SOCRATES: Then it doesn't exceed in pain. POLUS: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: And if not in pain, then it can't exceed in both. POLUS: Apparently not. SOCRATES: So it's left with the other one. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: With harm. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: So doing wrong, exceeding in harm, would be worse than suffering it. POLUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: Now didn't most people, and you as well, agree earlier that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And now it's turned out to be worse. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Would you then choose the worse and more shameful over the less so? Don't shrink from answering, Polus—you won't be harmed by it. Just submit nobly to the argument as you would to a doctor, and say yes or no to what I ask. POLUS: No, I wouldn't choose it, Socrates. SOCRATES: Would anyone else? POLUS: Not on this reasoning, I don't think. SOCRATES: So what I was saying was true—that neither I nor you nor anyone else would choose to do wrong rather than suffer it, since it turns out to be worse. POLUS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: You see then, Polus, when one proof is set beside the other, they're nothing alike—while everyone else agrees with you except me, for my part you alone are enough for me, agreeing and testifying, and I take your single vote and let the others go their way. Let's leave that matter as it stands, then, and turn to the second point we disputed: whether a wrongdoer paying the penalty is the greatest of evils, as you supposed, or whether not paying it is greater still, as I supposed. Let's look at it this way: do you call paying the penalty and being justly punished for wrongdoing the same thing? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: Can you say that whatever is just isn't also fine, insofar as it's just? Think it over and tell me. POLUS: It does seem so to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then consider this too: if someone does something, isn't there necessarily something that has it done to it by the one doing it? POLUS: I think so. SOCRATES: And does it undergo just what the doer does, and in the same manner as the doer does it? I mean something like this: if someone strikes, must something be struck? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And if the striker strikes hard or fast, the thing struck is struck in that same way? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the thing struck undergoes whatever sort of experience the striker inflicts? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if someone burns something, must something be burned? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And if he burns it intensely or painfully, the thing burned is burned just as the burner burns it? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the same reasoning holds if someone cuts something—something is cut? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if the cut is large or deep or painful, the thing cut suffers a cut of just the kind the cutter makes? POLUS: It appears so. SOCRATES: In short, then, see whether you agree with what I was just saying about all cases: whatever sort of thing the doer does, the sufferer suffers a like thing. POLUS: I agree. SOCRATES: Given this agreement, is paying a penalty a case of suffering something or doing something? POLUS: It must be suffering, Socrates. SOCRATES: And at the hands of someone doing something? POLUS: Of course—the one inflicting punishment. SOCRATES: And the one who punishes correctly punishes justly? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Doing just things, then, or not? POLUS: Just things. SOCRATES: So the one being punished, in paying the penalty, suffers what is just? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And we've agreed that just things are fine? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then of these two, one does what is fine, and the other—the one being punished—suffers it. POLUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: So if they're fine things, they're good things? Because they're either pleasant or beneficial. POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So the person who pays the penalty experiences something good? POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: He's benefited, then? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Benefited in the way I mean — his soul becomes better, if he's punished justly? POLUS: That's likely. SOCRATES: So the one paying the penalty is rid of a vice in his soul? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is he then rid of the greatest evil? Look at it this way. In managing one's money, do you see any vice other than poverty? POLUS: No, just poverty. SOCRATES: And in the condition of the body? Would you say the vice there is weakness, disease, deformity, and the like? POLUS: I would. SOCRATES: And don't you think there's some corresponding badness in the soul too? POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And don't you call that injustice, ignorance, cowardice, and so on? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So with money, body, and soul — three things — you've named three kinds of badness: poverty, disease, injustice? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now which of these forms of badness is the most shameful? Isn't it injustice — the soul's badness generally? POLUS: By far. SOCRATES: And if it's the most shameful, is it also the worst? POLUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Like this. Whatever is most shameful is always so because it causes the greatest pain, or the greatest harm, or both — that follows from what we agreed earlier. POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And we just agreed that injustice, and badness of soul generally, is the most shameful thing? POLUS: We did agree to that. SOCRATES: So it's the most shameful either because it's the most painful and exceeds in pain, or because it exceeds in harm, or both? POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Then is being unjust, undisciplined, cowardly, and ignorant more painful than being poor or sick? POLUS: It doesn't seem so to me, Socrates, not on those grounds. SOCRATES: So it must be some extraordinary harm, some astonishing evil, surpassing everything else, that makes the soul's badness the most shameful of all things — since it isn't through pain, as you yourself say. POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: But surely whatever exceeds in the greatest harm would be the greatest evil there is. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So injustice, lack of self-control, and the soul's other badness are the greatest evil there is? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now what skill relieves poverty? Isn't it money-making? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what relieves disease? Isn't it medicine?
POLUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And what relieves badness and injustice? If you can't answer easily, look at it this way: where and to whom do we take people who are sick in body? POLUS: To doctors, Socrates. SOCRATES: And where do we take people who act unjustly and without self-control? POLUS: You mean, to the judges? SOCRATES: To pay a penalty, you mean? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't those who punish correctly do so by applying a kind of justice? POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: So money-making relieves poverty, medicine relieves disease, and justice relieves lack of self-control and injustice. POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now which of these is the finest? POLUS: Finest in what sense? SOCRATES: Money-making, medicine, justice. POLUS: Justice is far superior, Socrates. SOCRATES: And doesn't whatever is finest produce the most pleasure, or the most benefit, or both, since it's the finest? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is being treated by a doctor pleasant, then? Do patients enjoy it? POLUS: I don't think so. SOCRATES: But it is beneficial, isn't it? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Because one is rid of a great evil, so it's worthwhile to endure the pain in order to be healthy. POLUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So as far as the body goes, would a person be happiest being treated by a doctor, or by never being sick in the first place? POLUS: Clearly by never being sick. SOCRATES: Because happiness, it seems, isn't being rid of an evil, but never having had it at all. POLUS: That's right. SOCRATES: Now, of two people who have some evil, either in body or in soul, which is more wretched — the one who gets treated and is rid of the evil, or the one who isn't treated and keeps it? POLUS: It seems to me the one who isn't treated. SOCRATES: And wasn't paying the penalty a release from the greatest evil, badness itself? POLUS: It was. SOCRATES: Because justice disciplines people and makes them more just — it's a kind of medicine for badness. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the happiest person is the one with no vice in his soul, since that was shown to be the greatest of evils. POLUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: And second happiest, I suppose, is the one who is rid of it. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And that's the person who is admonished, rebuked, and pays the penalty. POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the person who lives worst is the one who has injustice and is never rid of it. POLUS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: And isn't this the very person who, by committing the greatest injustices and using injustice to the fullest, manages to avoid being admonished, punished, or made to pay any penalty — just as you say Archelaus has arranged for himself, and other tyrants, orators, and men of power? POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Because these men, my excellent friend, have more or less achieved the same thing as someone gripped by the worst diseases who manages to avoid paying the doctors any penalty for his bodily faults and avoids treatment altogether, afraid — like a child — of the burning and cutting, because it's painful. Don't you think it's like that? POLUS: I do. SOCRATES: Not understanding, it seems, what health and bodily excellence really are. Because, from what we've now agreed, it looks like those who escape punishment do something similar, Polus — they see the pain of it clearly enough, but they're blind to the benefit, not realizing how much more wretched it is to live with an unhealthy soul than an unhealthy body — a soul that's rotten, unjust, and impious. That's why they do everything they can to avoid paying the penalty and being freed from the greatest evil — piling up money and friends, and making themselves as persuasive speakers as possible. But if what we've agreed is true, Polus, do you see what follows from the argument? Or shall we work it out together? POLUS: If you think so. SOCRATES: Doesn't it follow that injustice, acting unjustly, is the greatest evil? POLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And we also showed that paying the penalty is the release from that evil? POLUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: And not paying it means the evil remains? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So acting unjustly is the second worst thing in terms of magnitude; but acting unjustly and not paying the penalty is by nature the worst and greatest of all evils. POLUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Now wasn't this exactly the point we were disputing, my friend — you calling Archelaus happy, a man who commits the greatest injustices and pays no penalty at all, while I hold the opposite: that whoever — Archelaus or anyone else — acts unjustly without paying the penalty deserves to be more wretched than everyone else, and that the wrongdoer is always more wretched than the wronged, and the one who escapes punishment more wretched than the one who is punished? Isn't that what I was saying? POLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And hasn't it now been shown that this was true? POLUS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: Very well. If all this is true, Polus, what great use is oratory then? From what we've now agreed, a person must above all guard himself against acting unjustly, knowing that this will bring him evil enough. Isn't that so? POLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if he does act unjustly — either himself, or anyone he cares about — he should go voluntarily, as quickly as possible, to wherever he'll be made to pay the penalty, to the judge as if to a doctor, eager to keep the sickness of injustice from festering in the soul and becoming incurable over time. Isn't that what we must say, Polus, if our earlier agreements still stand? Doesn't this necessarily follow from them, and nothing else? POLUS: Well, what else could we say, Socrates? SOCRATES: So oratory is of no use to us, Polus, for defending one's own injustice, or that of one's parents, friends, children, or country when it acts unjustly — unless someone takes the opposite view: that one should accuse oneself first of all, then one's family and anyone else among one's friends who happens to act unjustly, and not hide the wrongdoing but bring it into the open, so that the penalty may be paid and the soul restored to health; that one should force oneself and others not to shrink back, but to offer oneself bravely, eyes shut, as if to the doctor's knife and cautery, pursuing the good and the fine without weighing the pain; offering oneself for a beating if the wrongdoing deserves a beating, for imprisonment if it deserves imprisonment, paying a fine if that's due, accepting exile if that's due, accepting death if that's due — being the first to accuse himself and his own family, and using oratory for this very purpose: so that, once the injustices are exposed, people may be freed from the greatest evil, injustice itself. Shall we say this, Polus, or not? POLUS: It seems strange to me, Socrates, though perhaps it agrees with what we said before. SOCRATES: Then either we must undo those earlier agreements, or this conclusion must follow. POLUS: Yes, that's how it stands.
SOCRATES: And conversely, if one must do harm to someone — an enemy or anyone else — provided one hasn't been wronged by that enemy oneself (for that must be guarded against), but if the enemy has wronged someone else, then every effort should be made, in word and deed, to keep him from paying the penalty or ever coming before the judge; and if he does come, one should contrive some way for the enemy to escape and avoid paying the penalty — if he's stolen a great deal of gold, to let him keep it and spend it, unjustly and godlessly, on himself and his own; and if he's done something deserving death, to make sure he doesn't die — best of all, never, letting him live on forever in his wickedness, but failing that, letting him live as long as possible in that condition. For such purposes, Polus, oratory seems useful to me; for someone who doesn't intend to act unjustly, it doesn't seem to me to have much use — if indeed it has any use at all, since none has appeared in our discussion so far. CALLICLES: Tell me, Chaerephon, is Socrates serious about this, or is he joking? CHAEREPHON: To me, Callicles, he seems extraordinarily serious. But there's nothing like asking him yourself. CALLICLES: By the gods, that's just what I want to do. Tell me, Socrates, are we to take you as serious right now, or joking? Because if you're serious and what you're saying happens to be true, then wouldn't our whole human life be turned upside down, and everything we do be the opposite of what we should do? SOCRATES: Callicles, if human beings didn't each experience some feeling — some one thing, some another, or some the same thing as others — but instead each of us had some private experience all our own that no one else shared, it wouldn't be easy to make our own feeling clear to someone else. I say this because I notice that you and I happen right now to be experiencing the same thing: each of us is in love, twice over — I with Alcibiades, son of Clinias, and with philosophy, and you with two loves as well, the Athenian people and the son of Pyrilampes. And I notice that you, clever as you are, can't contradict whatever your beloved says or however he says he feels — you keep shifting back and forth. In the assembly, if you say something and the Athenian people disagree, you change your position and say what they want to hear; and you've experienced the same sort of thing with that handsome young man, the son of Pyrilampes.
SOCRATES: You can't bring yourself to oppose whatever your darling thinks and says, and so if someone were amazed at the strange things you say for his sake and objected, you'd tell him -- if you wanted to speak the truth -- that unless somebody stops your darling from saying such things, you'll never stop saying them yourself either. Well, you should expect to hear the same sort of thing from me now. Don't be surprised that I say what I say -- blame philosophy instead, my own darling, and make her stop saying these things. She's the one who says, dear friend, what you're hearing from me right now, and she's a far less fickle darling than the other one. That son of Cleinias changes his tune from one moment to the next, but philosophy always says the same things -- and what she says is exactly what's amazing you now, and you were there yourself when it was said. So either refute her -- show, as I was just saying, that doing wrong and getting away with it unpunished is not the worst of all evils -- or, if you leave that unrefuted, then by the dog, the god of the Egyptians, Callicles will not agree with you, Callicles, but will be out of tune with himself his whole life long. And yet I, for my part, my good man, would rather have my lyre out of tune and jangling, or a chorus I was directing sound like that, and I would rather practically the whole human race disagreed with me and contradicted me, than that I, a single individual, should be out of harmony with myself and contradict myself. CALLICLES: Socrates, you seem to be indulging yourself in speeches like some kind of true crowd-pleaser -- and that's exactly what you're doing now, making a speech to the crowd, now that Polus has suffered the very thing he accused you of doing to Gorgias. He said, I think, that when you asked Gorgias whether, if someone came to him wanting to learn rhetoric without already knowing what's just, Gorgias would teach him -- Gorgias, out of shame, said he would teach him, because of people's habit of getting angry if you say you won't -- and that because of this admission he was forced to contradict himself, which is exactly what you enjoy. And you laughed at him then, rightly, I thought -- but now he's gone and suffered the very same thing himself. And for my part I don't much admire Polus for this, because he conceded to you that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it -- for it was from this very admission that he in turn got tripped up in the argument by you and had his mouth shut, too ashamed to say what he really thought. Because in truth, Socrates, this pursuit of yours, which you call the pursuit of truth, leads to vulgar, crowd-pleasing conclusions -- things that are not fine by nature, but only by convention.
CALLICLES: And these two, nature and convention, are for the most part opposed to one another; so if a person feels ashamed and doesn't dare say what he really thinks, he's forced to contradict himself. And this is exactly the clever trick you've noticed and exploit in your arguments: if someone speaks according to convention, you cross-examine him according to nature, and if he speaks according to nature, you cross-examine him according to convention. That's just what happened a moment ago, in the case of doing wrong and suffering wrong: when Polus said that doing wrong was more shameful according to convention, you pursued that claim according to nature. For by nature, everything that is worse is also more shameful, and suffering wrong is worse -- but by convention, doing wrong is more shameful. In fact suffering wrong isn't even something that happens to a real man at all -- it's the condition of some slave, for whom it's better to be dead than alive, who when he's wronged and abused can't defend himself or anyone else he cares about. No, I think the people who make the laws are the weak, the many. It's with themselves and their own advantage in mind that they make their laws and hand out their praise and their blame; and to frighten the stronger sort of men, the ones capable of getting more, so that these won't get more than they do, they say that getting more than one's share is shameful and unjust, and that this is what doing wrong means -- seeking to have more than others. Because I think they're quite happy to have an equal share themselves, being the inferior ones. That's why by convention seeking to have more than the majority is called unjust and shameful, and they call it doing wrong -- but nature itself, I think, declares that it's just for the better man to have more than the worse, and the more capable more than the less capable. And this is shown to be so in many places: among the other animals, and among whole cities and races of men, it's judged just in just this way, that the stronger rule the weaker and have the greater share. For what kind of justice did Xerxes rely on when he marched against Greece, or his father when he marched against the Scythians? One could mention countless other examples like these. No, I believe these men act according to the nature of justice -- yes, by Zeus, according to the law of nature -- though perhaps not according to that law which we ourselves lay down,
CALLICLES: when we mold the best and strongest among us, taking them from childhood, like lion cubs, and with our chants and spells we enslave them, telling them that one must have an equal share, and that this is what's fine and just. But if a man is born with a nature strong enough, I believe he'll shake all this off, burst through it, escape -- he'll trample underfoot our documents and tricks and incantations and all our laws that go against nature; the slave will rise up and be revealed as our master, and there the justice of nature will blaze forth. And I think Pindar shows exactly what I'm saying in that song where he says -- "Law, the king of all, of mortals and immortals" -- and this law, he says, "carries out the utmost violence with a hand held highest, and I judge it so by the deeds of Heracles, since without paying for them" -- it goes something like that, I don't know the song by heart -- he means that Heracles drove off Geryon's cattle without buying them and without Geryon giving them, because this is what's just by nature: that cattle and all other possessions belong to the better and stronger man, taken from the worse and weaker. Well, that's how the truth of the matter stands, and you'll see it too, if you finally give up philosophy and turn to greater things. Philosophy, Socrates, is a charming thing, if one takes it up in moderation at the right age; but if one spends more time at it than one should, it ruins a man. Even if someone is very gifted by nature, if he goes on philosophizing well past his youth, he's bound to end up ignorant of everything a man needs to know if he's going to be admirable and respected. Such people end up ignorant of the laws that govern their city, ignorant of the kind of speech one must use in dealing with people in matters of business, whether private or public, ignorant of human pleasures and desires, and, in short, entirely ignorant of human character. So when they go into some private or public activity, they become laughingstocks -- just as, I imagine, statesmen become laughingstocks when they wander into your kind of discussions and arguments.
CALLICLES: For what happens is just what Euripides says: each man shines in the field where he does best, and rushes toward that, giving the greater part of his day to just this, wherever he happens to be at his best -- but wherever he's weak, that's what he flees and runs down, while he praises the other thing, out of goodwill toward himself, thinking that in this way he's praising himself. No, I believe the most correct course is to have a share of both. It's fine to take part in philosophy as far as education goes, and there's nothing shameful in a young man philosophizing; but when a man who's already getting on in years still goes on philosophizing, the thing becomes ridiculous, Socrates, and I have exactly the same reaction to philosophers as I do to people who lisp and play childish games. When I see a small child, for whom it's still appropriate to talk that way, lisping and playing, I'm delighted -- it seems charming to me, and free-spirited, and fitting for the child's age. But when I hear a small child speaking clearly and precisely, it strikes me as something harsh, it grates on my ears, and seems to me somehow slavish. But when one hears a grown man lisping, or sees him playing childish games, it looks ridiculous, unmanly, deserving a beating. Well, that's exactly how I feel about people who philosophize. When I see philosophy in a young boy, I admire it -- it seems fitting to me, and I think such a person shows some breeding, while the one who doesn't philosophize seems to me unfree, someone who will never think himself worthy of anything fine or noble. But when I see an older man still philosophizing, still not giving it up, that man seems to me to need a beating already, Socrates. As I was just saying, such a person, however naturally gifted, is bound to become unmanly, avoiding the center of the city and the marketplaces where, as the poet says, men become distinguished, and instead spend the rest of his life hiding away, whispering in a corner with three or four boys, never uttering anything free and grand and worthy. As for me, Socrates, I feel rather friendly toward you; so I think I must be in much the same position now as Zethus was toward Amphion in the play of Euripides that I mentioned before.
CALLICLES: Yes, the same sort of thing occurs to me to say to you as Zethus said to his brother -- that you neglect, Socrates, what you ought to be attending to, and you take a soul so naturally noble and dress it up in a boyish disguise; you'd be no use framing an argument correctly in a court of law, nor could you come up with anything plausible and persuasive, nor make any bold proposal on someone else's behalf. And yet, my dear Socrates -- and don't be offended with me, I say this out of goodwill toward you -- doesn't it seem shameful to you to be in the condition I think you're in, and the others who keep pushing further and further into philosophy? As things stand, if someone seized you, or anyone else like you, and dragged you off to prison, claiming you'd done wrong when you'd done nothing of the kind, you know you wouldn't have the first idea what to do with yourself -- you'd get dizzy and stand there gaping, with nothing to say, and then when you came up before the court, facing some thoroughly worthless and contemptible accuser, you'd be put to death, if he chose to ask for the death penalty. And yet how can this be wise, Socrates -- that a skill takes a naturally gifted man and makes him worse, unable to help himself or save himself or anyone else from the greatest dangers, stripped of all his property by his enemies, living, quite literally, without any honor in his city? Such a man, if I may put it rather crudely, can be slapped across the face with impunity. No, my good man, listen to me: stop your refutations, practice the graceful conduct of real affairs, and practice whatever will make you look intelligent, leaving these clever little exercises to others -- call them foolishness or nonsense, whichever you like -- things that will leave you living in an empty house; don't envy men who spend their time on these small refutations, but rather those who have a good life, a good reputation, and many other good things. SOCRATES: If it happened, Callicles, that my soul were made of gold, don't you think I'd be glad to find one of those stones they use to test gold -- the very best one -- so that when I brought my soul to it, if it agreed that my soul had been well cared for, I would know for certain that I was in good condition and needed no other test? CALLICLES: Why do you ask this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. I think that in meeting you just now, I've met with exactly such a stroke of luck. CALLICLES: How so?
SOCRATES: I know well that if you agree with me about what my own soul believes, then that agreement is the truth itself. Because I've noticed that anyone who's going to test properly whether a soul is living rightly or not needs to have three things, all of which you have: knowledge, goodwill, and frankness. Many people I meet can't test me because they aren't wise the way you are. Others are wise, but they won't tell me the truth because they don't care about me the way you do. As for our two foreign friends here, Gorgias and Polus, they're wise and they're fond of me, but they're a bit short on frankness and more bashful than they need to be. And why wouldn't they be? They've reached such a pitch of bashfulness that shame drives each of them, in front of a large crowd, to contradict himself — and about the most important matters, too. But you have all the things the others lack: you're well enough educated, as many an Athenian would say, and you're well-disposed toward me. What's my evidence? I'll tell you. I know, Callicles, that you four have formed a partnership in wisdom — you, Tisander of Aphidnae, Andron son of Androtion, and Nausicydes of Cholargus. And I once overheard you deliberating about how far one ought to pursue wisdom, and I know that the view that won out among you was this: don't be too eager to philosophize down to the last precision, but be careful, you urged one another, not to ruin yourselves by becoming wiser than you need to be. So when I hear you giving me the very same advice you give your closest companions, that's evidence enough for me that you truly are well-disposed toward me. And that you're the sort of person who can speak frankly and isn't ashamed to — you say so yourself, and the speech you gave a moment ago bears you out. So here's how things clearly stand on this matter: whatever you agree to with me in our discussion will have been tested thoroughly enough by the two of us, and there'll be no need to bring it to any further test. Because you'd never have granted it either from a lack of wisdom or an excess of shame, nor would you grant it to deceive me — you're my friend, as you say yourself. So truly, once you and I reach agreement, that will be the final word on the truth.
SOCRATES: And the finest inquiry of all, Callicles, concerns exactly what you took me to task about: what kind of man one ought to be, what one ought to practice, and how far — whether older or younger. Because if I'm doing something wrong in the way I live my life, know well that I don't go wrong on purpose, but out of my own ignorance. So don't give up now that you've started correcting me — show me clearly enough what it is I ought to practice, and how I might acquire it. And if you catch me agreeing with you now but not doing, later on, the very things I agreed to, consider me a complete fool and never bother correcting me again, since I'd be worth nothing. So go back to the beginning and tell me again how you and Pindar say justice stands by nature. Is it that the stronger should forcibly take what belongs to the weaker, that the better should rule the worse, and that the superior man should have more than the inferior one? Are you saying something different from justice, or have I remembered it correctly? CALLICLES: That's what I said then and what I say now. SOCRATES: And do you call the same man 'better' and 'stronger'? Because even back then I couldn't quite grasp what you meant. Do you mean by 'stronger' the physically more powerful, so that the weaker must obey the stronger — which is what you seemed to be showing then, when you said that large cities attack small ones in accordance with natural justice, because they're stronger and more powerful, as if 'stronger,' 'more powerful,' and 'better' were the same thing? Or can someone be better yet weaker and less powerful, and stronger yet more wretched? Is there one and the same definition for 'better' and 'stronger'? Make this itself clear to me: are 'stronger,' 'better,' and 'more powerful' the same thing, or different? CALLICLES: I tell you plainly, they're the same. SOCRATES: Well then, aren't the many stronger than the one by nature? And it's the many who make the laws over the one, just as you were saying a moment ago. CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So the customs of the many are the customs of the stronger. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And so of the better too? Since by your own account the stronger are far better. CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So their customs are, by nature, admirable, since they belong to the stronger? CALLICLES: I say so.
SOCRATES: Well then, do the many believe — as you yourself were just saying — that justice is having an equal share, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Is that so or not? And mind you don't get caught being ashamed here yourself. Do the many believe, or not, that having an equal share, not more, is just, and that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it? Don't begrudge me an answer to this, Callicles, so that if you agree with me I can take it as settled, coming as it does from a man competent to judge. CALLICLES: Well, yes, the many do believe that. SOCRATES: Then it's not only by convention that doing wrong is more shameful than suffering it, and that having an equal share is just, but by nature as well. So it looks like you weren't telling the truth earlier, nor accusing me fairly, when you said that law and nature are opposites — which I supposedly know and exploit in argument, twisting things toward law when someone speaks by nature, and toward nature when someone speaks by law. CALLICLES: This man will never stop talking nonsense. Tell me, Socrates, aren't you ashamed, at your age, to go hunting for words, and to treat it as a windfall whenever someone slips up in phrasing? Do you really think I mean anything other than 'better' when I say 'stronger'? Haven't I been telling you all along that I hold 'better' and 'stronger' to be the same thing? Or do you think I mean that if a rabble of slaves and assorted people worth nothing — except perhaps for bodily strength — gets together, and they declare something, that this then counts as law? SOCRATES: Well now, wisest Callicles — is that what you mean? CALLICLES: Certainly it is. SOCRATES: But my good man, I myself have long suspected that this is roughly the sort of thing you mean by 'the stronger,' and I keep asking because I'm eager to know clearly what you mean. Because surely you don't think two men are better than one, or that your own slaves are better than you just because they're physically stronger than you. So tell me again from the beginning who you mean by 'the better,' since it's not the physically stronger. And, my remarkable friend, teach me more gently, so I don't run off and leave you. CALLICLES: You're being ironic, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, by Zethus, Callicles, whom you invoked yourself just now while being ironic with me so much — come now, tell me, who do you mean by 'the better'? CALLICLES: The superior men, I mean. SOCRATES: You see, then, that you yourself are just uttering words and explaining nothing? Won't you tell me whether by 'better' and 'stronger' you mean the more intelligent, or some other sort of people? CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, that's exactly what I mean, very much so.
SOCRATES: So often, on your account, one intelligent man is stronger than countless unintelligent ones, and he ought to rule while they're ruled, and the ruler ought to have more than the ruled. That's what I take you to mean — and I'm not hunting for words — if the one is stronger than the countless many. CALLICLES: Yes, that's exactly what I mean. That's what I think justice by nature is: that the better and more intelligent man should rule and have more than his inferiors. SOCRATES: Hold it right there — what do you mean by this now? Suppose we're all together, as we are now, a large crowd, and we have plenty of food and drink in common, and we're all sorts — some strong, some weak — and one of us, being a doctor, is more knowledgeable about these matters, and, as is likely, stronger than some of us and weaker than others. Won't this man, being more intelligent than we are about these things, be better and stronger when it comes to them? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So should he take a larger share of this food than the rest of us, because he's better? Or rather, should it fall to him, as the one in charge, to distribute everything, while when it comes to consuming and using it for his own body he shouldn't take more than his share, on pain of harming himself — but should take more of some things and less of others, and if he happens to be the weakest of all, should get the smallest share of all, though he's the best, Callicles? Isn't that so, my good man? CALLICLES: You're talking about food and drink and doctors and nonsense. That's not what I mean. SOCRATES: Don't you mean by 'better' the more intelligent? Say yes or no. CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: But shouldn't the better man have more? CALLICLES: Not of food and drink, no. SOCRATES: I see — perhaps of clothing, then, and the most skilled weaver ought to have the biggest cloak and go about wrapped in the most and finest garments? CALLICLES: What clothing are you talking about? SOCRATES: Well then, clearly it must be shoes where the most intelligent and best man in that line should have the advantage. Perhaps the shoemaker ought to walk around wearing the biggest and most numerous shoes. CALLICLES: What shoes? You're talking nonsense. SOCRATES: Well, if you don't mean things like that, perhaps you mean something like this: a farmer, knowledgeable and fine and good about the land — perhaps he ought to have the advantage in seed, and use as much seed as possible on his own land. CALLICLES: How you keep saying the same things, Socrates! SOCRATES: Not only that, Callicles, but also about the same subjects.
CALLICLES: By the gods, you truly never stop talking about cobblers and fullers and cooks and doctors, as if our discussion were about them. SOCRATES: Then won't you tell me in what area the stronger and more intelligent man justly has the advantage when he takes more? Or will you neither put up with my suggestions nor say it yourself? CALLICLES: Why, I've been saying it all along. First of all, by 'the stronger' I don't mean cobblers or cooks, but those who are intelligent about the affairs of the city — how it might be well governed — and not only intelligent but also courageous, capable of carrying out what they've conceived, and not giving up halfway through some softness of soul. SOCRATES: Do you see, excellent Callicles, that you and I aren't accusing each other of the same thing? You say I always repeat myself, and you blame me for it; I say the opposite of you — that you never say the same thing about the same subjects, but at one point you defined the better and stronger as the physically more powerful, then as the more intelligent, and now you've come around to something else again — some people are called stronger and better by you because they're more courageous. Come now, my good man, get it over with and tell me once and for all who you mean by the better and stronger, and in regard to what. CALLICLES: Well, I've already said: those who are intelligent about the city's affairs, and courageous. It's fitting for these men to rule their cities, and justice consists in this — that they should have more than the rest, the rulers more than the ruled. SOCRATES: What about themselves, though, my friend — ruling or being ruled? CALLICLES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean each man ruling himself. Or is there no need at all for that — for a man to rule himself — but only to rule others? CALLICLES: What do you mean by 'ruling himself'? SOCRATES: Nothing elaborate — just what most people mean: being temperate and in control of oneself, ruling over the pleasures and desires within oneself. CALLICLES: How charming you are — you mean the fools, the ones people call temperate. SOCRATES: How so? There's no one who wouldn't recognize that's not what I mean.
CALLICLES: Absolutely, Socrates, and emphatically so. How could a man become happy while he's a slave to anything? No, this is what's naturally noble and just, and I'll say it to you now in plain speech: the man who means to live rightly should let his own appetites grow as large as possible and never curb them, and once they're as large as can be he should be capable of serving them through courage and intelligence, and satisfy them with whatever they crave at any moment. But this, I think, most people can't manage, and that's why they run down men like that — out of shame, hiding their own incapacity — and they call self-indulgence shameful, as I said before, enslaving the men who are naturally superior, and being unable themselves to procure fullness for their pleasures they praise self-control and justice on account of their own lack of manhood. Since for those who happened from the start to be sons of kings, or who were naturally capable of securing some rule or tyranny or dominion for themselves, what in truth could be more shameful and worse than self-control and justice for men like these — men who could enjoy good things with nothing standing in their way, and yet they'd bring in as master over themselves the law and talk and blame of ordinary people? How would they not have been made miserable by the so-called nobility of justice and self-control, when they hand out no more to their friends than to their enemies, and this while ruling in their own city? No, Socrates, the truth — which you claim to be pursuing — is this: luxury and self-indulgence and freedom, when they have backing, that is virtue and happiness, and all the rest of it is fine talk, agreements among men that go against nature, nonsense worth nothing at all. SOCRATES: It's not without spirit, Callicles, that you press your argument speaking so frankly. You're now saying clearly what other people think but aren't willing to say. So I beg you not to give an inch anywhere, so that it may truly become clear how one ought to live. Now tell me: you say the appetites shouldn't be curbed, if a person is going to be what he ought to be, but that one should let them grow as large as possible and provide them fulfillment from any source whatever, and that this is virtue? CALLICLES: Yes, that's what I say. SOCRATES: Then it's not right to say that those who need nothing are happy. CALLICLES: No — because on that reckoning stones and corpses would be the happiest of all.
SOCRATES: Well, the life you're describing is certainly a strange one. I wouldn't be surprised if Euripides was speaking the truth in those lines where he says — who knows if living is really dying, and dying, living? Maybe we really are dead. I've actually heard from wise men before that we're dead right now, and that the body is a tomb for us, and that the part of the soul where the appetites reside happens to be the sort of thing that can be persuaded and swayed up and down — and so some clever fellow, a Sicilian perhaps, or an Italian, spinning a myth out of this, twisting the word for effect, named it a jar, because it's so persuadable and persuasible — calling the unthinking uninitiated, and saying that the part of the soul of the unthinking where the appetites lie, the undisciplined and leaky part, is like a jar full of holes, likening it to that because of its insatiability. So this fellow shows you the opposite of what you claim, Callicles: that among the dwellers in Hades — meaning the unseen place — these people, the uninitiated, would be the most wretched of all, and they'd be carrying water into their leaky jar using another leaky thing, a sieve. And the sieve, so my source told me, stands for the soul — he likened the soul of the unthinking to a sieve because it's full of holes, since it can't hold anything, being riddled by faithlessness and forgetfulness. Now all this is admittedly rather strange, but it shows what I want to show you, if I can somehow persuade you to change your mind — to choose, instead of the insatiable and undisciplined life, an orderly life that's content and satisfied with what's always at hand. Am I persuading you at all to change your mind, to admit that orderly people are happier than undisciplined ones, or will you not budge an inch no matter how many more such stories I tell? CALLICLES: That's closer to the truth, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come then, let me give you another image from the same gymnasium as the one just now. Consider whether this is what you mean about each of the two lives, the self-controlled and the undisciplined — suppose two men each had many jars, and one man's jars were sound and full, one with wine, one with honey, one with milk, and many others each with something else, but the streams feeding each of these were scarce and hard to come by, procured only through much toil and difficulty —
SOCRATES: Now the one man, once he'd filled his jars, would neither pour in any more nor give it a further thought, but would be at ease on that score. But for the other, though the streams could likewise be procured, only with difficulty, his vessels are cracked and rotten, and he's forced to keep filling them constantly, night and day, or else suffer the utmost distress. If each life is like this, do you say the undisciplined man's life is happier than the orderly man's? Am I persuading you at all by saying this, to concede that the orderly life is better than the undisciplined one, or am I not persuading you? CALLICLES: You're not persuading me, Socrates. Because the man who's filled up has no pleasure left at all — that's exactly what I was just calling living like a stone, once he's filled up, neither delighted anymore nor pained. No, the pleasant life consists in this: in as much flowing in as possible. SOCRATES: Then isn't it necessary, if much flows in, that much also flows out, and that there be some large holes for the outflow? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: The life you're describing sounds like a plover's, not a corpse's or a stone's. Now tell me: do you mean something like being hungry and eating while hungry? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And being thirsty and drinking while thirsty? CALLICLES: Yes, and having all the other appetites too, and being able to fill them and enjoy it, and live happily that way. SOCRATES: Well done, my excellent fellow — keep going the way you started, and don't let embarrassment hold you back. Though it seems I mustn't be held back by embarrassment either. So tell me first: if a man had an itch and scratched it, and could scratch to his heart's content, scratching all his life through, could he live happily that way? CALLICLES: What an absurd thing to say, Socrates — you're a regular crowd-pleaser. SOCRATES: Well, that's exactly how I startled and embarrassed Polus and Gorgias, Callicles, but you won't be startled or embarrassed — you're a man of courage. Just answer. CALLICLES: All right then, I say the man who scratches would live pleasantly too. SOCRATES: And if pleasantly, then happily? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Whether he's itching only in his head — or need I ask you more? Consider, Callicles, what you'll answer if someone asks you all the questions that follow from this one after another. And to sum all this up: the life of those who behave like catamites — isn't that a terrible, shameful, wretched life? Or will you dare say that these people are happy, provided they have all they need without stint? CALLICLES: Aren't you ashamed, Socrates, to drag the argument into subjects like that?
SOCRATES: Am I the one dragging it there, my noble friend, or is it the man who says outright that anyone who feels pleasure, however he feels it, is happy, and who draws no distinction among pleasures as to which are good and which are bad? Come, tell me even now: do you say the pleasant and the good are the same thing, or is there some pleasant thing that isn't good? CALLICLES: So that my argument won't be self-contradictory if I say they're different, I say they're the same. SOCRATES: You're ruining our earlier agreements, Callicles, and you won't be able to examine the truth of things properly with me any longer, if you're going to speak against your own real opinions. CALLICLES: Well, so are you, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then I'm not acting rightly either, if I'm doing that — nor are you. But, my good man, consider whether the good really might not be simply feeling pleasure of any kind whatever. Because if that's how it is, then a great many shameful things turn out to follow, as we've just been hinting, and many others besides. CALLICLES: So you think, Socrates. SOCRATES: And do you, Callicles, really maintain this in earnest? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Shall we take up the argument, then, on the assumption that you mean it seriously? CALLICLES: By all means, very much so. SOCRATES: Come then, since that's how you want it, make this distinction for me: you call something knowledge, don't you? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And weren't you just saying that there's a kind of courage that goes along with knowledge? CALLICLES: Yes, I was saying that. SOCRATES: So in saying that, you were speaking of courage and knowledge as two different things? CALLICLES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Well then — pleasure and knowledge, the same thing or different? CALLICLES: Different, surely, wisest of men. SOCRATES: And is courage different from pleasure too? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: Come then, let's remember this: that Callicles of Acharnae said the pleasant and the good are the same thing, but that knowledge and courage are different both from each other and from the good. CALLICLES: And our Socrates of Alopeke won't agree with us on this — or will he? SOCRATES: He won't agree — and I don't think Callicles will either, once he looks at himself properly. Tell me: don't you think people who are doing well are in the opposite condition from people who are doing badly? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Then if these are opposites of one another, isn't it necessary that the same holds for them as holds for health and sickness? A person surely isn't healthy and sick at the same time, nor does he get rid of health and sickness at the same time. CALLICLES: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Take any part of the body you like and consider it. A person has a disease of the eyes, called ophthalmia, doesn't he? CALLICLES: Of course. CALLICLES: (correction) — Of course. SOCRATES: And surely he isn't healthy in those same eyes at the same time? CALLICLES: Not in the least. SOCRATES: Well, what about when he's rid of the ophthalmia? Is he then also rid of the health of his eyes, and does he end up rid of both at once? CALLICLES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Because that would be strange and irrational, wouldn't it? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: No, I think he takes on each in turn and loses it in turn? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And the same with strength and weakness? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And speed and slowness? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And good things and happiness, and their opposites, bad things and misery — does one take these on in turn and get rid of them in turn? CALLICLES: Entirely so, I should think. SOCRATES: So if we find some things that a person gets rid of and has at the same time, clearly those wouldn't be the good and the bad. Do we agree on that? Consider it carefully before you answer. CALLICLES: I agree completely. SOCRATES: Now let's go back to what we agreed earlier. Did you say that being hungry is pleasant or painful — I mean hunger itself? CALLICLES: Painful, I'd say — though eating while hungry, that I call pleasant. SOCRATES: I understand. But hunger itself is painful, isn't it? Or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And thirst too? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: Shall I ask more questions, or do you agree that every lack and every appetite is painful? CALLICLES: I agree — just don't ask me any more. SOCRATES: Very well. And drinking while thirsty — you say that's pleasant? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Now in what you're describing, the thirsting part is surely something painful? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the drinking is a filling of the lack, and a pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So with respect to the drinking, you say there's enjoyment? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: While thirsty? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: While in pain? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you notice what follows — that you're saying a person feels pain and pleasure at the same time, when you say he drinks while thirsty? Doesn't this happen at once, in the same place and at the same time, whether you're talking about the soul or the body? I don't think it makes any difference. Is this so or not? CALLICLES: It is. SOCRATES: And yet you say it's impossible for a person to be doing well and doing badly at the same time.
CALLICLES: Yes, I do. SOCRATES: And you've agreed that a man in pain can also be feeling pleasure. CALLICLES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then feeling pleasure isn't the same as faring well, and feeling pain isn't the same as faring badly — so what's pleasant turns out to be different from what's good. CALLICLES: I don't know what tricks you're playing at, Socrates. SOCRATES: You know perfectly well, Callicles, you're just putting on airs. Go on a little further, since you're being coy on purpose, so you can see how cleverly you're lecturing me. Doesn't each of us stop being thirsty at the very same moment we start feeling pleasure from drinking? CALLICLES: I don't know what you're talking about. GORGIAS: No, please, Callicles — answer, for our sake too, so the argument can be brought to some conclusion. CALLICLES: But Socrates is always like this, Gorgias — he asks about small, worthless things and refutes people on them. GORGIAS: What difference does it make to you? It's not your reputation at stake here, Callicles. Just let Socrates refute whatever he wants however he wants. CALLICLES: Go on then, ask your small, narrow little questions, since that's what Gorgias wants. SOCRATES: You're a lucky man, Callicles, to have been initiated into the great mysteries before the small ones — I didn't think that was even allowed. Now pick up where you left off and answer: doesn't each of us stop being thirsty at the same moment we stop feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same with hunger and the other appetites and pleasures — they stop together? CALLICLES: That's so. SOCRATES: And pains and pleasures stop together too? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But goods and evils don't stop together, as you agreed earlier — or do you no longer agree? CALLICLES: I do agree. So what follows? SOCRATES: It follows, my friend, that goods aren't the same as pleasures, nor evils the same as pains. One pair stops together, the other doesn't, since they're different things. So how could pleasant things be the same as good things, or painful things the same as bad things? And if you like, look at it this way too — I don't think you'll agree here either, so pay attention: don't you call people good because good qualities are present in them, the way you call people beautiful because beauty is present in them? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Well then — do you call men good when they're foolish and cowardly? Just now you were saying the good men were the brave and the sensible ones — or don't you call those men good? CALLICLES: Certainly I do. SOCRATES: Well — have you ever seen a foolish child feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: I have. SOCRATES: And have you ever seen a foolish grown man feeling pleasure? CALLICLES: I suppose I have — but what of it? SOCRATES: Nothing — just answer. CALLICLES: I've seen it.
SOCRATES: And a sensible man, in pain and in pleasure? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Which feel pleasure and pain more intensely, the sensible or the foolish? CALLICLES: I don't think there's much difference. SOCRATES: That's enough for our purposes. Have you ever seen a cowardly man in war? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then — when the enemy retreats, who seemed to you to feel more pleasure, the cowards or the brave men? CALLICLES: Both, I'd say — or if not, about the same. SOCRATES: It makes no difference. So the cowards do feel pleasure? CALLICLES: Very much so. SOCRATES: And the foolish too, it seems. CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And when the enemy advances, do only the cowards feel pain, or the brave too? CALLICLES: Both. SOCRATES: Equally? CALLICLES: Perhaps the cowards more. SOCRATES: And when the enemy retreats, don't the cowards feel more pleasure? CALLICLES: Perhaps. SOCRATES: So both the foolish and the sensible, both the cowardly and the brave, feel pain and pleasure in much the same way, as you say — though the cowards more so than the brave? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: But the sensible and the brave are good, and the cowardly and foolish are bad? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the good and the bad feel pleasure and pain in much the same way? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: Then are the good and the bad good and bad in much the same way — or is the good man even more good, and the bad man even more bad? CALLICLES: By Zeus, I have no idea what you're saying. SOCRATES: Don't you know that you said good men are good because good things are present in them, and bad men bad because bad things are present in them — and that the good things are pleasures, and the bad things are pains? CALLICLES: I did say that. SOCRATES: Then don't good things — pleasures — belong to those who feel pleasure, given that they do feel pleasure? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So those who feel pleasure are good, since good things are present in them? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about those in pain — don't bad things, pains, belong to them? CALLICLES: They do. SOCRATES: And you say people are bad because bad things are present in them — or do you no longer say that? CALLICLES: I do say it. SOCRATES: So whoever feels pleasure is good, and whoever feels pain is bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the more pleasure or pain, the more good or bad — and where it's about the same, they're about equally good and bad? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But haven't you said that the sensible and the foolish, the cowardly and the brave, feel pleasure and pain in much the same way — or even the cowards more so? CALLICLES: I have.
SOCRATES: Then let's work out together what follows from what we've agreed — for they say it's worth stating and examining fine things twice, even three times over. We're saying the sensible and brave man is good, yes? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the foolish and cowardly man is bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And again, the man who feels pleasure is good? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the man in pain is bad? CALLICLES: That follows. SOCRATES: And the good man and the bad man feel pain and pleasure alike, though perhaps the bad man even more so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then doesn't the bad man turn out just as good as the good man — or even more good than the good man? Doesn't this follow, along with everything we agreed before, if someone claims the pleasant and the good are the same thing? Isn't this unavoidable, Callicles? CALLICLES: I've been listening to you for a while now, Socrates, agreeing along the way, and thinking to myself: whatever concession someone tosses you, even in jest, you seize on it gladly, the way boys do. As if you really believe that I, or anyone else, doesn't think some pleasures are better and some worse! SOCRATES: Oh, oh, Callicles, what a rascal you are, treating me like a child — first telling me things are one way, then another, deceiving me! Though I didn't imagine at the start that you'd deliberately deceive me, since I took you for a friend. But now I've been fooled, and it seems I must, as the old saying goes, make the best of what's given and accept this gift from you. So what you're saying now, it seems, is that some pleasures are good and some bad — is that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the good ones are the beneficial ones, the bad ones the harmful ones? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And beneficial means producing something good, harmful means producing something bad? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: Do you mean something like this — take the bodily pleasures we were just discussing, in eating and drinking: among these, aren't some, which produce health in the body, or strength, or some other bodily excellence, good, while their opposites are bad? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And likewise with pains — some are useful, some harmful? CALLICLES: Of course. SOCRATES: So we should choose and pursue the useful pleasures and pains? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But not the harmful ones? CALLICLES: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Because, if you remember, Polus and I agreed that everything should be done for the sake of the good — do you agree with this too, that the good is the end of all our actions, and that everything else must be done for its sake, not the good for the sake of everything else? Do you cast the deciding vote with us, making it unanimous? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: Then everything else, including pleasant things, must be done for the sake of good things, not good things for the sake of pleasant things. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now, is it within anyone's ability to pick out which pleasant things are good and which are bad, or does that take an expert in each case? CALLICLES: An expert. SOCRATES: Let's recall what I was saying earlier to Polus and Gorgias. I was saying, if you remember, that some practices aim only at pleasure, providing just that and nothing more, without knowing better from worse, while others know what is good and what is bad. And I put cookery among the former, as a knack rather than an art concerned with pleasures, and medicine among the latter, an art concerned with the good. And by the god of friendship, Callicles, don't think you need to joke around with me, or answer however it happens to strike you against your real opinion, and don't take what I say as a joke either. You see that our whole discussion is about this — and what could a person with even a little sense take more seriously than this: how one ought to live? Should it be the life you're urging on me, doing the things of a real man — speaking in the assembly, practicing rhetoric, engaging in politics the way you people do now — or this life spent in philosophy? And what actually distinguishes the one from the other? Perhaps the best approach, as I tried to do just now, is to separate them out, and once we've made the distinction and agreed with each other that these are indeed two different lives, to examine how they differ and which one should be lived. Perhaps you don't yet see what I mean. CALLICLES: No, I don't. SOCRATES: Then I'll put it more clearly. Since you and I have agreed that there is such a thing as the good, and such a thing as the pleasant, and that the pleasant is different from the good, and that each of them involves some pursuit and preparation for acquiring it — the hunt for the pleasant on one hand, the hunt for the good on the other — first tell me whether you agree with this much or not. Do you agree? CALLICLES: Yes, that's what I say.
SOCRATES: Come then, confirm for me what I was also saying to these men — whether it seemed true to you at the time. I said that the art of cooking seems to me not to be an art but a knack, whereas medicine is an art, on the grounds that medicine has examined the nature of what it treats and the reasons behind what it does, and can give an account of each of these things, while the other, wholly devoted to pleasure, approaches its task with no art at all, having examined neither the nature of pleasure nor its cause, keeping hold of nothing rational, so to speak, working purely by routine and habit, preserving only a memory of what usually happens, and by that means supplying its pleasures. So consider first whether this seems adequately said, and whether there are similar pursuits concerning the soul as well — some artful, showing forethought for what is best for the soul, and others neglecting that, focused only, as in the bodily case, on the soul's pleasure, on how it might arise, without ever considering which pleasures are better or worse, caring for nothing except gratification, whether for better or worse. To me, Callicles, such practices do exist, and I call this kind of thing flattery, whether it concerns the body or the soul or anything else where someone tends to pleasure without regard for what is better or worse. Now do you share this view with us on these matters, or do you disagree? CALLICLES: I don't disagree — I concede the point, so the argument can be brought to its conclusion and I can do Gorgias here a favor. SOCRATES: And does this hold true for one soul only, or not for two or many? CALLICLES: No, it holds for two and for many as well. SOCRATES: And is it possible to gratify a whole crowd at once, with no regard at all for what's best? CALLICLES: I suppose so. SOCRATES: Can you name the practices that do this? Or rather, if you like, as I ask, tell me yes for whichever seems to you to be one of these, and no for whichever doesn't. First let's look at flute-playing. Doesn't it seem to you to be just such a thing, Callicles — pursuing only our pleasure and caring for nothing else? CALLICLES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: And all the similar arts too, like playing the lyre in competitions? CALLICLES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what about the training of choruses and the composing of dithyrambs? Doesn't the same thing seem true to you there too? Or do you think Cinesias son of Meles gives any thought to saying something that will make his audience better people, rather than something that will please the crowd of spectators? CALLICLES: That much is obvious about Cinesias, Socrates. SOCRATES: And what about his father Meles? Did he seem to you to play the lyre with an eye to what was best? Or did he not even aim at what was most pleasant? He used to annoy his audience with his singing. But look at it this way — doesn't the whole art of lyre-singing and the composing of dithyrambs seem to you to have been invented for the sake of pleasure? CALLICLES: It does to me. SOCRATES: And what about that solemn and marvelous thing, the composing of tragedy — what is it so serious about? Is its aim and its whole effort, as you see it, simply to gratify the spectators, or does it also fight against them — so that if something is pleasant and gratifying to them but rotten, it won't say that, while if something happens to be unpleasant but beneficial, it will say and sing that, whether or not they enjoy it? Which way does the composing of tragedies seem to you to be arranged? CALLICLES: That much is obvious too, Socrates — that it's aimed more at pleasure and at gratifying the spectators. SOCRATES: And didn't we just say, Callicles, that this sort of thing is flattery? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, if someone were to strip away from all poetry its melody, its rhythm, and its meter, wouldn't what's left just be speeches? CALLICLES: It would have to be. SOCRATES: And these speeches are addressed to a large crowd, to the general public? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: So poetry is a kind of public speaking. CALLICLES: So it seems. SOCRATES: And public speaking would be a form of rhetoric — or don't you think the poets are practicing rhetoric in the theaters? CALLICLES: I do think so. SOCRATES: So now we've discovered a kind of rhetoric addressed to a public made up of children and women together with men, both slaves and free people — a kind we don't much admire, since we're calling it a form of flattery. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Very well — and what about the rhetoric addressed to the Athenian public, and to the other publics of free men in the various cities — what do we say that one is? Do the orators seem to you always to speak with an eye to what is best, aiming at making the citizens as good as possible through their speeches, or are they too bent on gratifying the citizens, neglecting the common good for the sake of their own, treating the public like children, trying only to please them, and not caring at all whether that makes them better or worse?
CALLICLES: That's no longer a simple question you're asking. There are some who say what they say out of genuine concern for the citizens, and there are others of the sort you describe. SOCRATES: That's enough for me. If this too turns out to be twofold, then one part of it would be flattery and shameful public speaking, while the other would be honorable — the part that aims at making the citizens' souls as good as possible, and fights hard to say what is best, whether or not it turns out pleasant to the audience. But you've never yet seen this kind of rhetoric. Or if you can name one of the orators who was like that, why haven't you told me who he is? CALLICLES: But by Zeus, I can't name a single one of today's orators for you. SOCRATES: Well then — can you name one of the old ones, someone the Athenians can credit with having made them better, from the time he began speaking in public, when before that they were worse? I myself don't know who that would be. CALLICLES: What? Don't you hear about Themistocles, that he was a good man, and Cimon, and Miltiades, and this Pericles who has just recently died, whom you yourself have heard? SOCRATES: If that excellence you were talking about earlier is the true one, Callicles — filling up one's own desires and other people's — well and good. But if it isn't, and instead it's what we were forced to agree to later — that satisfying some desires makes a person better, and satisfying others makes him worse, and that this is a skill — then I can't say that any of these men was that sort. CALLICLES: But if you look properly, you'll find one. SOCRATES: Let's look then, calmly, and see whether any of them turns out to have been like that. Come now — won't the good man, the one who speaks with a view to what's best, say whatever he says not at random, but looking toward something — just as all the other craftsmen, each looking to his own work, doesn't pick things out at random to bring to his work, but aims at giving what he's making a certain form?
SOCRATES: For instance, if you're willing to consider painters, builders, shipwrights, all the other craftsmen, whichever you like — how each of them puts each thing he places into some order, and makes one part fit and harmonize with another, until the whole thing stands together as an ordered, well-arranged piece of work. And the other craftsmen do this, including the ones we were just discussing, those concerned with the body — trainers and doctors — they too give the body order and arrangement in some way. Do we agree this is so or not? CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: Then a house that has order and arrangement would be a good house, and one lacking order would be a poor one? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: And isn't the same true of a ship? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And surely the same is true of our bodies too? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what about the soul? Will it be good if it lacks order, or if it has some order and arrangement? CALLICLES: Given what we said before, this too must follow. SOCRATES: So what is the name for the thing that arises in the body from order and arrangement? CALLICLES: I suppose you mean health and strength. SOCRATES: I do. And what, in turn, about the thing that arises in the soul from order and arrangement? Try to find the name and say it, as you did there. CALLICLES: Why don't you say it yourself, Socrates? SOCRATES: Well, if you'd rather, I'll say it — and you, if you think I'm putting it well, say so; if not, refute me and don't let it pass. It seems to me that the name for the orderly conditions of the body is 'healthy,' and from this health arises in it, along with the rest of the body's excellence. Is that so or not? CALLICLES: It is. SOCRATES: And for the orderly and arranged conditions of the soul, the name is 'lawful' and 'law' — and from this people become law-abiding and orderly; and these things are justice and self-control. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: So won't the orator we're describing, the one who is skilled and good, look to these things when he brings his speeches to bear on people's souls, and in all his actions too — and if he gives some gift, he'll give it, and if he takes something away, he'll take it, always keeping his mind fixed on this: that justice should come to be in his fellow citizens' souls and injustice be driven out, that self-control should come to be in them and lack of self-control be driven out, and that the rest of excellence should come to be in them and vice depart. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: For what good is it, Callicles, to give a sick and poorly conditioned body plenty of food, or the most pleasant food or drink or anything else, if it will do it no more good — and by strict reckoning, even less good — than the opposite would? Is that so?
CALLICLES: Let it be so. SOCRATES: For I don't suppose it profits a person to live with a poorly conditioned body, since that necessarily means living poorly as well — or isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: And as for satisfying one's appetites — for instance, eating as much as one wants when hungry, or drinking when thirsty — doctors generally allow this to a healthy person, but to a sick one they practically never allow him to fill himself up with what he desires. Do you agree with this too? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: And isn't the same true, my good man, of the soul? As long as it's in a bad state — senseless, undisciplined, unjust, and impious — it must be held back from its appetites and not allowed to do anything except what will make it better. Do you agree or not? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: For that is surely better for the soul itself? CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't holding it back from what it desires the same as disciplining it? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So being disciplined is better for the soul than lacking discipline, just as you were assuming a moment ago. CALLICLES: I don't know what you're talking about, Socrates — ask someone else. SOCRATES: This man can't stand being helped, even while he himself is undergoing the very thing we're discussing — being disciplined. CALLICLES: And I don't care in the least about anything you're saying — I was only answering you as a favor to Gorgias. SOCRATES: Very well. What shall we do, then? Shall we break off the discussion in the middle? CALLICLES: You'll have to decide that yourself. SOCRATES: But they say it isn't right to leave even stories half-told — one has to put a head on them, so they don't go around headless. So answer the rest, so our discussion can get a head. CALLICLES: How forceful you are, Socrates! If you'll take my advice, you'll let this discussion go, or else carry it on with someone else. SOCRATES: Then who else is willing? We surely shouldn't leave the discussion unfinished. CALLICLES: Couldn't you get through it yourself — either speaking on your own or answering yourself? SOCRATES: So that what Epicharmus said might come true for me — that I, being one man, become equal to what before took two men to say. Still, it looks like it will have to be this way, of necessity. But if we do proceed like this, I think we should all be eager, out of love of the truth rather than love of winning, to find out what is true and what is false about the matters we're discussing — for it's a good shared by everyone that this become clear.
SOCRATES: I'll go through the argument, then, as it seems to me to stand; and if any of you thinks I'm not agreeing with myself about what's really the case, you must object and refute me. For I'm not speaking as one who already knows what I'm saying — I'm searching together with you, so that if the person disputing with me says something that shows itself to be true, I'll be the first to agree. Still, I say this only if you think the argument should be carried through to the end; if you'd rather not, let's let it go now and leave. GORGIAS: But it doesn't seem right to me, Socrates, to leave yet — you should finish going through the argument. And it seems to me the others agree. I myself would like to hear you go through the rest of it yourself. SOCRATES: Well then, Gorgias, I too would gladly have kept on talking with Callicles here, until I'd given him Amphion's speech in return for Zethus's. But since you, Callicles, aren't willing to finish the argument with me, at least listen and correct me if you think I'm saying anything wrong. And if you refute me, I won't be angry with you the way you were with me — instead you'll be recorded in my book as my greatest benefactor. CALLICLES: Go on, my good man, carry it through yourself. SOCRATES: Listen, then, as I take up the argument again from the beginning. Is the pleasant the same as the good? — No, not the same, as Callicles and I agreed. Should the pleasant be pursued for the sake of the good, or the good for the sake of the pleasant? — The pleasant for the sake of the good. And is the pleasant that by whose presence we feel pleasure, and the good that by whose presence we are good? — Certainly. But surely we — and everything else that is good — are good by the presence of some excellence? — That seems necessary to me, Callicles. But the excellence of each thing — of a tool, of a body, of a soul too, and of every living creature — doesn't come about in the finest way at random, but through order, correctness, and whatever skill has been assigned to each of them. Is that so? — Yes, I say so. So the excellence of each thing is something ordered and arranged by order? — I would say so. So it's some order coming to be in each thing, proper to that thing, that makes each of the things that exist good? — That's how it seems to me. And so a soul that has its own proper order is better than one that lacks order? — It must be. And surely a soul that has order is an orderly soul? — How could it not be?
SOCRATES: And the orderly soul is temperate?—That's absolutely necessary.—So a temperate soul is good. I have nothing else to say against that, my dear Callicles. If you do, teach me. CALLICLES: Go on, my good man. SOCRATES: I say that if the temperate soul is good, the soul in the opposite condition from the temperate one is bad—and that was the soul that is thoughtless and undisciplined.—Certainly.—And further, the temperate person would do what's fitting, both toward gods and toward men—since he wouldn't be temperate if he did what isn't fitting.—That must be so.—And further, in doing what's fitting toward men he'd be acting justly, and toward the gods, piously. And a person who acts justly and piously must be just and pious.—That's so.—And he must also be courageous. It's not the mark of a temperate man to chase or flee whatever isn't fitting, but rather to flee and pursue whatever things and people and pleasures and pains he ought, and to hold his ground and endure where he must. So it's an absolute necessity, Callicles, that the temperate man, being—as we've gone through—just and courageous and pious, is a completely good man, and that the good man does well and admirably whatever he does, and that the one who does well is blessed and happy, while the wicked man who does badly is wretched. And this last would be the man in the opposite condition from the temperate man—the undisciplined man, whom you were praising. So this is how I set the matter down, and I say these things are true. And if they're true, then anyone who wants to be happy must, it seems, pursue and practice temperance and flee undiscipline as fast as his legs will carry him, and arrange things so that above all he needs no punishing—but if he does need it, whether he himself or someone close to him, whether a private person or a city, then punishment and correction must be applied, if he's going to be happy. This seems to me to be the goal a person should keep his eye on as he lives, directing everything of his own and of his city's toward this end, so that justice and temperance will be present in the man who's going to be blessed—acting this way, not letting his desires run undisciplined and trying to fill them up, an endless evil, living the life of a bandit. Such a man could never be dear to any other man, nor to a god—for he's incapable of partnership, and where there's no partnership, there's no friendship.
SOCRATES: The wise say, Callicles, that heaven and earth, gods and men, are held together by partnership and friendship and orderliness and temperance and justice, and that's why they call this whole thing a cosmos—an order—my friend, not a disorder or lack of discipline. But you seem to me not to pay attention to these things, wise as you are, and it has escaped your notice that geometric equality carries great power both among gods and among men, while you think one should practice getting more than one's share—you neglect geometry. Well then: either this argument of ours must be refuted—that the happy are happy by possessing justice and temperance, and the wretched are wretched through wickedness—or, if it's true, we must examine what follows from it. And everything that came before, Callicles, follows—the things you asked me about, whether I was speaking in earnest when I said that a man must accuse himself and his son and his friend, if any of them does wrong, and that rhetoric must be used for this purpose. And the things you thought Polus conceded out of shame were true after all—that doing wrong is worse than suffering it, by exactly as much as it is more shameful. And that the man who's going to be a rhetorician in the true sense must be just and knowledgeable about just things—which, again, Polus said Gorgias admitted out of shame. Given that this is how things stand, let's examine what it is you keep reproaching me with—whether it's rightly said or not—that I'm incapable of helping myself or any of my friends or family, or of saving them from the greatest dangers, but am at the mercy of anyone who wants to treat me the way disenfranchised men are treated, at the mercy of whoever wishes—whether he wants to strike me, to use that vigorous phrase of yours, across the jaw, or to take my property, or to banish me from the city, or, worst of all, to kill me. And being in such a position is, on your account, the most shameful thing of all. But my position—which has already been stated many times, though nothing stops it being said again—is this: I do not say that being struck across the jaw unjustly is the most shameful thing, nor having my body or my purse cut open. Rather, striking and cutting me and mine unjustly is more shameful and worse—and stealing, and enslaving, and breaking into my house, and in short doing any wrong at all to me or mine is worse and more shameful for the one doing the wrong than it is for me, the one wronged.
SOCRATES: These things, as I say, appeared to us up above in our earlier discussion, and they are held down and bound fast—if I may put it rather crudely—by arguments of iron and adamant, or so it would seem at least; and unless you or someone more vigorous than you unties them, it's impossible to speak well while saying anything other than what I'm saying now. For my part, my position is always the same: I don't know how these things really stand, but of everyone I've ever met, as now, no one has been able to say anything different without looking ridiculous. So again I set it down that this is how things are: and if that's so, and wrongdoing is the greatest of evils for the wrongdoer, and greater still—if such a thing is possible—is for the wrongdoer to escape paying the penalty for it, then what help would it be for a man who's unable to help himself, and would truly be ridiculous for lacking? Isn't it the help that would turn aside the greatest harm to us? It's an absolute necessity that the most shameful kind of helplessness is being unable to help oneself or one's friends and family, second worst is being unable to guard against the second-greatest evil, and third against the third, and so on—the size of each evil determining, correspondingly, the nobility of being able to guard against it, and the shame of being unable to. Is that how it is, or not, Callicles? CALLICLES: It's not otherwise. SOCRATES: So, there being two things—doing wrong and suffering wrong—we say doing wrong is the greater evil, suffering it the lesser. What, then, should a man equip himself with to help himself, so as to have both these benefits—the benefit of not doing wrong and the benefit of not suffering it? Is it power or is it will? Here's what I mean: if a man simply doesn't want to suffer wrong, will he not suffer it—or must he acquire power to keep from suffering wrong, in order not to suffer it? CALLICLES: That much is obvious—power. SOCRATES: And what about doing wrong? Is it enough if he doesn't want to do wrong—since then he won't do it—or must he also acquire some power and skill for this, so that if he doesn't learn and practice it, he will do wrong? Why don't you answer me this very question, Callicles: do you think Polus and I were right to be forced to agree, back in our earlier discussion, or not, when we agreed that no one does wrong willingly, but all who do wrong do it unwillingly?
CALLICLES: Let's grant you that, Socrates, so you can finish your argument. SOCRATES: Then it seems that for this too we must equip ourselves with some power and skill, so that we don't do wrong. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: What skill, then, is the skill of equipping oneself to suffer no wrong at all, or as little as possible? See if it seems the same to you as it does to me. To me it seems this: either one must rule in the city, even as a tyrant, or be a partner in whatever government is in power. CALLICLES: Do you see, Socrates, how ready I am to praise you when you say something well? This seems to me very well put. SOCRATES: Then consider this too, and see if it seems well put to me. Every man, I think, is as much a friend to another as possible according to the old saying of the wise—that like is dear to like. Don't you agree? CALLICLES: I do. SOCRATES: So where the ruler is a savage, uneducated tyrant, if there's someone in the city far better than he is, the tyrant would surely be afraid of him, and could never become his true friend, however he tried. CALLICLES: That's so. SOCRATES: Nor could someone far inferior become his friend either—the tyrant would look down on him and would never take him seriously as a friend. CALLICLES: That's true too. SOCRATES: So the only friend left worth mentioning for such a man is someone of the same character, who blames and praises the same things, and is willing to be ruled and to submit to the ruler. This man will have great power in that city, and no one will wrong him and get away with it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So if one of the young men in that city were to consider, 'How can I become powerful, and how can no one wrong me?'—this, it seems, would be his path: to accustom himself from youth to take joy and offense in the same things as his master, and to arrange to be as much like him as possible. Isn't that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So for this man, not being wronged and having great power in the city would be achieved—on your account. CALLICLES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But would he also avoid doing wrong? Far from it—if he's going to be like a ruler who is himself unjust, and have great power with him. No, I think, on the contrary, his whole preparation will be aimed at being able to do as much wrong as possible and escape paying the penalty for it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: So it seems.
SOCRATES: So the greatest evil will befall him—being corrupt and maimed in soul through his imitation of his master and through his power. CALLICLES: I don't know how you keep turning the argument upside down and inside out, Socrates. Don't you know that this man who imitates the tyrant will kill the man who doesn't imitate him, if he wants to, and take away everything he has? SOCRATES: I know it, my good Callicles, unless I'm deaf—I've heard it just now from you and from Polus many times, and from just about everyone else in the city. But you listen to me too: he will kill him if he wants to—but he'll be a wicked man killing a fine, good man. CALLICLES: And isn't that exactly the outrageous part? SOCRATES: Not to a man of sense, at least, as the argument shows. Or do you think a person should arrange his life so as to live as long as possible, and practice those skills that always save us from danger—the way you tell me to practice rhetoric, the kind that saves men in the lawcourts? CALLICLES: Yes, by Zeus, and I'm giving you good advice. SOCRATES: Well then, my excellent friend—does the skill of swimming strike you as anything impressive? CALLICLES: No, by Zeus, not to me. SOCRATES: And yet it too saves men from death, whenever they fall into the kind of situation that requires it. But if that seems too small a thing to you, I'll name you something greater—the pilot's skill, which saves not only lives but also bodies and property from the direst dangers, just as rhetoric does. And yet it's modest and orderly, and doesn't put on airs as though it were doing something magnificent, but having accomplished the very same things as the skill of the lawcourts, if it brings you safely here from Aegina, I suppose it charges two obols, and if from Egypt or the Black Sea, then for this great benefit—saving, as I was just saying, the man himself and his children and property and wife—having brought them safely into harbor, it charges two drachmas; and the man who has this skill and has accomplished all this steps off by the sea and walks beside his ship in a modest manner. He knows how to reckon, I think, that it's unclear which of his fellow passengers he benefited by not letting them drown, and which he harmed, since he knows he set them ashore no better than they were when they boarded, neither in body nor in soul.
SOCRATES: Does he not reckon it out like this: if a man is caught in some great, incurable disease of the body, he isn't wretched merely because he wasn't drowned, and he gains nothing from being saved—but if a man has many incurable diseases in the part of him more precious than the body, namely the soul, then is this a man whose life is worth saving, and will you be doing him a favor by rescuing him, whether from the sea or from a courtroom or from anywhere else at all? No—he knows perfectly well that it is not better for a corrupt man to go on living, since he is bound to live badly. That is why there is no custom of the helmsman puffing himself up, even though he saves our lives, nor, my astonishing friend, of the engineer—who can sometimes save lives that even a general, let alone a helmsman, cannot save; there are times he saves whole cities. Doesn't that strike you as being on a par with the courtroom lawyer? And yet if he wanted to talk the way you people do, magnifying his craft, Callicles, he would bury you in words, urging that everyone ought to become an engineer, since nothing else is worth anything—his argument would serve well enough. But you look down on him and his craft all the same, and you would fling 'engineer' at someone as an insult, and you wouldn't be willing to give your daughter to his son, nor to take his daughter for yourself. And yet, given the grounds on which you praise your own qualities, what just argument do you have for despising the engineer and the others I mentioned just now? I know you would say you are better, and from better stock. But if the better is not what I say it is, but is simply this—preserving oneself and one's belongings, whatever sort of person one happens to be—then your contempt becomes ridiculous, whether aimed at the engineer or the doctor or any of the other crafts that exist for the sake of preservation. No, my good man, consider whether the noble and the good might be something other than mere preserving and being preserved. Perhaps the true man ought not to worry about this at all—how long he lives, however long that turns out to be—and ought not to cling to life, but should leave that matter to god, trusting the women's saying that no one can escape his fate, and should instead consider how he might live as well as possible in whatever time he has left to live,
SOCRATES: —by making himself resemble the constitution he lives under. So it seems now, too, you must make yourself as much like the Athenian people as you can, if you mean to be dear to them and to have great power in the city. Consider whether this serves you well, and me too—so that we don't suffer, my good friend, what they say happens to those women of Thessaly who pull down the moon: choosing this power in the city will cost us the people we hold most dear. And if you imagine that anyone anywhere is going to hand you some craft that will make you powerful in this city while you remain unlike its constitution—whether for better or worse—then in my opinion you are planning badly, Callicles. You must not merely imitate them, but be like them by nature, if you mean to produce anything genuine that wins the friendship of the Athenian people—and, by Zeus, of Pyrilampes' circle too. Whoever makes you most like them will make you into the politician and orator you long to be. For people delight in speeches that match their own character, and are irritated by anything foreign to it—unless you have something else to say, dear friend. Do we have any answer to this, Callicles? CALLICLES: I don't know how it is, Socrates, that you seem to speak well, yet I feel what most people feel—I'm not at all persuaded by you. SOCRATES: That's because love of the people, Callicles, sitting there in your soul, resists me. But if we examine these same questions often enough, and better, perhaps you'll be persuaded. Remember, then, that we said there were two ways of tending to each thing, body and soul: one that deals in pleasure, the other aiming at what is best, not indulging but fighting for it. Weren't those the terms we set then? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And one of the two, the one aimed at pleasure, is base and nothing but flattery—isn't that so? CALLICLES: Let it be so, if you like. SOCRATES: And the other aims at making whatever we tend—body or soul—as good as it can be? CALLICLES: Quite so.
SOCRATES: Then is this the way we ought to go about tending to the city and its citizens—by trying to make the citizens themselves as good as possible? Without this, as we found earlier, there is no benefit in offering any other service at all, unless the intentions of those who mean to acquire great wealth, or office, or any other kind of power, are fine and good. Shall we say it stands this way? CALLICLES: Quite so, if it pleases you more. SOCRATES: Suppose, then, Callicles, that we were urging one another to take up public building projects—walls, or dockyards, or temples, the grandest structures—shouldn't we first examine ourselves and ask whether we know the craft of building or not, and from whom we learned it? Shouldn't we? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And second, whether we had ever actually built anything, privately, for ourselves or a friend, and whether that building turned out handsome or ugly. And if, on examination, we found that we'd had good, reputable teachers, and had built many fine buildings together with our teachers, and many more on our own once we'd parted from them—in that condition, it would make sense for sensible men to move on to public works. But if we could point to no teacher of our own, and to buildings that were either nonexistent or worthless, then surely it would be foolish to attempt public works and to urge one another into them. Shall we agree this is rightly said, or not? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And so it goes for everything else, including this: if we set out to serve the public as though we were competent doctors, surely I would examine you and you would examine me—by the gods, tell me, how is Socrates' own body with respect to health? Has anyone else, through Socrates, ever been freed from disease, slave or free? I imagine I would investigate the same sort of thing about you. And if we found that no one's body had been improved because of us, neither foreigner's nor citizen's, neither man's nor woman's—by Zeus, Callicles, wouldn't it truly be laughable, that men should arrive at such a pitch of folly that, before practicing privately—doing much as it happened, succeeding at much, and getting sufficient practice at the craft—they should attempt, as the saying goes, to learn pottery on a wine-jar, and both undertake public office themselves and urge others of the same kind to do so? Wouldn't it seem foolish to you, to act that way? CALLICLES: It would to me.
SOCRATES: But as things stand, best of men, since you yourself are just now beginning to take a hand in the city's affairs, and you urge me on and reproach me for not doing the same, shall we not examine one another—come now, has Callicles already made any citizen better? Is there anyone who was formerly wicked, unjust, undisciplined, foolish, who because of Callicles has become fine and good—foreigner or citizen, slave or free? Tell me, Callicles, if someone were to put this question to you, what would you say? Whom will you claim to have made better through association with you? Do you hesitate to answer, if indeed there is some deed of yours to point to while you were still a private man, before you undertook to enter public life? CALLICLES: You're eager to win, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, it's not eagerness to win that makes me ask, but a genuine wish to know in what manner you think one ought to conduct politics among us. Or will you, once you've entered on the city's affairs, take care of anything else besides making us citizens as good as possible? Haven't we already agreed many times that this is what the political man must do? We have agreed, haven't we? Answer. We have agreed—I'll answer on your behalf. If, then, this is what the good man must provide for his own city, cast your mind back now and tell me about those men you mentioned a little earlier—do they still seem to you to have been good citizens: Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles? CALLICLES: They do to me. SOCRATES: Then if they were good, clearly each of them made the citizens better instead of worse. Did they, or not? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So when Pericles first began speaking before the assembly, were the Athenians worse than when he gave his last speeches? CALLICLES: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Not 'perhaps,' my good man—it follows necessarily from what we've agreed, if indeed that man was a good citizen. CALLICLES: Well, what of it? SOCRATES: Nothing—but tell me this next: is it said that the Athenians became better because of Pericles, or quite the opposite, that they were corrupted by him? For what I hear is this: that Pericles made the Athenians idle, cowardly, chattering, and greedy for money, by being the first to establish payment for public service. CALLICLES: You're hearing that from people with their ears bashed in, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But this next part I no longer merely hear—I know clearly, and so do you: that at first Pericles was held in high esteem, and the Athenians passed no shameful verdict against him, back when they were worse; but once they had become fine and good, thanks to him, at the very end of Pericles' life they convicted him of theft, and came close to sentencing him to death—clearly treating him as a wicked man. CALLICLES: Well? Was Pericles bad for that reason? SOCRATES: A keeper of donkeys or horses or cattle would certainly seem a bad one, if he took them over not kicking or butting or biting, and delivered them doing all of that out of sheer savagery. Or don't you think any keeper of any animal whatsoever is a bad one, if he takes it over gentler and hands it back wilder than he received it? Do you think so, or not? CALLICLES: I do, just to please you. SOCRATES: Then please me in this too by answering: is man one of the animals, or not? CALLICLES: Of course he is. SOCRATES: And Pericles had care of men? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then? Shouldn't they, as we just agreed, have become more just instead of more unjust under him, if indeed he, being good at politics, was taking care of them? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And the just are gentle, as Homer said—what do you say, isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: But in fact he made them wilder than when he took them over, and turned that wildness against himself, of all people, the last person he'd have wanted it turned against. CALLICLES: Do you want me to agree with you? SOCRATES: Only if you think I'm telling the truth. CALLICLES: So be it, then. SOCRATES: And if wilder, then also more unjust and worse? CALLICLES: So be it. SOCRATES: Then, on this reasoning, Pericles was not good at politics. CALLICLES: That's your claim, not mine. SOCRATES: No, by Zeus, it's yours too, from what you've agreed to. Now tell me again about Cimon: didn't the very people he served ostracize him, so as not to hear his voice for ten years? And didn't they do the same to Themistocles, adding exile as a penalty? And didn't they vote to throw Miltiades, the hero of Marathon, into the pit, and would have, if not for the intervention of the presiding officer? And yet these men, if they had truly been good, as you claim, would never have suffered such things. Good charioteers don't get thrown from their chariots at the start—it's only after they've trained their horses and become better drivers themselves that they get thrown out. That isn't how it works, not in chariot-driving nor in any other pursuit. Or do you think otherwise? CALLICLES: Not I.
SOCRATES: So it seems our earlier conclusions were true after all — that none of us can name a single man who has proven himself a good statesman in this city. You agreed that none of the current ones qualify, but you picked out these men from the past instead. Yet they turn out to be no better than the men of today. So if they really were orators, they practiced neither the true art of rhetoric — for then they wouldn't have been driven out — nor the flattering kind. CALLICLES: But surely, Socrates, it's a long way from true that anyone alive today could match the achievements of whichever of those men you like. SOCRATES: My good man, I'm not faulting them as servants of the city — I actually think they served it better than today's men, and were more capable of supplying whatever the city desired. But when it comes to redirecting people's desires instead of just giving in to them — persuading and compelling the citizens toward whatever would actually make them better — in that respect, frankly, those men were no different at all. And that is the one true job of a good citizen. As for ships and walls and dockyards and all that sort of thing, I grant you those men were better at providing it than the men of today. So you and I are doing something absurd in this conversation — the whole time we've been talking we keep circling back to the same point, never grasping what the other one means. I think you've admitted, more than once, and you've recognized, that this business of caring for us comes in two forms — one for the body, one for the soul. One kind is a servant's job, able to supply, when our bodies hunger, food, when they thirst, drink, when they're cold, clothing, bedding, shoes, whatever else the body craves. I'm deliberately using the same images so you'll follow more easily. Anyone who can supply these things — whether a shopkeeper, a merchant, or a craftsman who makes them, a baker, a cook, a weaver, a cobbler, a tanner — it's no wonder such a person seems, to himself and to others, to be a caretaker of the body. That's true for anyone who doesn't know there's a further art, distinct from all these — gymnastic and medicine — which really is the genuine care of the body, and which rightly ought to govern all these other crafts and make use of their products, because it alone knows what food or drink is good or bad for the body's excellence, while all the rest are ignorant of that.
SOCRATES: That's why these other crafts are properly called slavish, servile, and unfree in their dealings with the body, while gymnastic and medicine are, by rights, their mistresses. Now, that the very same thing holds true for the soul — sometimes you seem to me to follow what I'm saying, and you agree as though you understood it. But then a little later you come back saying that certain men have proven themselves fine, upstanding citizens in this city, and when I ask who, you seem to me to be putting forward men who are exactly comparable, in politics, to what it would be if, when I asked about gymnastics, who has proven himself — or is — a good caretaker of bodies, you told me, quite seriously, 'Thearion the baker, and Mithaecus, who wrote the book on Sicilian cooking, and Sarambus the wine merchant' — that these men have proven themselves marvelous caretakers of bodies, one supplying wonderful bread, another delicacies, another wine. You'd probably be offended if I said to you: 'My friend, you understand nothing about gymnastics. You're telling me about servants, men who cater to appetites, who understand nothing fine or good about the body itself — men who, if things go that way, stuff and fatten people's bodies and get praised for it, while actually destroying even the flesh they started with. And the people, in their ignorance, won't blame those who feasted them for their illnesses and for the loss of their original good health — no, they'll blame whoever happens to be standing nearby giving advice, whenever the earlier overindulgence brings on sickness much later, since it came about with no regard for health. Those people they'll blame, find fault with, and harm if they can, while the earlier ones — the true causes of the harm — they'll praise to the skies.' And that, Callicles, is exactly what you're doing now. You praise men who feasted the citizens, gorging them on whatever they craved.
SOCRATES: And people say those men made the city great — not noticing that it's bloated and festering underneath, thanks to those men of old. For without self-control and justice they filled the city up with harbors and dockyards and walls and tribute and all that kind of nonsense. So when the collapse comes, brought on by this underlying weakness, people will blame whoever happens to be advising them at the time, and praise Themistocles and Cimon and Pericles — the very men who caused the trouble. And perhaps they'll come after you too, if you're not careful — and my friend Alcibiades — when they start losing even what they originally had, on top of what they've gained since, though you two aren't really the cause of the harm, only perhaps accomplices in it. And yet I see this same foolish thing happening now, and I hear it happened with the men of old too. Whenever the city moves against one of its statesmen as a wrongdoer, I notice they get indignant and complain bitterly about how unjustly they're being treated — as if, having done the city so much good, they're now being destroyed by it unfairly. But the whole thing is a lie, because no leader of a city could ever be unjustly destroyed by the very city he leads. Politicians who merely claim to be statesmen, it seems, are really no different from sophists. Sophists too, wise as they are in other respects, do this strange thing — while claiming to be teachers of virtue, they often turn around and accuse their own students of wronging them, cheating them out of their fees or otherwise showing no gratitude, despite having been well treated by them. But could anything be more illogical than that argument — that men who have become good and just, having had injustice removed from them by their teacher and having gained justice instead, should then use that very justice to do wrong, when they no longer have injustice in them to do it with? Doesn't that strike you as absurd, my friend? You've truly forced me into making speeches, Callicles, by refusing to answer. CALLICLES: And you couldn't talk if no one answered you? SOCRATES: It seems I can — right now, at least, I'm stretching my arguments out at length, since you won't answer me. But, my good man, tell me, in the name of Zeus Philios — doesn't it seem irrational to you, for someone to claim he's made another person good, and then blame that very person because, having been made good and being good, he later turns out bad? CALLICLES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: Then don't you hear people who claim to educate men in virtue saying exactly that kind of thing?
CALLICLES: I do — but why should you bother talking about men who aren't worth anything? SOCRATES: And what would you say about those who claim to lead the city and take care that it becomes as good as possible, and then turn around and accuse it, whenever it suits them, of being utterly corrupt? Do you think they're any different from the sophists? A sophist and an orator are really the same thing, my good man, or nearly the same and close kin, just as I said to Polus. But out of ignorance you think one of them — rhetoric — is something splendid, while you look down on the other. In truth, though, sophistry is as much finer than rhetoric as lawgiving is finer than judging cases, and gymnastic finer than medicine. I used to think that only public speakers and sophists were in no position to complain about the very thing they themselves teach — as if it were somehow harmful to them — because doing so would, in the same breath, be an accusation against themselves, admitting they had done no good for the very people they claim to have benefited. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And presumably it would also make sense that only these same people could reasonably offer their services for free, without a fee — if what they claimed were true. Someone who's been helped in some other way — say, made fast through the trainer's teaching — might perhaps cheat the trainer out of his due thanks, if the trainer gave the training away without first agreeing on a fee to be paid alongside the speed. For it's not through slowness, I think, that people do wrong, but through injustice — isn't that right? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: So if someone removes this very thing — injustice — from a person, there's no danger that person will ever be wronged because of it; it's the one and only benefit that can safely be given away for free, if someone really is capable of making people good. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: I agree. SOCRATES: That's why, it seems, there's nothing shameful in charging money for other kinds of advice — about building houses, say, or other crafts. CALLICLES: So it seems. SOCRATES: But when it comes to this particular matter — how a person might become as good as possible and best manage his own household or city — it's considered shameful to refuse advice unless someone pays for it. Isn't that so? CALLICLES: Yes. SOCRATES: Clearly the reason is that this is the only kind of benefit that makes the person who received it want to do good in return, so that it seems a good sign if, having done this favor, one receives a favor back in return — and a bad sign if not. Is that how things stand?
CALLICLES: They do. SOCRATES: Then tell me clearly which kind of care for the city you're inviting me to practice — draw the line for me: the kind that fights constantly with the Athenians to make them as good as possible, like a doctor, or the kind that serves them and speaks only to please them? Tell me the truth, Callicles — you're obliged to, since you started out being frank with me, so keep saying what you actually think. Speak now, plainly and nobly. CALLICLES: Well then, I say the kind that serves them. SOCRATES: So you're inviting me to flatter them, my noble friend. CALLICLES: If you'd rather I call it something cruder, Socrates — because if you don't do that— SOCRATES: Don't repeat what you've already said so many times, that anyone who wants to can kill me — so that I don't in turn say, 'a bad man killing a good one' — and don't say he'll take my property, so that I don't in turn say, 'well, having taken it unjustly, he won't know what to do with it, but just as he took it from me unjustly, he'll use it unjustly too, and if unjustly, then shamefully, and if shamefully, then badly.' CALLICLES: You really seem to me, Socrates, to believe none of this could happen to you — as if you lived somewhere out of reach, and could never be hauled into court by some thoroughly wicked, worthless man. SOCRATES: Then I truly am foolish, Callicles, if I don't believe that in this city anyone at all might suffer just that, whoever he happens to be. But this much I know well: if I should ever come before a court facing danger over the sort of thing you're describing, whoever brings me in will be some wicked person — for no decent man would prosecute someone who's done no wrong — and it wouldn't be at all strange if I were put to death. Would you like me to tell you why I expect this? CALLICLES: By all means. SOCRATES: I believe I'm one of a very few Athenians — not to say the only one — attempting the true art of politics, and the only one among the men of today actually practicing it. So, since the things I say each time aren't spoken to please people but aimed at what's best, not at what's most pleasant, and since I'm unwilling to do the clever things you recommend, I won't know what to say for myself in court. And the same argument comes back to me that I made to Polus: I'll be judged the way a doctor would be judged before a jury of children, prosecuted by a cook.
SOCRATES: Just think what such a man could say in his own defense if he were caught in that position, if someone accused him, saying: 'Children, this man has done you great harm, both to you and to himself — he ruins the youngest of you, cutting and burning, and by starving and choking you he leaves you helpless, giving you the most bitter draughts and forcing you to hunger and thirst, not like me, who feasted you on all sorts of pleasant things.' What do you suppose a doctor, caught in that predicament, could find to say? Or if he told the truth — 'All this I did for your health, children' — how loud an outcry do you think such judges would raise? A tremendous one, wouldn't they? CALLICLES: Perhaps so — you'd have to assume it. SOCRATES: And don't you think he'd be at a complete loss for what to say? CALLICLES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: That is exactly the sort of thing I know would happen to me if I went into a courtroom. I won't be able to point to any pleasures I've provided them, the sort of thing they consider good deeds and benefits — and I envy neither the people who provide them nor those they're provided to. And if someone charges that I corrupt the younger men by leaving them at a loss, or that I slander my elders with bitter words, whether in private or in public, I'll be able to say neither the truth — that I say all these things justly, gentlemen of the jury, doing exactly what serves your interest — nor anything else. So whatever happens to come my way, I suppose that's what I'll suffer. CALLICLES: And does it seem right to you, Socrates, that a man should be in that position in his city, unable to help himself? SOCRATES: Yes, Callicles, provided he has that one thing going for him which you yourself have often agreed to — that he has helped himself by never having said or done anything unjust toward gods or men. That, we've agreed many times, is the strongest form of self-help there is. Now if someone could prove that I'm incapable of giving this kind of help to myself or to anyone else, I would be ashamed, whether refuted before many or before few, or alone before one man — and if I died from this incapacity, I would be distressed. But if I should die for lack of flattering rhetoric, I know well you would see me bear my death easily. For the act of dying itself frightens no one, unless he is utterly thoughtless and cowardly — what people fear is doing wrong. For arriving in Hades with a soul crammed full of wrongdoing is the worst of all evils. And if you like, I'm willing to tell you a story to show that this is so. CALLICLES: Well, since you've finished everything else, finish this too.
SOCRATES: Listen then, as they say, to a very fine story — one you will think a myth, I imagine, though I think of it as an account, since what I am about to tell you I will tell as being true. As Homer tells it, Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto divided up the rule between them when they took it over from their father. Now in the time of Cronos there was a law concerning men, which still holds among the gods even now: that a man who has passed his life justly and piously should, when he dies, go off to the Isles of the Blessed and dwell there in complete happiness, free from evils, while the man who has lived unjustly and godlessly should go to the prison of retribution and justice, which they call Tartarus. Now in the time of Cronos, and even recently while Zeus held rule, the judges of these cases were living men judging the living, and they gave their judgments on the very day the men were due to die — so the verdicts were coming out badly. So Pluto, and the overseers who came from the Isles of the Blessed, went to Zeus and told him that people were arriving on both sides who did not deserve to be there. Zeus said: 'Well, I will put a stop to this. Right now the cases are being judged badly, because,' he said, 'the people on trial are judged while still clothed — that is, while still alive. Many,' he went on, 'who have wicked souls are dressed up in fine bodies, good birth, and wealth, and when the trial comes around, many witnesses come forward to testify that they have lived justly. So the judges are dazzled by all this, and besides, they themselves are judging while still clothed, having their own eyes and ears and their whole body draped as a screen in front of their soul. All of this gets in their way — both their own coverings and those of the people on trial. So first of all,' he said, 'we must stop them from knowing their death beforehand, as they do now. This has already been arranged — word has gone to Prometheus to put a stop to that. Next, they must be judged stripped of all these things — stripped naked, since they must be judged after death. And the judge too must be naked — dead himself — studying with his bare soul the bare soul of each person, the moment after he has died, cut off from all his kin and having left behind on earth all that fine array, so that the judgment may be just.'
SOCRATES: So, having realized this before you did, I appointed sons of my own as judges — two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. These, once they have died, will hold court in the meadow, at the crossroads from which the two paths lead off, one to the Isles of the Blessed, the other to Tartarus. Those from Asia will be judged by Rhadamanthus, those from Europe by Aeacus; and to Minos I will give the privilege of casting the deciding vote whenever the other two are in doubt about anything, so that the judgment on which road men take may be as just as possible. This, Callicles, is what I have heard and believe to be true, and from this account I reckon something like the following follows. Death, it seems to me, is nothing other than the separation of two things from one another, the soul and the body. And once they have been separated from each other, each of the two keeps very nearly the same condition it had while the person was alive — the body keeps its own nature, along with the effects of its care and its sufferings, all plainly visible. For instance, if someone's body was large, by nature or by nurture or both, while he was alive, then his corpse is large too once he has died; and if he was fat, his corpse is fat too after death, and so on for the rest. And again, if he liked to wear his hair long, his corpse has long hair too. Or if someone was a man who got whipped, and had scars on his body left by whips or other wounds while alive, you can see his body bearing these same marks once he is dead. Or if any of his limbs were broken or twisted while he lived, these same things are visible once he is dead. In short, whatever condition the body was kept in during life shows plainly after death too, either entirely or for the most part, for some time. And it seems to me the very same thing holds for the soul, Callicles. Once it is stripped bare of the body, everything is plainly visible in the soul — both its natural traits and the marks it has taken on from each pursuit the man engaged in. So when they arrive before the judge, those from Asia before Rhadamanthus, Rhadamanthus stops each of them and studies his soul, not knowing whose it is — often, in fact, he takes hold of the Great King himself, or some other king or ruler, and finds nothing sound in his soul at all, but sees it scourged and covered with scars from perjuries and injustice —
SOCRATES: — marks each of his actions has left smeared onto his soul — everything twisted from lying and pretense, nothing straight, because it was raised without truth; and he sees the soul brimming with disproportion and ugliness because of license, luxury, insolence, and lack of restraint in its actions. Seeing this, he sends it off in disgrace, straight to the place of confinement, where it is bound to go and endure the sufferings that fit it. And it is fitting for everyone undergoing punishment, if rightly punished by another, either to become better and gain from it, or to serve as an example to others, so that others, seeing him suffer whatever he suffers, may grow better out of fear. Those who benefit and pay their penalty at the hands of gods and men are the ones whose wrongs are curable; still, the benefit comes to them through pain and suffering, both here and in Hades — there's no other way to be rid of injustice. But those who have committed the worst wrongs and have become incurable because of such crimes — these become the examples: they themselves no longer gain anything, being incurable, but others gain, those who see them suffering the greatest, most painful, and most frightening punishments forever, for their sins, hung up there in the prison of Hades quite literally as examples, a sight and a warning for whichever wrongdoers arrive there from time to time. Archelaus, I say, will be one of these, if Polus is telling the truth, and so will any other tyrant of his kind. And I think most of these examples turn out to have come from tyrants, kings, rulers, and men who have managed the affairs of cities, since it is people with power who commit the greatest and most impious crimes. Homer bears this out too: it is kings and rulers he has shown suffering eternal punishment in Hades — Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityus. But Thersites, or any other ordinary man who was wicked, no one has shown bound in great torments as incurable — I suppose because it wasn't within his power to do such things. That's exactly why he was better off than those who did have the power —
SOCRATES: But of course, Callicles, it is from among the powerful that the truly wicked come — though nothing stops good men from arising among them too, and it is well worth admiring those who do; for it is hard, Callicles, and deserves great praise, for a man who has had great scope to act unjustly to live his life justly instead. Few such men appear — though both here and elsewhere, I think, there have been, and will be, fine and good men possessing this excellence — the excellence of managing justly whatever is entrusted to them. One in particular has become quite famous even among the rest of the Greeks, Aristides son of Lysimachus. But most powerful men, my good friend, turn out badly. So, as I was saying, whenever Rhadamanthus gets hold of one of these, he knows nothing else about him — not who he is nor from what family — only that he is wicked; and seeing this, he sends him off to Tartarus, marking him as either curable or incurable, and once there he suffers what is fitting. But sometimes, seeing another soul that has lived piously and truthfully, that of a private citizen or anyone else — most of all, I would say, Callicles, a philosopher who has minded his own business and not meddled in everything during his life — he is struck with admiration and sends it off to the Isles of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same — each of these two holds a rod as he judges — while Minos sits overseeing them, alone holding a golden scepter, as Odysseus in Homer says he saw him — 'holding a golden scepter, giving judgments to the dead.' As for me, Callicles, I am persuaded by this account, and I take care to present my soul to the judge as healthy as possible. So, setting aside the honors that most men value, and practicing truth, I will try, as best I can, to live and — when I die — to die, as good a man as I am able to be. And I urge everyone else, as far as I can, and I urge you especially, in return, to choose this life and this contest, which I say is worth more than all the contests here — and I reproach you for the fact that you will not be able to help yourself when the judgment and trial come, the one I was just now speaking of.
SOCRATES: But when you come before that judge, the son of Aegina, and he seizes you and brings you to trial, you'll gape and reel with dizziness there just as much as I would here, and someone will very likely strike you across the face, without any regard for your dignity, and treat you like dirt in every way. Perhaps all this sounds to you like an old wives' tale, something to be dismissed with contempt — and it would be no wonder if you did dismiss it, if we had somewhere else found better and truer things to say. But as it stands, you can see that the three of you — you and Polus and Gorgias, who are supposed to be the wisest men in Greece today — cannot show that one ought to live any life other than this one, the very life that turns out to be advantageous even down there. No: out of all these arguments, though everything else has been refuted, this one claim alone stands unshaken — that doing wrong is something to guard against far more than suffering it, and that above everything else a man must practice not seeming good but being good, both in private and in public life; and that if anyone becomes bad in some respect, he must be punished for it, and that this — becoming, through punishment, someone who pays what he owes — is the second-best good after being just to begin with; and that every kind of flattery, whether aimed at oneself or at others, whether at the few or at the many, is something to flee from; and that rhetoric, like every other pursuit, must always be used in the service of justice. So listen to me, and follow me to where, once you arrive, you will be happy both in life and after it, as this argument shows. Let anyone who wants to despise you as a fool and treat you shamefully — let him do it. And, by Zeus, let him even strike that disgraceful blow, and take it bravely; you'll suffer nothing terrible, if you are truly a good and admirable man, one who practices virtue. And then, once we have practiced this together, only then, if it still seems right, shall we turn to public affairs — or to whatever else seems best to us — and deliberate about it then, once we are better equipped to deliberate than we are now. Because it is shameful, given the condition we plainly find ourselves in at present, to go on acting the bold young man as though we were somebody — we, who never agree with ourselves twice about the same things, and that on the most important matters of all. That is the depth of ignorance we have sunk to. So let us take as our guide the argument that has just now come to light, which shows us that this way of living is the best — to live and to die practicing justice and every other virtue. Let us follow this, then, and let us call on others to follow it too — not that other argument, the one you trust in and by which you keep calling on me. For that one, Callicles, is worth nothing at all.
COMPANION: Where have you come from, Socrates? Or is it obvious — from hunting after Alcibiades and his youthful bloom? And yet, when I saw him the other day, he still looked handsome, but a man now, Socrates — just between us — and his beard is already coming in thick. SOCRATES: And so what? Aren't you the one who praises Homer, who said the most charming time of youth is when the beard first appears — which is exactly the stage Alcibiades is at now? COMPANION: Well, what about it now? Are you coming from him? And how does the young man feel about you these days? SOCRATES: Well — very well, I thought, and especially so today. In fact he said a great deal on my behalf, coming to my defense, and it's from him that I've just come. But there's something odd I want to tell you: with him right there, I paid him no attention, and kept forgetting he was even present. COMPANION: What could possibly have happened between the two of you to cause that? Surely you haven't met anyone more beautiful, at least not in this city. SOCRATES: Much more beautiful. COMPANION: What are you saying? A citizen or a foreigner? SOCRATES: A foreigner. COMPANION: From where? SOCRATES: Abdera. COMPANION: And this foreigner seemed so beautiful to you that he appeared more beautiful than the son of Cleinias? SOCRATES: And why shouldn't the wisest appear more beautiful, my good man? COMPANION: But Socrates, have you really been in the company of some wise man? SOCRATES: The wisest, I'd say, of anyone alive today — if you consider Protagoras the wisest. COMPANION: What are you saying? Protagoras is in town? SOCRATES: This is already his third day here. COMPANION: And you've just now come from being with him?
SOCRATES: Yes indeed, and I said a great deal and heard a great deal in return. COMPANION: Then why not tell us about the conversation, if nothing prevents you — sit down here, and send this boy off his stool. SOCRATES: Of course — and I'll be grateful if you listen. COMPANION: And we'll be grateful to you, if you tell it. SOCRATES: Then the gratitude will be double. But listen. Last night, still deep in the dark before dawn, Hippocrates — son of Apollodorus and brother of Phason — came pounding on my door with his walking stick, very hard, and when someone opened it for him he rushed straight in, urgent, and said in a loud voice: Socrates, are you awake or asleep? And I, recognizing his voice, said: Hippocrates, is that you? You're not bringing bad news, are you? Nothing but good, he said. Good to hear, I said. But what is it, and why have you come at this hour? Protagoras has arrived, he said, standing right beside me. He came the day before yesterday, I said — are you only just now finding out? By the gods, he said, only this evening. And at the same time he felt around for the couch and sat down by my feet, and said: Yes, this evening — very late, in fact, on my way back from Oenoe. My slave Satyrus ran off from me, you see, and I was going to tell you I meant to go after him, but something else made me forget about it. Then when I got home and we'd had dinner and were about to go to bed, my brother told me Protagoras had arrived. I thought about coming straight to you right then, but then it seemed to me too far into the night; but as soon as sleep let go of me after all that exhaustion, I got up at once and came straight here. And I, recognizing his courage and his agitation, said: What's this to you, then? Is Protagoras doing you some wrong? And he laughed and said: Yes, by the gods, Socrates — that he alone is wise, and doesn't make me so. But by Zeus, I said, if you give him money and win him over, he'll make you wise too. If only, he said — oh Zeus and the gods — if only that were all it took! I wouldn't spare a thing of my own or my friends'. But that's exactly why I've come to you now — so you can speak to him on my behalf. I'm younger than you, for one thing, and besides, I've never once seen Protagoras or heard him speak; I was still a child the last time he visited.
SOCRATES: Well, Socrates, everyone praises the man and says he's the most skilled speaker there is. But why aren't we walking over to him, so we can catch him at home? He's staying, I hear, with Callias son of Hipponicus. Let's go. And I said: Not yet, my friend — let's not go there yet, it's early — but let's get up and go out into the courtyard here, and pass the time walking around until it gets light; then we'll go. Protagoras spends most of his time indoors anyway, so don't worry, we're sure to catch him in. After that we got up and walked around in the courtyard, and I, testing Hippocrates' resolve, examined him and asked: Tell me, Hippocrates, now that you're setting out to go to Protagoras and pay him money as a fee on your own behalf — who exactly is it you're going to, and what are you going to become? It's as if you were planning to go to your namesake, Hippocrates of Cos, of the family of Asclepius, and pay him a fee on your behalf, and someone asked you: tell me, Hippocrates, you're about to pay Hippocrates a fee as being what sort of man? What would you answer? — I'd say, he said, as a doctor. — And what would you yourself become? — A doctor, he said. — And if you were planning to go to Polyclitus of Argos or Phidias of Athens and pay them a fee on your own behalf, and someone asked you: you intend to pay this money to Polyclitus and Phidias as being what sort of men? What would you answer? — I'd say, as sculptors. — And what would you yourself become? — Clearly, a sculptor. — Very well, I said; now, when you and I go to Protagoras, ready to pay him money as a fee on your behalf — if our own money is enough to persuade him, and if not, spending our friends' money too — if someone asked us, so intent on this business: tell me, Socrates and Hippocrates, as being what sort of man do you intend to pay Protagoras money? What would we answer him? What name do we hear applied to Protagoras, the way we hear 'sculptor' applied to Phidias and 'poet' to Homer — what such name do we hear for Protagoras? — They call the man a sophist, Socrates, he said. — So it's as a sophist that we're going to pay him the money? — Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if someone were to ask you this too — as what do you yourself intend to become by going to Protagoras? — And he answered, blushing (for it was already growing light enough to see him clearly): If it's anything like the previous cases, clearly a sophist. — And you, I said, by the gods, wouldn't you be ashamed to present yourself to the Greeks as a sophist? — By Zeus, Socrates, I would, if I have to say what I really think. — But then, Hippocrates, is it perhaps not that kind of instruction you expect to get from Protagoras, but rather the kind you got from your writing-teacher, your music-teacher, and your gymnastics-trainer? For you didn't learn any of those as a craft, meaning to become a professional at it, but for education, as befits a private citizen and a free man. — Yes, he said, that seems to me much more like what instruction from Protagoras would be. — Do you know, then, what you're about to do, or does it escape you? I said. — About what? — That you're about to hand over your soul to be cared for by a man who is, as you say, a sophist; but as for what a sophist actually is, I'd be surprised if you know. And yet if you're ignorant of that, you don't even know to whom you're entrusting your soul, or whether it's to something good or something bad. — I think I do know, he said. — Tell me, then, what do you take a sophist to be? — I think, he said, as the name itself says, one who has knowledge of wise things. — Well, I said, one could say the same of painters and carpenters, that they're knowledgeable in wise things. But if someone asked us, wise in what, are painters knowledgeable? we'd say, in producing likenesses, and so on for the rest. But if someone asked that other question — the sophist is wise in what? — what would we answer him? What sort of work is he in charge of? — What would we say he is, Socrates, except one in charge of making a person skilled at speaking? — Perhaps, I said, that would be true, but not adequate enough; for our answer still calls for a further question — about what does the sophist make one skilled at speaking? A lyre-player, for instance, makes one skilled at speaking about the very thing he himself has knowledge of, namely lyre-playing, doesn't he? — Yes. — Very well; and about what does the sophist make one skilled at speaking? — Clearly about whatever he himself has knowledge of. — Likely enough. So what is this thing, about which the sophist himself is knowledgeable and makes his student so as well? — By Zeus, he said, I can no longer tell you.
SOCRATES: And I said after this: Well then — do you realize into what sort of danger you're about to put your soul? If you had to entrust your body to someone, at risk of it becoming either good or ruined, you'd think hard about whether to entrust it or not, and you'd call in your friends and family for advice, deliberating for days on end. But when it comes to something you value more than your body — your soul, on whose being good or bad your whole life's faring well or badly depends — about this you've consulted neither your father nor your brother nor any one of us your companions, as to whether you should entrust your soul to this foreigner who's just arrived; instead, having heard about him yesterday evening, as you say, you come here at dawn, and about this matter you make no argument and take no counsel at all as to whether you ought to entrust yourself to him or not — you're ready to spend your own money and your friends' money, as though you'd already decided you absolutely must study with Protagoras, whom, as you say, you neither know nor have ever conversed with, yet you call a sophist, while you appear ignorant of what a sophist even is — this man to whom you're about to entrust yourself! And when he heard this he said: It does seem so, Socrates, from what you say. — Well then, Hippocrates, is the sophist perhaps a kind of merchant or trader in the goods by which the soul is nourished? For that's how he strikes me, at any rate. — But Socrates, what is the soul nourished by? — By lessons, surely, I said. And take care, my friend, that the sophist, in praising what he sells, doesn't deceive us — the way those dealing in the body's nourishment do, the merchant and the trader. For these people, too, don't themselves know which of the goods they carry is good or bad for the body, but praise everything they sell all the same, and neither do those who buy from them know, unless one happens to be a trainer or a doctor. In the same way, those who carry their lessons around from city to city, selling and peddling them to whoever desires them at the time, praise everything they sell, but it may be, my excellent friend, that some of them too are ignorant of whether what they're selling is good or bad for the soul — and likewise those who buy from them, unless one happens, in turn, to be a doctor of the soul. So if you yourself happen to have knowledge of what is good and bad in these matters, it's safe for you to buy lessons from Protagoras or from anyone else at all; but if not, take care, my dear fellow, that you're not gambling with what is dearest to you, and taking the greatest of risks.
SOCRATES: And in fact there is far greater danger in buying up teachings than in buying food. When you buy food and drink from the grocer or merchant, you can carry it away in separate containers, and before you take it into your body by eating or drinking it, you can set it down at home and call in someone knowledgeable to advise you what to eat or drink and what not to, and how much and when. So there isn't much risk in that purchase. But teachings can't be carried off in a separate container — you have no choice but to hand over the price, take the teaching directly into your soul by learning it, and go your way either harmed or helped. So this is something we should look into, and with the help of our elders too, since we're still young enough that a matter this large is beyond us to sort out on our own. Still, for now, since we already set out to do it, let's go and hear the man, and once we've heard him, let's share it with others too — Protagoras isn't the only one there; there's also Hippias of Elis, and I believe Prodicus of Ceos, and many other clever men besides. Having decided this, we went on our way. When we reached the front door, we stopped to finish a discussion we'd fallen into on the road, so as not to leave it hanging; we stood there in the doorway talking until we'd reached agreement. Now it seems that the doorkeeper, some eunuch, was listening in on us, and I suppose, given how many sophists come through, he's grown tired of the people who show up at the house. In any case, when we knocked, he opened up, saw us, and said, 'Ugh, sophists,' and added that the master had no time for visitors — and with that he slammed the door shut with both hands, as forcefully as he could manage. We knocked again, and with the door still bolted he answered, 'Didn't you people hear me? He has no time.' 'But my good man,' I said, 'we haven't come to see Callias, and we aren't sophists. Don't worry — we came wanting to see Protagoras. So go announce us.' Only then, reluctantly, did the fellow finally open the door for us.
SOCRATES: Once we'd gone in, we found Protagoras walking about in the covered porch, and walking alongside him in a row, on one side, were Callias son of Hipponicus and his half-brother on his mother's side, Paralus son of Pericles, and Charmides son of Glaucon; and on the other side, Pericles' other son, Xanthippus, and Philippides son of Philomelus, and Antimoerus of Mende, the most highly regarded of Protagoras's students, who is studying to become a professional sophist himself. Following behind, listening to what was said, were mostly foreigners, whom Protagoras draws along from each of the cities he passes through, charming them with his voice like Orpheus, and they follow, spellbound by that voice — though there were also a few locals mixed into the chorus. I especially enjoyed watching that chorus, how carefully they took care never to get in Protagoras's way; whenever he turned around, along with those with him, these listeners would neatly and orderly split apart to either side, circle around, and reassemble behind him in perfect formation every time. 'And next I noticed,' as Homer would say, Hippias of Elis, seated on a chair in the porch across the way. Around him, on benches, sat Eryximachus son of Acumenus, Phaedrus of Myrrhinus, Andron son of Androtion, and some of the foreigners — fellow citizens of his and others. They seemed to be questioning Hippias about nature and the heavens, matters of astronomy, and he, seated on his chair, was sorting out each question and going through the answers point by point. And indeed I also caught sight of Tantalus — for Prodicus of Ceos happened to be visiting too. He was in a certain room which Hipponicus used to use as a storeroom, but which Callias has now emptied out and turned into guest lodging, given how many visitors are staying there. Prodicus was still lying in bed, wrapped up in some fleeces and a great many blankets, by the look of it. Sitting near him on the neighboring couches were Pausanias of Cerameis, and with Pausanias a young fellow still quite a boy — fine in nature, I'd guess, and certainly very handsome in appearance. I thought I heard his name was Agathon, and I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be Pausanias's beloved.
SOCRATES: That boy was there, and both of the Adeimantuses — the one son of Cepis and the one son of Leucolophides — and some others as well. As for what they were discussing, I couldn't make it out from outside, much as I longed to hear Prodicus — the man strikes me as immensely wise, practically divine — but the deep resonance of his voice set up a kind of booming in the room that blurred the words. We had only just come in when, right behind us, in walked Alcibiades — the handsome one, as you call him and I'm inclined to agree — and Critias son of Callaeschrus. So once we were inside, we lingered a bit taking all this in, and then went up to Protagoras, and I said, 'Protagoras, it's you we've come for — myself and Hippocrates here.' 'Do you want,' he said, 'to talk with me alone, or with the others present too?' 'It makes no difference to us,' I said. 'Once you've heard why we've come, you can judge for yourself.' 'Well, what is it, then,' he said, 'that brings you here?' 'This is Hippocrates, a local, son of Apollodorus, of a great and prosperous house; in his own nature he seems a match for anyone his age. He wants, I think, to become someone of note in the city, and he believes the surest way to that is by spending time with you. So now it's for you to decide whether you think it best to discuss this alone, just the two of us, or with the others too.' 'You do well, Socrates,' he said, 'to look out for me this way. For a foreigner who goes into great cities and there persuades the best of the young men to leave the company of others — kin and strangers, older and younger alike — and join him instead, on the promise that they'll be better for his company, needs to be careful in doing so. Such things stir up no small envy, ill will, and scheming. Now, I myself say that the sophist's art is an ancient one, but that the men of old who practiced it, fearing the resentment it provokes, used other things as a screen and a disguise — some used poetry, like Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides; others used rites and prophecies, the circle around Orpheus and Musaeus; and I've noticed some who used athletic training, like Iccus of Tarentum and, still active today, a sophist second to none, Herodicus of Selymbria, originally of Megara. Others used music as their screen, like your own Agathocles, who was truly a great sophist, and Pythoclides of Ceos, and many others. All of these men, as I say, out of fear of that envy, used these arts as their veils.'
SOCRATES: But I don't agree with any of them on this point. I think they accomplished nothing of what they intended — they didn't manage to fool the people in each city who actually hold power, the very ones these disguises are meant for; the ordinary crowd notices nothing to speak of, and simply repeats whatever these leading men pass along. So for someone trying to run away to fail at running away, and instead to stand out in plain sight, is sheer folly, and it's bound to make people far more hostile — since they come to think such a man is, on top of everything else, a schemer. As for me, I've taken the entirely opposite path: I openly admit to being a sophist and to educating people, and I think this kind of caution is better than the other — admitting it outright rather than denying it. I've taken other precautions too, so that, god willing, I suffer no harm from admitting I'm a sophist. And indeed I've been many years now in this profession — my years altogether add up to a great many; there's not one of you I couldn't be old enough to have fathered. So nothing would please me more, if you're willing, than to discuss all this in front of everyone here inside.' And I — suspecting he wanted to show off in front of Prodicus and Hippias and preen a bit, since we'd come as his admirers — said, 'Well then, why don't we call Prodicus and Hippias and those with them in, so they can listen to us?' 'By all means,' said Protagoras. 'Shall we,' said Callias, 'set up a proper sitting so you can all talk seated?' We agreed we should; and all of us, delighted at the prospect of hearing wise men speak, took hold of the benches and couches ourselves and arranged them by Hippias, since the benches were already there. Meanwhile Callias and Alcibiades arrived bringing Prodicus, having gotten him up from his couch, along with those who were with him. Once we were all seated together, Protagoras said, 'Now then, Socrates, you may speak, since these men are present too, about the matter you mentioned to me a little while ago concerning the young man.'
SOCRATES: And I said that my starting point was the same as before, Protagoras, the very thing I'd come about: Hippocrates here happens to be eager for your company, and he says he'd be glad to learn what will come of it for him if he spends time with you. That's the whole of what we have to say. Protagoras answered, taking this up: 'Young man, if you keep company with me, here is what will happen: on the very day you join me, you'll go home a better man, and the same the next day, and every single day you'll keep improving further still.' Hearing this, I said, 'Protagoras, there's nothing surprising in what you say — it's only natural, since even you, wise and accomplished as you already are, would become better if someone taught you something you didn't happen to know. But don't put it that way — suppose instead that Hippocrates here suddenly changed his mind and wanted to study with that young man who has just arrived in town, Zeuxippus of Heraclea, and went to him, as he's now come to you, and heard the very same thing from him that he heard from you — that each day spent in his company would make him better and he'd keep improving — and then asked him, 'Better at what, and improving toward what?' Zeuxippus would tell him: painting. Or suppose he'd studied with Orthagoras the Theban, and heard the same words from him, and asked what he'd be improving toward day by day in his company — he'd say: flute-playing. So you, too, tell the young man and me, since I'm asking on his behalf: if Hippocrates here keeps company with Protagoras, on whatever day he does so he'll go away improved, and likewise each following day he'll keep improving — but toward what, Protagoras, and in regard to what?' And Protagoras, hearing this from me, said, 'You ask well, Socrates, and I'm glad to answer those who ask well. Hippocrates, in coming to me, will not suffer what he would have suffered from studying with any other sophist. The others mistreat the young: fleeing as they do from technical subjects, these men drag them back against their will into more technical subjects — arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music' — here he glanced toward Hippias — 'whereas anyone who comes to me will learn about nothing but the very thing he came for. And that subject is sound judgment in one's own affairs — how best to manage one's own household — and in the city's affairs, how to be most capable both in acting and in speaking on the city's behalf.'
SOCRATES: Am I following your argument? I said. You seem to be describing the political art, and promising to make men into good citizens. That's exactly it, he said, Socrates -- that's the profession I profess. Well, I said, that's a fine skill you've acquired, if you've really acquired it. I'll say nothing to you but what I think. I myself, Protagoras, didn't believe this thing could be taught, but when you say it can, I don't see how to disbelieve you. I ought to explain why I think it isn't teachable, or something no human being can arrange for another. I say the Athenians, like the rest of the Greeks, are wise people. Now I notice that when we're gathered in the assembly, if the city has some business to do about building, we send for builders to advise about buildings, and if it's about shipbuilding, we send for shipwrights, and so on for everything else that's considered learnable and teachable. And if anyone else tries to advise them who isn't thought to be a craftsman in that field -- however handsome, wealthy, or well-born he may be -- they pay him no more attention for it. Instead they laugh him down and shout him out, until either the speaker gives up and steps back, shouted into silence, or the archers drag him off or have him removed at the presiding officers' order. That's how they behave about matters they consider technical. But when it comes to deliberating about running the city, anyone stands up to advise them -- a carpenter just as much as a smith or a cobbler, a merchant or a ship's captain, rich or poor, well-born or not -- and no one attacks him the way they attacked the others, for not having learned anywhere, having had no teacher, and yet daring to give advice. Clearly they don't think this can be taught. And it isn't just true of the city as a whole -- privately too, the wisest and best of our citizens are unable to pass on to others the virtue they themselves possess.
SOCRATES: Take Pericles, the father of these young men here. He gave them a fine education in everything that depended on teachers, but in the area where he himself is wise, he neither teaches them himself nor hands them over to anyone else -- they just wander around grazing like sacred cattle set loose, in case they happen to stumble onto virtue on their own. Or take Clinias, the younger brother of this Alcibiades here -- this same Pericles, as his guardian, afraid he'd be corrupted by Alcibiades, took him away and placed him in Ariphron's household to be educated. But before six months were up, he gave him back, at a loss for what to do with him. I could give you countless other examples of men who are good themselves but have never made anyone else better, neither their own kin nor anyone else's. So, Protagoras, looking at these facts, I don't believe virtue can be taught. But then I hear you saying it can, and I waver -- I think you must be onto something, because I take you to have had wide experience, learned a great deal, and worked out some things for yourself. So if you can show us more clearly that virtue is teachable, please don't hold back -- show us. Well, Socrates, he said, I won't hold back. But should I show you this by telling a story, as an older man to younger ones, or by working it out step by step in argument? Many of those sitting nearby told him to proceed however he preferred. In that case, he said, I think it will be more pleasant to tell you a story. There was once a time when there were gods, but no mortal creatures yet existed. When the destined time came for these too to be born, the gods shaped them inside the earth, mixing earth and fire together with whatever combines with fire and earth. When it was time to bring them out into the light, the gods assigned Prometheus and Epimetheus to equip them and distribute abilities to each kind as was fitting. Epimetheus begged Prometheus to let him do the distributing himself -- 'and once I've distributed them,' he said, 'you can inspect the results' -- and having persuaded him, he set to work. In his distribution, he gave some creatures strength without speed, while equipping the weaker ones with speed. Some he armed, and to others, giving them no weapons, he devised some other capacity for their preservation.
SOCRATES: To those he clothed in smallness, he gave winged flight or an underground dwelling; those he built up in size he preserved by that very size, and so on, evening things out as he distributed. He arranged all this with an eye to preventing any species from being wiped out entirely. And once he had provided them means of escaping mutual destruction, he devised protection against the seasons that come from Zeus, clothing them in thick fur and tough hides, sufficient to ward off winter and capable of resisting heat as well, and so that when they went to rest each creature would have its own natural bedding built in; and he shod some with hooves, others with tough, bloodless hide and fur. After that he arranged different foods for different creatures -- for some, grass from the ground, for others the fruits of trees, for others roots; and to some he gave the flesh of other animals as food. To these he gave low fertility, while to the ones being eaten by them he gave high fertility, securing the survival of the species. But since Epimetheus wasn't especially wise, he didn't notice that he had used up all the capacities on the irrational animals; the human race was left completely unequipped, and he was at a loss what to do. While he was still stuck, Prometheus came to inspect the distribution, and saw that while the other animals were suitably furnished in every way, man was naked, unshod, without bedding, and unarmed -- and already the appointed day was at hand when man too was to come forth from the earth into the light. So Prometheus, at a loss for any means of saving man, stole the skilled wisdom of Hephaestus and Athena, together with fire -- since without fire it was impossible for anyone to acquire or use that wisdom -- and so he gave it as a gift to man. In this way man came to possess the wisdom needed for life, but he did not have the political kind, for that was in the keeping of Zeus. Prometheus no longer had the chance to enter the citadel where Zeus dwelt -- and besides, the guards of Zeus were terrifying -- but he slipped unnoticed into the workshop shared by Athena and Hephaestus, where they practiced their crafts together, and stealing Hephaestus's art of fire along with Athena's art as well, he gave them to man. From this came man's resourcefulness in life -- but Prometheus, because of Epimetheus, was later, so the story goes, brought to justice for the theft.
SOCRATES: Once man had a share of the divine portion, first, because of his kinship with god, he alone among the animals believed in gods, and set about establishing altars and images of them. Then he quickly worked out, through his skill, articulate speech and names, and he invented houses, clothing, sandals, bedding, and food from the earth. Equipped in this way, humans at first lived scattered about; there were no cities. So they were destroyed by wild animals, since they were weaker than the beasts in every way, and their skill in crafts, while adequate help for feeding themselves, was insufficient for the war against the animals -- for they did not yet have the political art, of which the art of war is a part. So they sought to gather together and save themselves by founding cities. But whenever they gathered together, they wronged one another, since they had no political art, and so they scattered again and kept being destroyed. Zeus, then, fearing that our whole race would be wiped out, sent Hermes to bring men a sense of shame and a sense of justice, so that there might be order in cities and bonds of friendship to bring people together. Hermes then asked Zeus in what way he should give justice and shame to men. Should I distribute them the way the arts have been distributed? They have been distributed like this: one person with medical knowledge is enough for many laymen, and so with the other craftsmen. Should I place justice and shame among men in this same way, or distribute them to everyone? To everyone, said Zeus, and let all have a share. For cities could never come to be if only a few shared in them, as with the other arts. And make this a law from me: whoever cannot share in shame and justice is to be put to death as a sickness upon the city. That, Socrates, is the reason why the Athenians and everyone else, when the discussion concerns skill in carpentry or any other craft, think that only a few should have a say, and if someone outside that few tries to advise them, they won't stand for it, as you say -- and reasonably so, I would add --
SOCRATES: but when they turn to deliberating about political virtue, which must proceed entirely through justice and moderation, they reasonably tolerate advice from every man, since it's fitting that everyone share in this virtue, or else there would be no cities at all. That, Socrates, is the reason for this. And to keep you from thinking you're being deceived, that people really do believe every man shares in justice and the rest of political virtue, take this further proof: in the other virtues, as you say, if someone claims to be a good flute-player, or claims any other skill he doesn't have, people either laugh at him or grow angry, and his own family comes and scolds him as if he were out of his mind. But when it comes to justice and the rest of political virtue, even if they know a man is unjust, if he himself admits the truth about himself in front of everyone, what would count as sanity in the other case -- telling the truth -- here they count as madness. They say everyone must claim to be just, whether he is or not, and that anyone who doesn't pretend to justice is out of his mind, on the grounds that it's necessary for every single person to share in it somehow, or else not be counted among human beings at all. So much for why they reasonably accept every man as an adviser about this virtue, since they believe everyone has a share in it. I'll try to show you next that they don't consider it something that comes by nature or by chance, but something taught, and that it comes about, wherever it does, through deliberate effort. Whatever evils people believe others have by nature or by chance, no one gets angry at them for it, or scolds them, or teaches them, or punishes them, hoping to change them -- people simply pity them. Take the ugly, the short, or the weak -- who is foolish enough to try to do anything about those? People know, I think, that such things come to human beings by nature and chance, both the good ones and their opposites. But whatever good things people believe come about through care, practice, and teaching -- if someone lacks these and instead has the opposite, bad qualities -- it's for these that anger arises, and punishment, and reproof.
SOCRATES: Among these failings are injustice and impiety, and in short everything opposed to political virtue. In this domain everyone gets angry at everyone else and reproves them, clearly on the assumption that virtue is something to be acquired through care and learning. If you're willing to think through what punishing wrongdoers actually accomplishes, Socrates, that alone will show you that people believe virtue can be instilled. No one punishes wrongdoers focusing simply on the fact that they did wrong -- not unless he's acting like a mindless beast taking blind revenge. Someone who sets about punishing with reason in view doesn't take revenge for the sake of the past wrong -- since he couldn't make what's done undone -- but for the sake of the future, so that neither this person himself nor anyone else who sees him punished will do wrong again. Someone who thinks this way believes virtue can be taught -- at any rate, he punishes for the sake of deterrence. This is the view held by everyone who exacts punishment, whether privately or publicly. And other people punish and take vengeance on those they believe have wronged them -- the Athenians, your own fellow citizens, not least of all. So by this reasoning the Athenians too are among those who believe virtue can be instilled and taught. So I've shown you well enough, Socrates, it seems to me, both that your fellow citizens are right to accept advice on political matters from a smith or a cobbler, and that they believe virtue is teachable and can be instilled. There remains still the difficulty you raised about good men -- why it is that good men teach their sons everything that depends on teachers, and make them wise in that, but do not make them any better than anyone else in the very virtue they themselves possess. About this, Socrates, I'll no longer tell you a story but reason it through. Consider this: is there some one thing, or is there not, that all citizens must necessarily share in, if there is to be a city at all? It's here, and nowhere else, that the difficulty you raise will be resolved.
SOCRATES: If it exists, and if that single thing is not carpentry, or bronze-working, or pottery, but justice and self-control and holiness -- if, in short, I call it a single thing and name it a man's virtue -- if this is the thing that all must share in, and every man must act with this as his guide in whatever else he wishes to learn or do, and act in nothing without it, and if the man who does not share in it must be taught and punished, whether child or man or woman, until punishment makes him better, and if the one who will not listen to punishment and teaching must be cast out of the city or put to death as incurable -- if this is how things stand, and if, given that this is its nature, good men teach their sons everything else but not this, then consider how remarkably good men turn out to be. That they consider it teachable, both privately and publicly, we have shown. Given that it is teachable and can be cultivated, do they really teach their sons all the other things, for which there is no death penalty if a boy fails to learn them, but this one thing, for which the penalty is death for the boy himself and exile if he isn't taught and cultivated toward virtue, and beyond death the confiscation of property and, in a word, the overthrow of whole households -- this, do they not teach, and not take every care over it? You must believe they do, Socrates. Starting from when the children are very small, for as long as they live, they teach them and admonish them. As soon as a child understands what is said to him, the nurse, the mother, the tutor, and the father himself all struggle over this very point, that the boy should become as good as possible, teaching him and showing him, in connection with every deed and every word, that this is just and that is unjust, this is admirable and that is shameful, this is holy and that is unholy, do this and don't do that. And if he obeys willingly, well; if not, they straighten him like a warped and bent piece of wood, with threats and blows. After that they send him to schoolmasters, and give far more instructions about his good behavior than about his letters and his music.
SOCRATES: The teachers take care of these things, and when the boys have learned their letters and are ready to understand what is written as they once understood the spoken word, the teachers set before them, on their benches, the poems of good poets to read, and make them learn them by heart -- poems full of much admonition, and many accounts and praises and eulogies of good men of old, so that the boy, admiring them, will imitate them and long to become such a man himself. The music teachers, for their part, do similar things: they take care of self-control, and see that the young do nothing wrong; and further, once the boys have learned to play the lyre, they teach them the poems of yet other good poets, the composers of songs, setting them to the music of the lyre, and they make the rhythms and harmonies become part of the children's souls, so that they become gentler, and more graceful in rhythm and harmony, and thus fit for speech and action -- for the whole of human life stands in need of good rhythm and harmony. Beyond this, they also send the boy to a physical trainer, so that having a better body he may serve a mind that is good, and not be forced into cowardice through bodily weakness, whether in war or in other affairs. And this is done above all by those most able to do it -- and those most able are the wealthiest -- and their sons, beginning to attend school earliest, in age, leave off latest. And when they are done with their schoolmasters, the city in turn compels them to learn the laws and to live according to them as a pattern, so that they will not act on their own at random, but exactly as writing-teachers, for children not yet skilled at writing, first trace letters lightly with the stylus and then give them the tablet and make them write following the guide-lines -- so too the city, having sketched out the laws, discoveries of good lawgivers of old, compels people to rule and be ruled according to them; and whoever steps outside them, the city punishes. And this punishment, among you and in many other places, is called correction, since the penalty corrects. Given, then, how great a care is taken over virtue, both privately and publicly, do you still wonder, Socrates, and puzzle over whether virtue is teachable? You should not wonder at that -- you should wonder far more if it were not teachable.
SOCRATES: Why, then, do many sons of good fathers turn out worthless? Learn this too: it is nothing to wonder at, if what I was saying earlier is true, that in this matter -- virtue -- if there is to be a city at all, no one may be a private amateur in it. For if what I say is so -- and it is so more than anything -- consider some other pursuit or study, choosing whichever you like, as a comparison. Suppose it were impossible for there to be a city unless we were all flute-players, each as good as he could manage, and everyone taught everyone else this skill both privately and publicly, and rebuked the one who played badly, and did not begrudge this teaching, just as now no one begrudges or hides his knowledge of justice and lawfulness, as people do with other skills -- for I think each other's justice and virtue benefits us, which is why everyone eagerly tells and teaches everyone else about just and lawful things -- well, if we had that same eagerness and generosity toward teaching one another flute-playing, do you think, Socrates, he said, that the sons of good flute-players would turn out any more to be good flute-players than the sons of bad ones? I think not; rather, whichever boy happened to be born with the greatest natural gift for flute-playing would become renowned, and whichever was ungifted would remain obscure; and often a good flute-player's son would turn out worthless, and often a bad one's son would turn out good. But in any case all of them would be competent flute-players compared with ordinary people who have no knowledge of flute-playing at all. In the same way you should think, now, that whoever among you seems the most unjust of those raised among laws and among men would be just, and a master craftsman of justice, if he had to be judged next to men who have neither education nor courts nor laws nor any compulsion at all constantly forcing them to care for virtue -- men who were savage, like those Pherecrates the poet put on stage last year at the Lenaia. Truly, if you found yourself among people like that, like the man-haters in that chorus, you would be glad to run into an Eurybatus or a Phrynondas, and you would wail with longing for the wickedness of the people here. As it is, you are spoiled, Socrates, because everyone is a teacher of virtue, each to the extent he is able, and so none of them seems to you to be one at all.
SOCRATES: It's as if you were looking for who teaches Greek -- no one at all would turn up; and I don't think, either, if you looked for who could teach the sons of craftsmen this very craft which they have in fact learned from their fathers -- to whatever extent the father was skilled, and the father's friends who shared the same craft -- who could teach them further, it would not be easy, Socrates, I think, to point to a teacher for these boys, though for the utterly untrained it is perfectly easy; and so it is with virtue and with everything else. But even if there is someone who has even a slight edge over us in advancing people toward virtue, that is something to be grateful for. And I believe I am one of those, and that I can benefit a person, more than other men can, toward becoming admirable and good, and that I am worth the fee I charge, and even more, so much so that the student himself agrees. That is why I have arranged the manner of collecting my fee as follows: whenever someone has learned from me, if he wishes, he pays the sum I charge; but if not, he goes to a temple, swears an oath as to how much he judges the lessons to be worth, and deposits that amount. That, Socrates, he said, is the story and the argument I have offered you, to show that virtue is teachable, and that the Athenians hold this view, and that it is no wonder that worthless sons come from good fathers and good sons from worthless ones, since even the sons of Polycleitus, contemporaries of Paralus and this Xanthippus here, are nothing next to their father, and the same is true of other craftsmen's sons. But it is not yet fair to accuse these two of that; there is still hope in them, for they are young. With this, and much more besides, Protagoras finished his display and stopped speaking. And I, for a long while, still spellbound, kept looking at him as though he were going to say more, eager to hear it; but when I realized that he had truly finished, I gathered myself together, somehow, with an effort, and looking at Hippocrates, said: Son of Apollodorus, how grateful I am to you for urging me to come here. I count it a great thing to have heard what I have heard from Protagoras. Before now I used to think there was no human effort by which good men become good; but now I am persuaded there is. Except for one small thing standing in my way, which Protagoras will surely clear up easily, since he has already cleared up so much.
SOCRATES: For if someone were to talk with any public speaker about these very matters, he might well hear speeches just as fine, from Pericles or some other capable speaker; but if you ask any of them a further question, they can no more answer than a book can, nor ask a question themselves; and if you question even slightly on some small point of what they said, they are like bronze vessels, which when struck ring on and on and drag out the sound unless someone stops them -- and the orators are just the same: asked something small, they draw out a whole marathon of speech. But Protagoras here is capable both of making long, fine speeches, as his own words show, and also, when asked, of answering briefly, and when he asks a question, of waiting for and accepting the answer -- something few are equipped to do. So now, Protagoras, I need only one small thing to have everything, if you would answer me this. You say virtue is teachable, and I, if I would trust any man on earth, trust you. But there is something you said that puzzled me, and I would like you to fill in that gap for me. You said that Zeus sent justice and reverence to mankind, and again, in many places in your speech, you spoke of justice, self-control, and holiness, and all these together, as though they were one single thing -- virtue. Go through this for me carefully and precisely: is virtue one thing, of which justice, self-control, and holiness are parts, or are these all names for one and the same thing? That is what I still long to know. Well, that is easy to answer, Socrates, he said: virtue is one thing, and these are parts of it, which you ask about. Are they parts, I said, in the way that the parts of a face are parts -- mouth, nose, eyes, and ears -- or are they like the parts of a lump of gold, which do not differ from one another, or from the whole, except in being larger or smaller? It seems to me, Socrates, the former way, as the parts of a face relate to the whole face. Then do people, I asked, partake of these parts of virtue differently, one man having one and another having another, or must a man, once he has one, have all of them? Not at all, he said, since many are brave but unjust, and again many are just but not wise.
SOCRATES: So these too are parts of virtue, I said — wisdom and courage? — Most certainly, he said, and wisdom is the greatest of the parts. — And each of them is distinct, I said, one thing and another? — Yes. — And does each of them have its own particular power? Just as with the parts of a face — the eye is not like the ears, nor is its power the same, and none of the other parts is like any other, either in power or in anything else. Isn't it the same, then, with the parts of virtue — that one is not like another, neither itself nor its power? Isn't that clearly how it is, if it resembles the example? — Yes, that's how it is, Socrates, he said. — And I said: then none of the parts of virtue is like knowledge, or like justice, or like courage, or like moderation, or like piety? — No, he said. — Come then, I said, let's examine together what sort of thing each of them is. First this: is justice a real thing, or not a thing at all? To me it seems real — what about you? — To me too, he said. — Well then: if someone asked you and me, 'Protagoras and Socrates, tell me — this thing you just named, justice, is it itself just or unjust?' I would answer that it is just. What verdict would you give — the same as mine, or a different one? — The same, he said. — So justice is such as to be just — that's how I'd answer if someone asked, and you too? — Yes, he said. — And if after that he asked us, 'Don't you also say there's such a thing as piety?' We'd say yes, I imagine. — Yes, he said. — And you say this too is a thing? — We'd say so — or not? — He agreed to this as well. — 'And do you say this thing itself is such as to be unholy, or such as to be holy?' For my part, I said, I'd be indignant at the question and say, 'Watch your words, friend — it would hardly be easy for anything else to be holy, if piety itself isn't holy.' And you — wouldn't you answer the same way? — Certainly, he said. Then if after that he asked us, 'So what were you saying a little earlier? Did I hear you right? You seemed to me to say that the parts of virtue stand to one another in such a way that one is not like another —'
SOCRATES: I would say that you heard the rest correctly, but if you think I said that, you misheard — it was Protagoras here who gave that answer; I was only asking. So if he asked, 'Is what this man says true, Protagoras? Do you claim that one part of virtue is not like another? Is that your position?' — What would you answer him? — I'd have no choice, he said, Socrates, but to admit it. Well then, Protagoras, having admitted that, what shall we answer him if he presses further: 'Then piety is not such as to be a just thing, nor justice such as to be holy, but such as to be not holy; and piety is such as to be not just, but unjust, and the other, unholy'? What shall we answer him? For my own part I would say that justice is holy and piety is just, and on your behalf too, if you'd let me, I would give the same answer — that justice and piety are either the same thing, or as alike as anything could be, and that justice is above all like piety, and piety like justice. But see whether you object to my answering that way, or whether you agree. — It doesn't seem to me, Socrates, he said, quite so simple that I should concede that justice is holy and piety is just — rather, there seems to me to be some difference in it. But still, what difference does that make? he said. If you like, let's grant that justice is holy and piety is just. — Not for my sake, I said — I have no need of that 'if you like' or 'if it seems so to you' being tested, but of you and me; I mean that phrase 'you and me' because I think the argument would be tested best if one took the 'if' out of it. — Well, but justice certainly does resemble piety in some way, he said — anything resembles anything else in some respect. White resembles black in a way, and hard resembles soft, and all the other things that seem most opposite to one another; and the things we said earlier had different powers and were not alike, the parts of the face, resemble one another in some way and one is like the other. So by that method you could prove even these things are all alike to one another, if you wanted. But it isn't right to call things alike just because they share something in common, nor unalike because they share something different, even if what they share is very small. — And I said to him in astonishment: is that really how justice and piety stand to each other in your view — that they share only some small point of resemblance?
SOCRATES: Not quite that, he said, but not what you seem to think either. — Well then, I said, since you seem uneasy about this, let's set it aside and look at something else you said. Do you call something folly? — He agreed. — Isn't wisdom the complete opposite of this thing? — It seems so to me, he said. — And when people act rightly and beneficially, do you think they're being moderate when they act that way, or if they acted the opposite? — Moderate, he said. — So they're moderate by moderation? — Necessarily. — And those who don't act rightly act foolishly, and are not being moderate when they act that way? — I agree, he said. — So acting foolishly is the opposite of acting moderately? — He agreed. — And what's done foolishly is done by folly, and what's done moderately, by moderation? — He conceded this. — And if something is done by strength, it's done strongly, and if by weakness, weakly? — He agreed. — And if with speed, quickly, and if with slowness, slowly? — He agreed. — And if something is done in the same way, it's done by the same thing, and if in an opposite way, by its opposite? — He agreed. — Come now, I said, is there such a thing as beauty? — He granted it. — Is there anything opposite to this except ugliness? — There is not. — Well then — is there such a thing as good? — There is. — Is there anything opposite to it except bad? — There is not. — And is there such a thing as a high note in sound? — He agreed. — Is there anything opposite to it except the low note? — He said no. — So, I said, for each single opposite there is only one opposite, not many? — He agreed. Come then, I said, let's total up what we've agreed. We've agreed that one thing has only one opposite, and not more? — We have. — And that what is done oppositely is done by opposite things? — He agreed. — And we agreed that what is done foolishly is done oppositely to what is done moderately? — He agreed. — And that what is done moderately is done by moderation, and what is done foolishly, by folly? — He granted this. — So if it's done oppositely, it would be done by an opposite thing? — Yes. — And one thing is done by moderation, the other by folly? — Yes. — Oppositely? — Quite so. — By opposite things, then? — Yes. — So folly is the opposite of moderation? — So it appears. — Do you remember, then, that earlier we agreed that folly is the opposite of wisdom? — He agreed.
SOCRATES: And that one thing has only one opposite? — I say so. — So which of our statements shall we give up, Protagoras — that one thing has only one opposite, or the earlier one, where we said wisdom is distinct from moderation, each being a part of virtue, and that besides being distinct, they and their powers are unalike, like the parts of a face? Which shall we give up? For neither statement sits well together — they don't harmonize or fit with one another. How could they, if it's necessary that one thing has only one opposite and no more, and yet folly, being one thing, appears to have both wisdom and moderation as its opposite? Isn't that so, Protagoras, I said, or is it otherwise? — He agreed, and very reluctantly. — So moderation and wisdom would be one thing? And earlier it appeared to us that justice and piety were nearly the same thing too. Come now, Protagoras, I said, let's not grow weary but examine what remains as well. Does it seem to you that an unjust man is being moderate, in that he acts unjustly? — I would be ashamed, Socrates, he said, to admit that, though many people do say so. — Shall I direct my argument to them, then, I said, or to you? — If you like, he said, argue first against that popular view. — It makes no difference to me, so long as you're the one answering, whether or not you actually believe it — for it's the argument itself I'm chiefly examining, though it may turn out that both I who ask and the one who answers are being examined too. At first Protagoras put on airs about this, claiming the question was awkward, but then he agreed to answer. — Come then, I said, answer me from the start. Does it seem to you that some people are moderate while acting unjustly? — Granted, he said. — And you mean by being moderate, thinking well? — He agreed. — And thinking well means planning well, in that they act unjustly? — Granted, he said. — Is that, I asked, if they fare well by acting unjustly, or if they fare badly? — If well. — Do you mean, then, that there are certain good things? — I do. — Are these, I said, the things that are beneficial to people? — And by Zeus, he said, even if they're not beneficial to people, I still call them good. — And it seemed to me that Protagoras was already growing irritated and anxious, and had braced himself against answering. Seeing him in that state, I proceeded carefully and asked gently.
SOCRATES: Do you mean, I said, Protagoras, things that are beneficial to no one at all, or things not beneficial in any way whatsoever? And do you call such things good? — Not at all, he said. But I know of many things that are of no benefit to people — foods, drinks, medicines, and countless others — while some are beneficial; and some are neither good nor bad for people, but are for horses; and some only for cattle, others for dogs; and some are good for none of these, but for trees; and some things are good for a tree's roots but bad for its shoots — for instance manure, which is good for the roots of every plant when spread there, but if you tried applying it to the young shoots and fresh branches, it destroys everything. Or take olive oil — it's thoroughly bad for all plants, and the worst enemy of the hair of every creature except a human being's, though for human hair and for the rest of the human body it's a help. So good is such a varied and multiform thing that here too what's good for the outside of a person's body is, for the inside, the very worst thing there is — which is why doctors all forbid the sick from using oil except in the smallest amount, just enough in the dishes they're about to eat to quench the unpleasantness that comes from the smells through the nostrils, in the food and the side dishes. When he'd said this, those present burst into applause at how well he'd spoken, and I said: Protagoras, I happen to be a rather forgetful sort of person, and if someone speaks to me at length, I lose track of what the argument was about. So just as, if I happened to be a bit deaf, you'd think you ought to speak louder to me than to others if you meant to converse with me, so now too, since you've run into a forgetful man, cut your answers shorter and make them briefer, if I'm to keep up with you. — How short do you want me to make my answers, then? Shorter than they need to be? — By no means, I said. — As long as they need to be? he said. — Yes, I said. — Then shall I answer with as much as seems to me needed, or with as much as seems needed to you?
SOCRATES: I've heard, I said, that you're able both to teach someone else and to speak yourself at length on the same subjects, going on as long as you like without ever running out of things to say, and also, on the other hand, so briefly that no one could out-do you in fewer words. So if you're going to discuss things with me, use the other method on me — the short one. Socrates, he said, I've entered into contests of speech with many people before now, and if I did what you're asking — discussed things the way my opponent told me to — I wouldn't have come out looking better than anyone else, and Protagoras would never have made a name for himself among the Greeks. And I — for I could see that he wasn't happy with his earlier answers, and that he wouldn't willingly go on discussing things by way of answering questions — thought it was no longer my business to stay for these conversations, and said: Well, Protagoras, I myself am not eager to force our discussion to run against your wishes. Once you're willing to discuss things in a way I can keep up with, I'll discuss them with you. You, after all, as people say of you and as you say yourself, are capable of carrying on a conversation both at length and briefly — you're a wise man — but I'm no good at these long stretches, though I wish I were capable of it. It should really have been you who gave way to us, since you can do both, so that our discussion might actually happen. But as it is, since you're not willing, and I have some business to attend to and couldn't stay with you while you stretch out long speeches — I have to go somewhere — I'm off; though I daresay I wouldn't have minded listening to that too. And with these words I got up to leave, and as I was rising Callias caught hold of my hand with his right hand, and with his left took hold of this cloak of mine, and said: We won't let you go, Socrates. If you leave, our discussions won't be the same. So I beg you to stay with us — there's no one I'd rather listen to than you and Protagoras talking together. Do us all this favor. And I said — I was already on my feet, on my way out — Son of Hipponicus, I've always admired your love of wisdom, and I do so now too, and I'm fond of you, so that I'd like to do you this favor, if what you're asking of me were possible.
SOCRATES: But as it stands, it's just as if you were asking me to keep pace with Crison of Himera, the runner in his prime, or to run alongside one of the long-distance runners or the day-runners and keep up with them — I'd tell you that I need far more than you do to keep up with runners like that, but I simply can't; and if you want to watch Crison and me running the same race, ask him to slow down to my pace, since I can't run fast, though he can run slow. So if you're eager to hear both me and Protagoras, ask him to answer now the way he answered at first — briefly, and to the point of the questions. Otherwise, what will become of our conversations? I always thought that talking things over together with one another was one thing, and making speeches to a crowd was something else. But — you see? — he said, Socrates, Protagoras seems to me to be making a fair claim, that he should be allowed to discuss things his way, and you yours. Then Alcibiades broke in: That's not well said, Callias. Socrates here admits he has no share of the long-speech style and yields the point to Protagoras, but as for being able to hold a discussion and knowing how to give and take an argument, I'd be amazed if he yielded that to anyone alive. Now if Protagoras admits he's worse than Socrates at discussion, that's enough for Socrates; but if he claims otherwise, let him discuss by asking and answering, not stretching a long speech out over each question, dodging the arguments and refusing to give an account, but drawing things out until most of the listeners have forgotten what the question was even about — though I can vouch that Socrates won't forget, whatever jokes he makes about being forgetful. So it seems to me Socrates has the more reasonable position — everyone ought to state his own view. After Alcibiades, I think it was Critias who spoke: Prodicus, Hippias, Callias here seems to me very much on Protagoras' side, while Alcibiades is always eager to win at whatever he takes up. But there's no need for us to take sides eagerly with either Socrates or Protagoras — let's rather ask them both together not to break up our gathering.
SOCRATES: When he had said this, Prodicus said: I think you're right, Critias. Those of us present at discussions like these ought to be common listeners to both parties in the discussion, but not give them equal shares — that's not the same thing. We should listen to both together, but not divide our attention equally, giving more to the wiser one and less to the less learned. For my part, Protagoras and Socrates, I ask you both to allow each other to dispute your positions, but not to quarrel — for friends dispute with friends out of goodwill, while it's rivals and enemies who quarrel with one another — and this way our gathering would turn out at its best. You, the speakers, would in this way earn genuine regard from us, the listeners, rather than mere praise — for genuine regard exists in the minds of listeners without deception, while praise is often spoken in words that belie one's real judgment, out of pretense — and we, the listeners, would in this way take the greatest delight, rather than mere pleasure — for delight comes from learning something and having a share in understanding, through the mind itself, while pleasure comes from eating something or experiencing some other bodily gratification. When Prodicus said this, a good many of those present showed strong approval. After Prodicus, Hippias the wise spoke: Gentlemen here present, he said, I consider all of you kinsmen, relations, and fellow-citizens — by nature, not by custom. For like is akin to like by nature, while custom, a tyrant over mankind, forces much that goes against nature. It would be shameful, then, for us, who know the nature of things, and who are the wisest of the Greeks, and who have gathered for just this purpose here in the very council-hall of wisdom in Greece, and in this city's greatest and most splendid house, to show nothing worthy of that reputation, but instead to squabble with one another like the most common of men.
SOCRATES: I too ask you, Protagoras and Socrates, and I advise you, to come to an agreement, as though we here were arbitrators bringing you to a middle ground — that you, Socrates, should not insist on this overly exact, clipped style of discussion, if it isn't to Protagoras' liking, but should let the reins out and slacken them for the arguments, so that they may appear to us grander and more graceful; and that you, Protagoras, in turn, should not let out every sail and run before a following wind, fleeing into the open sea of speeches until land is out of sight, but that both of you should cut a middle course. So do this, and let me persuade you to choose a referee, an overseer, a chairman, who will keep watch over the proper length of each of your speeches. This pleased those present, and everyone approved, and Callias said he wouldn't let me go, and they asked us to choose a chairman. I said, though, that it would be shameful to choose a judge over our arguments. For if the one chosen turns out to be worse than we are, it wouldn't be right for the worse to oversee the better; and if he's our equal, that's no better either — being our equal, he'll do just as we would, so the choice would be pointless. Well then, you'll choose someone better than us. But in truth, I think, it's impossible for you to choose anyone wiser than Protagoras here; and if you choose someone no better, yet claim that he is, that too is shameful to him, as though you were setting a chairman over some ordinary fellow — though for my own part it makes no difference to me. But here's what I'm willing to do, so that the gathering and our discussions may proceed as you're eager for: if Protagoras doesn't want to answer, let him ask the questions and I'll answer, and at the same time I'll try to show him how I say the one answering ought to answer. And once I've answered as many questions as he wants to ask, let him in turn give me an account in the same way. And if he doesn't seem willing to answer the very question asked, then both you and I together will beg him, just as you've begged me, not to spoil our gathering — and there's no need for a single chairman for this; all of you together can oversee it. Everyone agreed this should be done, and though Protagoras was quite unwilling, still he was compelled to agree to ask questions, and once he had asked enough, to give an account in turn, answering briefly, point by point.
SOCRATES: So he began questioning me something like this: I think, Socrates, he said, that the greatest part of a man's education is being skilled about poetry — that is, being able to understand what the poets say, what's composed correctly and what isn't, and to know how to analyze it and give an account when asked. And in fact my question now will be about the very thing you and I are now discussing, virtue, only transposed into poetry — that will be the only difference. Simonides, you see, says somewhere to Scopas, the son of Creon of Thessaly, that — 'It's truly hard for a man to become good, foursquare in hands and feet and mind, made without blame.' Do you know this poem, or shall I go through the whole of it for you? And I said there was no need — I knew it, and in fact I'd given it a good deal of attention. Good, he said. Then does it seem to you well and correctly composed, or not? Quite, I said, both well and correctly. And does it seem to you well composed if the poet contradicts himself? Not well, I said. Look more closely then, he said. But, my good man, I've considered it enough. Then you know, he said, that further along in the poem he says — 'nor does Pittacus' saying ring true to me, though spoken by a wise man: he said it's hard to be noble.' Do you notice that this is the same person saying both this and what came before? I know it, I said. Does it seem to you, then, he said, that this agrees with that? It seems so to me, at least (though at the same time I was afraid he might be onto something) — but, I said, doesn't it seem so to you? How could it seem that the same man agrees with himself, when he's the one who says both things — who first assumed himself that it's hard for a man to become truly good, and then a little further on in the poem forgets this and finds fault with Pittacus for saying the very same thing he himself said, that it's hard to be noble, and refuses to accept it from him, though Pittacus is saying the same thing as he is? Yet whenever he finds fault with a man for saying the same thing he himself says, clearly he's finding fault with himself too, so that either his first or his second statement must be wrong. When he'd said this, he caused a great stir and drew praise from many of the listeners; and I, at first, as though struck by a skilled boxer, went dark and dizzy at his words and the others' clamor of approval. Then — to tell you the truth — so as to gain myself some time to think over what the poet meant, I turned to Prodicus, and calling out to him said: Prodicus, Simonides is after all your fellow-citizen; it's only right that you come to the man's defense.
SOCRATES: So I think I ought to call on you, the way Homer says the river Scamander, under siege from Achilles, called on the Simois, saying: 'Dear brother, let the two of us together hold back this man's strength.' And so I'm calling on you too, so that Protagoras doesn't sack Simonides on us. Because setting Simonides right really does need your special skill in words -- the one that separates wanting from desiring, as if they weren't the same thing, along with all those fine points you just made. So think it over now and see whether you agree with me about this: it doesn't look to me as though Simonides contradicts himself at all. But first, Prodicus, tell us your own view -- do you think 'coming to be' and 'being' are the same thing, or different?" "Different, by Zeus," said Prodicus. "Well then," I said, "in the opening lines Simonides declared his own opinion, that it's hard for a man to truly come to be good." "True," said Prodicus. "And he criticizes Pittacus," I went on, "not, as Protagoras thinks, for saying the same thing he himself says, but for saying something different. Pittacus wasn't claiming that this hard thing was to come to be good, the way Simonides does, but to remain so. And being and coming-to-be, Protagoras, are not the same thing, as our friend Prodicus here says. And if being isn't the same as coming-to-be, then Simonides doesn't contradict himself. Prodicus here, and plenty of others, would probably say, following Hesiod, that coming to be good is hard -- since the gods set sweat in front of virtue -- but that once a man reaches its peak, then it becomes easy to hold, hard as it was to gain." When Prodicus heard this he praised me for it, but Protagoras said, "Your correction, Socrates, contains a bigger mistake than the one you're correcting." And I said, "Then it seems I've done real harm, Protagoras, and I'm some kind of ridiculous doctor -- treating the disease only makes it worse." "That's exactly how it is," he said. "How so?" I asked. "It would show great ignorance on the poet's part," he said, "if he really thought possessing virtue was such a trivial thing, when it's the hardest thing of all, as everyone agrees."
SOCRATES: And I said, "By Zeus, how well-timed it is that Prodicus here has joined our conversation. His wisdom, Protagoras, is very likely something ancient and divine, going back to Simonides or even further. You, though experienced in so many things, seem to be inexperienced in this one -- unlike me, who has some experience, being a student of Prodicus here. And now it seems to me you're missing the point that Simonides may not have meant 'hard' the way you take it, but rather the way Prodicus here is always correcting me about the word 'terrible' -- whenever I praise you or someone else by calling them 'terribly wise,' he asks whether I'm not ashamed to call good things terrible. Because 'terrible,' he says, means bad -- after all, no one ever speaks of 'terrible wealth' or 'terrible peace' or 'terrible health,' but of 'terrible sickness' and 'terrible war' and 'terrible poverty,' since the terrible is something bad. Perhaps, then, the Ceans and Simonides also take 'hard' to mean something bad, or something else you're missing. Let's ask Prodicus -- it's only right to consult him about Simonides' own language. Prodicus, what did Simonides mean by 'hard'?" "Bad," he said. "So that's why he criticizes Pittacus," I said, "for saying it's hard to be good -- as if he'd heard him say it's bad to be good." "What else do you suppose Simonides meant, Socrates," he said, "except to rebuke Pittacus for not knowing how to properly distinguish words, being a Lesbian raised speaking a foreign dialect?" "You hear that, Protagoras?" I said. "Do you have anything to say to it?" And Protagoras said, "That's far from how it is, Prodicus. I'm quite certain Simonides meant by 'hard' just what the rest of us mean -- not 'bad,' but whatever isn't easy, whatever takes a great deal of effort to achieve." "And I think so too, Protagoras," I said, "and that Prodicus here knows it as well, but is joking and testing whether you can defend your own reading. Because the very next line is strong proof that Simonides doesn't mean 'hard' as 'bad.' He says: 'only a god could hold that privilege' -- surely he isn't saying it's bad to be good, and then that only a god could have this, granting that privilege to a god alone. That would make Simonides out to be some kind of reckless fool, and no Cean at all."
SOCRATES: But let me tell you what I think Simonides really has in mind in this poem, if you'd like to test how well I handle this business of verses -- or if you prefer, I'll listen to you instead." Protagoras, hearing this, said, "As you like, Socrates." And Prodicus and Hippias both urged me on eagerly, and so did the rest. "Very well," I said, "let me try to go through with you what I think about this poem. Philosophy among the Greeks is oldest and most widespread in Crete and Sparta, and that's also where you find the greatest number of sophists on earth -- but they deny it and put on a show of ignorance, so that it won't be obvious they surpass the rest of Greece in wisdom, the very sort Protagoras described as sophists; instead they want to seem to surpass others through fighting and courage, thinking that if their real advantage were known, everyone would train in that instead -- namely, wisdom. As it is, by concealing that, they've fooled the Spartan-imitators in the various cities, who bruise their ears trying to look like them, wrap their hands in straps, take up hard exercise, and wear short cloaks, as if it were by these means that the Spartans dominate Greece. But the Spartans themselves, whenever they want to mix freely with their own sophists and grow tired of meeting them in secret, expel all these Spartan-imitators along with any other foreigner staying in the city -- a purge of foreigners -- and then meet with their sophists without the foreigners knowing; and they themselves let none of their young men travel to other cities, just as the Cretans don't either, so they won't unlearn what they've been taught at home. And in these cities it isn't only the men who take great pride in their education, but the women too. You can tell I'm speaking the truth, and that the Spartans are extremely well trained in philosophy and argument, this way: if anyone cares to engage even the most ordinary Spartan in conversation, he'll find him, for much of the exchange, seeming rather plain -- but then, at some point in the discussion, he'll throw in a remark worth hearing, brief and tightly wound, like a skilled javelin-thrower, so that whoever's talking with him looks no better than a child.
SOCRATES: This is exactly what some people today, and some in the past, have grasped -- that being Spartan is far more a matter of loving wisdom than of loving exercise, knowing that the ability to utter such sayings belongs to a fully educated man. Among these were Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, our own Solon, Cleobulus of Lindos, and Myson of Chen, and a seventh was counted among them, the Spartan Chilon. All of these were admirers, lovers, and students of the Spartan education, and one can recognize their wisdom by its character -- brief, memorable sayings, each attributed to one of them. Meeting together, they dedicated the first fruits of their wisdom to Apollo, at his temple in Delphi, inscribing there what everyone now repeats: 'know yourself' and 'nothing in excess.' Why am I telling you all this? Because this was the ancient style of philosophy, a kind of Spartan brevity of speech; and one saying of Pittacus's in particular circulated privately, praised by the wise, that 'it is hard to be good.' Now Simonides, being ambitious for a reputation in wisdom, realized that if he could bring down this saying, like taking down a celebrated athlete, and get the better of it, he himself would gain fame among the people of his time. So it was against this very saying, and for this very purpose, that -- setting a trap for it -- he composed this whole poem, or so it seems to me. Let's examine it together, all of us, and see if what I say is true. Right at the start of the poem it would look like madness if, wanting to say that becoming a good man is hard, he then threw in the word 'men' -- this doesn't seem to fit into the sentence at all for any purpose, unless one takes Simonides to be speaking as though disputing with Pittacus's saying: with Pittacus saying it's hard to be good, Simonides answers, disputing him, 'no -- rather, to come to be a truly good man is hard, Pittacus' -- not 'good in truth,' as if he meant that some men are truly good while others are good but not truly so -- that would seem a silly thing to say, and not worthy of Simonides --
SOCRATES: Rather, we need to place the word 'truly' out of its normal order in the poem, treating Pittacus's saying as something said first, with Simonides answering it -- as if we set it up with Pittacus speaking and Simonides replying: 'Men, it is hard to be good,' and the reply: 'Pittacus, that isn't true -- for it isn't being, but coming to be, a man good in hands and feet and mind, formed foursquare, without a flaw -- this is truly hard.' In this way it's clear both that the word 'men' fits the sentence, and that 'truly' is correctly placed at the end. And everything that follows bears this out, that it was meant this way. There's much that could be shown about how well each part of the poem is composed -- it really is crafted with great care and skill -- but it would take too long to go through it all that way. Let's go through its overall shape and intent instead, since it is, more than anything else, a refutation of Pittacus's saying throughout the whole poem. He says, a little further on, as though continuing the argument: that to truly become a good man is hard, though possible, for a certain time; but having become so, to remain in that state and be a good man, as you claim, Pittacus, is impossible and beyond human reach -- only a god could hold that privilege -- 'a man cannot help but be bad, when ruinous misfortune brings him down.' Now who does ruinous misfortune bring down when it comes to steering a ship? Clearly not the ordinary man -- he's already down. Just as one couldn't knock down someone already lying flat, but could knock down someone standing to make him fall, while someone already down cannot be made to fall further, so too ruinous misfortune could bring down a resourceful man, but not one who is always without resource; a great storm striking a helmsman could leave him helpless, and a harsh season striking a farmer could leave him helpless, and the same for a doctor. For it's possible for the good man to become bad, as another poet also testifies, saying: 'a good man is sometimes bad, sometimes good.' But it isn't possible for the bad man to become bad -- he must always be so. So that when ruinous misfortune brings down the resourceful, wise, and good man, he cannot help but be bad; but you, Pittacus, say it's hard to be good -- when really, to become good is hard, though possible, while to remain so is impossible. 'For every man is good who fares well, bad if he fares badly.'
SOCRATES: So what activity is good with respect to letters, and what makes a man good at letters? Clearly, learning them. And what good performance makes a good doctor? Clearly, learning the treatment of the sick. But bad performance makes a bad one. Who, then, could become a bad doctor? Clearly, someone who is first a doctor at all, and then a good doctor -- since he could also become a bad one -- while we who have no knowledge of medicine could never, however badly we perform, become doctors, or carpenters, or anything else of that sort, by our bad performance. And whoever could not become a doctor by performing badly clearly could not become a bad doctor either. In just the same way a good man might at some point also become bad, whether through time, or hardship, or illness, or some other misfortune -- for this is the only bad performance there is, to be stripped of knowledge -- but a bad man could never become bad, since he already is bad; rather, if he is going to become bad, he must first have become good. So this part of the poem, too, points to the same thing: that it is not possible to be a good man, remaining good all the way through, but it is possible to become good -- and likewise to become bad, this very same man -- and that those are best for the longest time whom the gods love. All this, then, is said with Pittacus in mind, and what follows in the poem makes it even clearer. For he says -- 'therefore I will never, in search of what cannot be, cast away my portion of life on an empty, unattainable hope -- a man entirely blameless, among all of us who harvest the fruit of the wide earth; if I find him, I will report it to you' -- so he says. This is how vehemently, and throughout the whole poem, he keeps pressing against Pittacus's saying -- 'but I praise and love all who do nothing shameful, willingly; against necessity not even the gods make war.' And this too is said with the same point in mind. For Simonides was not so uneducated as to say that he praises those who do no wrong willingly, as though there were some people who do wrong on purpose. I am fairly sure of this much: that none of the wise men thinks any human being errs willingly, or willingly does shameful and bad things -- rather, they know well that all who do shameful and bad things do so unwillingly. And Simonides too does not say he is a praiser of whoever does no wrong willingly -- he is speaking about himself when he uses the word 'willingly.'
SOCRATES: For he thought that a fine and good man often forces himself to become someone's friend and to love and praise a friend -- as, for instance, a man often finds himself with a strange mother or father, or a homeland, or something else of that kind. Now when something like this happens to base men, they seem almost glad of it, and point it out, blaming and denouncing the baseness of their parents or their homeland, so that people will not reproach them or blame them for neglecting these, and will not reproach them for neglecting them -- so that they end up blaming them even more, and adding voluntary hostilities on top of the ones necessity imposed. But good men cover the matter up and force themselves to praise it, and if they are angered at their parents or homeland for some wrong done to them, they console themselves and reconcile, forcing themselves to love and praise their own. And I think Simonides himself often thought it right to praise and extol some tyrant or other such person, not willingly, but under compulsion. This, then, is what he says to Pittacus as well: 'Pittacus, it is not for this that I blame you, that I am fond of blame' -- since, he says, 'it is enough for me if a man is not bad, nor overly helpless, and knows justice that benefits the city, being a sound man; I will not find fault with him -- for I am not fond of fault-finding -- since the tribe of fools is endless. All things, indeed, are fine in which nothing shameful is mixed.' He does not mean this the way one might mean it by saying 'all things are white in which no black is mixed' -- that would be absurd in many ways -- but that he himself accepts what is middling too, so as not to find fault. 'And I do not seek,' he says, 'a man entirely blameless, among all of us who harvest the fruit of the wide earth; if I find him, I will report it to you.' So on that score I will praise no one -- but it is enough for me if a man is middling and does nothing bad; I love and praise all such men' -- and here he uses the dialect of the Mytilenaeans, since he is speaking to Pittacus, saying 'but all I praise and love, willingly, whoever does nothing shameful' -- here one must divide the sentence at the word 'willingly' when reading it -- 'but there are some I praise and love unwillingly.'
SOCRATES: 'You, then, Pittacus, even if you had spoken things that were only moderately fair and true, I would never have found fault with you; but as it is, you speak great falsehoods about the most important matters while seeming to speak the truth, and for this I do find fault with you.' This, Prodicus and Protagoras, is what I take it Simonides had in mind in composing this poem. And Hippias said, 'You too, Socrates, seem to me to have gone through the poem well; but I also have an account of it that I think is good, which I will show you, if you wish.' And Alcibiades said, 'Yes, Hippias, another time. For now it is only fair that Protagoras and Socrates keep to what they agreed between themselves -- that if Protagoras still wants to ask questions, Socrates should answer, but if he wants to answer Socrates, then he should let the other one ask.' And I said, 'I leave it to Protagoras to choose whichever he prefers. But if he's willing, let's set aside poems and verses, and let me gladly go on with you, Protagoras, to the end of the question I first asked you. For discussing poetry seems to me altogether too much like the drinking parties of ordinary, common people. Such people, because they are uneducated and cannot keep each other company over their wine through their own voices and their own words, put a high price on flute-girls, hiring the borrowed voice of the flutes at great expense, and keep each other company through their voices. But where the drinkers are fine, good, and educated men, you would see neither flute-girls nor dancing-girls nor harp-girls, but people content to keep each other company by themselves, through their own voices, speaking and listening to one another in turn and in good order, even if they drink a great deal of wine. In just this way, gatherings like ours, if they happen to involve men such as most of us claim to be, have no need of a borrowed voice, nor of poets, whom one cannot even question about what they mean -- and when people bring them into their arguments, some say the poet meant this, others that, arguing about a matter they are unable to settle.'
SOCRATES: 'But such gatherings as those, let them go their way; and let us keep each other's company ourselves, through our own words, putting one another to the test in our own arguments and being tested in turn. It seems to me you and I ought rather to imitate men of that sort, setting the poets aside and conducting our discussion through ourselves, with ourselves, testing the truth and testing each other. If you still want to ask questions, I am ready to offer myself to you and answer; or if you prefer, you can offer yourself to me, and let us bring to a conclusion what we broke off discussing partway through.' When I said this, and other things of the kind, Protagoras still would not make clear which of the two he would do. So Alcibiades, looking toward Callias, said, 'Callias, do you think Protagoras is behaving well right now, refusing to make clear whether he will engage in discussion or not? I don't think so -- either let him converse, or say that he does not wish to converse, so that we may all understand this about him, and Socrates can converse with someone else, or whoever else wants to, with someone else.' And Protagoras, apparently ashamed at Alcibiades saying this, and at Callias's pleading, and at nearly everyone else present, was reluctantly persuaded to engage in discussion, and told me to ask him questions, since he would answer. So I said: 'Protagoras, do not think that in conversing with you I want anything other than to examine closely the very things I myself am regularly at a loss about. For I think Homer says something quite true: When two go together, one notices before the other. Somehow all of us human beings are more resourceful for every deed and word and thought when we work together; but if a man notices something alone, he goes about at once looking for someone to show it to and confirm it with, until he finds someone. That is why I, for this very reason, would rather talk with you than with anyone else, since I think you would examine best, along with the other things a reasonable person is likely to consider, the matter of virtue as well. For who else, if not you? -- since you not only think yourself a fine and good man, as some others do who are decent themselves but cannot make others so,
SOCRATES: but you yourself are good, and are able to make others good as well, and you have such confidence in yourself that, while others hide this skill, you openly proclaim yourself before all the Greeks, calling yourself a sophist, and have declared yourself a teacher of education and virtue, the first to think it right to charge a fee for this. How then could I not call on you to examine these matters, and question you, and share my thoughts with you? There is no way I could not. And now I want again, from the beginning, to recall some of what I first asked you about these matters, and to examine the rest together with you. The question was, as I recall, this: wisdom and self-control and courage and justice and piety -- are these five names for one and the same thing, or does each of these names have its own distinct reality and thing underlying it, each having its own power, one not being like the other? You said, then, that they are not names for one thing, but that each of these names applies to its own distinct thing, and that all of these are parts of virtue -- not the way the parts of gold are alike to one another and to the whole of which they are parts, but the way the parts of a face are unlike the whole of which they are parts, and unlike one another, each having its own particular power. If this is still how it seems to you, as it did then, say so; but if you now hold some other view, define it, since I will not hold you to anything, in case you now say something different -- for I would not be surprised if you were only testing me when you said that before.' 'But I tell you, Socrates,' he said, 'that all these are parts of virtue, and that four of them are fairly close to one another, but courage is very different from all the rest. You will know that I speak the truth this way: you will find many men who are extremely unjust, and impious, and intemperate, and ignorant, yet outstandingly courageous.' 'Hold on,' I said, 'it's worth examining what you're saying. Do you mean by the courageous those who are bold, or something else?' 'Yes,' he said, 'and ready to go where most people are afraid to go.' 'Well then, you say virtue is a fine thing, and it is as something fine that you offer yourself as its teacher?' 'The finest thing there is,' he said, 'unless I'm mad.' 'Then is part of it shameful and part fine,' I said, 'or is it fine as a whole?' 'Fine as a whole, as much as anything could be,' he said.
SOCRATES: Do you know who dives into wells without fear? — I do: divers. — Because they know how, or for some other reason? — Because they know how. — And who are bold about fighting from horseback — riders or people who can't ride? — Riders. — And who about fighting with a light shield — men trained with shields, or those without? — The trained ones. And in fact, if that's what you're after, all the rest follows the same way: those who know are bolder than those who don't, and are bolder than they themselves were before they learned. — But have you ever seen people with no knowledge of any of these things who were nonetheless bold in the face of them? — I have, he said, extremely bold. — Well then, are these bold people also brave? — That would make courage a shameful thing, he said, since these people are simply mad. — Then what do you mean by the brave? Aren't they the bold ones? — Yes, even now, he said. — Then aren't these people, bold as they are, clearly not brave but mad? And over there, the wisest are also the boldest, and being boldest, the bravest — and by this reasoning wisdom would be courage? — You're not remembering correctly, Socrates, what I said and answered. When you asked me whether the brave are bold, I agreed. But whether the bold are brave, you never asked me — if you had asked me then, I would have said, not all of them. And you haven't shown anywhere that my admission that the brave are bold was wrong. Next, you point out that those who know are bolder than they were themselves and bolder than others who don't know, and from this you think courage and wisdom are the same thing. Going about it that way, you might as well conclude that strength is wisdom. First, if you questioned me this way — whether the strong are capable — I would say yes; then, whether those who know how to wrestle are more capable than those who don't, both compared to others and to themselves before and after learning, I would say yes. And once I'd agreed to that, you could use the very same evidence to claim that, by my own admission, wisdom is strength.
SOCRATES: But I never anywhere, not even there, admitted that the capable are strong — only that the strong are capable. For being capable and being strong are not the same: the one, capability, can come from knowledge, but also from madness and passion, while strength comes from nature and the proper nourishment of the body. In the same way, boldness and courage are not the same either. So it follows that the brave are bold, but not all the bold are brave — since boldness can come to people from skill, but also from passion and from madness, just like capability, whereas courage comes from nature and the proper nourishment of the soul. Now, Protagoras, I said, you say some people live well and others badly? — He agreed. — Do you think a person would live well if he lived in distress and pain? — He said no. — And what if someone lived his life pleasantly and then died? Wouldn't you say he had lived well in that case? — I would, he said. — So living pleasantly is good, and living unpleasantly is bad. — Only, he said, if one takes pleasure in honorable things. — What do you mean, Protagoras? Surely you're not, like most people, calling certain pleasant things bad and certain painful things good? I mean this: aren't things good, insofar as they are pleasant, precisely on that account — apart from whatever else may come of them? And likewise, aren't painful things bad simply insofar as they are painful? — I don't know, Socrates, he said, whether I should answer as simply as you put it — that all pleasant things are good and all painful things bad. It seems safer to me, not only for my answer today but for my whole life, to say that some pleasant things are not good, and some painful things are not bad, while others are as you say, and there's a third class that is neither, neither bad nor good. — And by pleasant, I said, you mean things that share in pleasure or produce pleasure? — Exactly, he said. — Then this is what I'm asking: insofar as they are pleasant, are they not good — that is, is pleasure itself not good? — As you always put it, Socrates, he said, let's examine the matter itself, and if the inquiry seems reasonable and the same thing turns out to be both pleasant and good, we'll agree; if not, then we'll dispute it. — Well then, I said, do you want to lead the inquiry, or shall I? — You should lead, he said, since you're the one who started the argument.
SOCRATES: Might it become clear to us this way, I said — as if someone, examining a man for his health or for some other bodily function, having seen only his face and hands, said: come, uncover your chest and back too and show me, so I can look more closely — that's the sort of thing I want for our inquiry. Having seen how you stand regarding the good and the pleasant, as you say, I need you to reveal something further of your thinking: how do you stand regarding knowledge? Do you think about it the way most people do, or differently? Most people think something like this about knowledge — that it isn't strong, or fit to lead or rule; they don't even conceive of it as being that kind of thing at all. Instead, though knowledge is often present in a person, they think it's not knowledge that rules him but something else — sometimes passion, sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain, sometimes love, often fear — treating knowledge quite literally as if it were a slave, dragged around by all these other things. Is that how it seems to you too, or do you think knowledge is a fine thing, capable of ruling a person, so that if someone knows what's good and bad, nothing could overpower him into acting otherwise than knowledge commands, but that understanding is sufficient to come to a person's aid? — It does seem that way to me, Socrates, he said, just as you put it — and besides, if it would be shameful for anyone to deny that wisdom and knowledge are the strongest of human things, it would be especially shameful for me. — Well said, and truly said, I replied. But you know that most people don't believe you and me — they say that many who know the best course won't act on it, even though they could, but do something else instead; and whenever I've asked people what accounts for this, they say that those who act this way are overcome by pleasure or pain, or ruled by one of the things I just mentioned. — Yes, he said, Socrates, and I think people are wrong about a good many other things too.
SOCRATES: Come then, join me in trying to persuade people and teach them what this experience actually is that they call being overcome by pleasures, on account of which they fail to do what is best even though they know it. Perhaps, if we told them: you're not speaking correctly, friends, you're mistaken — they might ask us: Protagoras and Socrates, if this isn't being overcome by pleasure, then what is it, and what do you two say it is? Tell us. — Why must we consider the opinion of the many, Socrates, who say whatever comes into their heads? — I think, I said, this will help us discover something about courage, and how it relates to the other parts of virtue. So if you're willing to stick with what we just agreed, let me lead in the direction I think will make things clearest — follow me; but if you'd rather not, and it suits you, I'll let it go. — No, he said, you're right — carry on as you began. — Well then, I said, suppose they asked us again: what do you claim this thing is, then, that we called being weaker than pleasures? I would answer them like this: Listen — Protagoras and I will try to explain it to you. Isn't this what you mean, friends, when you say this happens to you: often, overpowered by food or drink or sex, pleasant as they are, you do these things even while knowing they're bad? — They would say yes. — Then wouldn't you and I ask them again: In what way do you say these things are bad? Because they give this pleasure right now, in the moment, and each of them is pleasant — or because later on they cause diseases and poverty and bring about many other such troubles? Or even if none of that followed later, and all they did was give pleasure, would they still be bad simply because they make one feel pleasure, in whatever way? Don't we suppose, Protagoras, they would answer anything other than that these things are bad not on account of the pleasure they produce in the moment, but because of what comes later — the diseases and the rest? — I think, said Protagoras, that most people would answer that way. — And doesn't causing disease cause pain, and doesn't causing poverty cause pain? They would agree, I think. — Protagoras agreed.
SOCRATES: So it appears, friends, as Protagoras and I would say, that these things are bad for no other reason than that they end in pain and deprive you of other pleasures. Would they agree? — We both thought so. — And then, in turn, if we asked them the opposite question: friends, you who say that painful things can be good — don't you mean things like this: physical training, and military campaigns, and medical treatments involving cauterizing and cutting and drugs and starvation diets — that these are good, yet painful? They would say yes. — Do you call these things good because in the moment they cause the most extreme pains and sufferings, or because afterward health results from them, and physical fitness, and the safety of cities, and power and wealth for others? They would say the latter, I think. — We both thought so. — And are these things good for any reason other than that they end in pleasures and in the relief and avoidance of pain? Or can you name some other end you have in view when you call them good, besides pleasures and pains? — I don't think they could, Protagoras said. — So then you pursue pleasure as a good, and avoid pain as an evil? — We both thought so. — So this, then, is what you consider bad — pain — and this, pleasure, good, since you even call the very experience of enjoying something bad, whenever it deprives you of greater pleasures than it contains, or brings about greater pains than the pleasures within it. For if you called enjoyment itself bad on some other ground, looking to some other end, you could tell us — but you won't be able to. — Nor do I think they could, said Protagoras. — Isn't the same true, in turn, of feeling pain? You call the experience of pain itself good whenever it removes greater pains than it contains, or brings about greater pleasures than the pains involve. For if you're looking to some other end when you call the experience of pain itself good, other than what I've described, you could tell us — but you won't be able to. — That's true, said Protagoras. — Well then, I said, if you asked me in turn, friends, why do you go on about this at such length and in so many ways — forgive me, I would say. First, it isn't easy to show what this thing is that you call being overcome by pleasures; and second, the whole argument depends on it.
SOCRATES: But you can still take it back, even now, if you have some other way of saying what the good is besides pleasure, or what the bad is besides pain. Or is it enough for you that a life be lived pleasantly, without pains? If that's enough, and you have nothing else to call good or bad that doesn't come down to this in the end, then hear what follows. I say that, given this, your account becomes absurd whenever you claim that a person, knowing that certain things are bad, does them anyway, when he need not, because he's driven and overwhelmed by pleasures; and then again you say that a person, knowing the good things, isn't willing to do them because of the immediate pleasures, being overpowered by them. How absurd this is will become obvious if we stop using so many names at once—pleasant and painful, good and bad—and, since these turned out to be really two things, call them by two names only: first good and bad, and then, separately, pleasant and painful. Having settled that, let's say: a person, knowing that bad things are bad, does them anyway. If someone then asks us why, we'll say: because he's overcome. Overcome by what, he'll ask us in turn. We can no longer say 'by pleasure'—since good has taken over the name that pleasure used to have. So we answer him and say: overcome. By what, he'll say. By the good, we'll say, by Zeus. Now if the one questioning us happens to be a rude sort, he'll laugh and say: what an absurd thing you're saying, if someone does bad things, knowing they're bad, when he needn't do them, because he's overcome by good things! Is it, he'll ask, because the good things in you aren't worth beating the bad ones, or because they are worth it? We'll obviously answer that they aren't worth it—otherwise the man we say is weaker than his pleasures wouldn't have gone wrong. And in what respect, he'll perhaps ask, are the good things not worth as much as the bad, or the bad not worth as much as the good? Is it anything other than this: that one set is bigger and the other smaller, or one more numerous and the other less? We won't be able to say anything else. So clearly, he'll say, what you mean by 'being overcome' is taking greater bad things in exchange for lesser good ones. So much for that.
SOCRATES: Let's take the names back again—pleasant and painful applied to these same things—and say: a person does what we before called the bad things, but now let's call them the painful things, knowing they're painful, overcome by the pleasant things, which clearly aren't worth prevailing. And what other lack of worth could pleasure have against pain, except an excess or a deficiency relative to each other? These come down to being bigger and smaller than each other, more and less, greater and lesser. For if someone says: but Socrates, the pleasure right now is very different from the pleasant or painful that comes later in time—I would say, different in what other respect than pleasure and pain? There's nothing else it could be. Rather, like a good man weighing things, put the pleasant things together, and the painful things together, and set the near and the far on the scale, and tell me which are more. If you weigh pleasant things against pleasant things, always take the bigger and more numerous; if painful against painful, take the fewer and smaller. If you weigh pleasant against painful, and the painful is exceeded by the pleasant—whether the near by the far or the far by the near—then that's the action to perform; but if the pleasant is exceeded by the painful, it's not to be performed. Isn't that how it is, my friends, I would say—could things be otherwise? I know they couldn't say anything else. And Protagoras agreed too. Since this is so, I'll say, answer me this: do the same sizes appear to your eyes bigger from up close and smaller from far away, or not? They'll say yes. And the same for thickness and number? And do equal sounds seem louder up close and fainter from far off? They'd agree. Now if our doing well in life depended on this—on taking and doing the things of great length and size, and avoiding and not doing the small ones—what would we find as our life's salvation? Would it be the art of measurement, or the power of appearance? Wouldn't the latter make us wander and flip back and forth, often changing our minds about the same things and regretting our actions and choices among the large and small, while measurement would strip that appearance of its power, and by revealing the truth would let the soul rest quietly on what's true, and so save our life? Would people agree, faced with this, that it's the art of measurement that would save us, or some other art? They agreed: the art of measurement.
SOCRATES: And what if our life's salvation lay in the choice between odd and even—knowing correctly when to choose the greater and when the lesser, whether comparing a quantity to itself or one to another, whether near or far? What would save our life then? Wouldn't it be knowledge? And wouldn't it be some kind of measurement, since the art concerns excess and deficiency? And since it concerns odd and even, would it be anything other than arithmetic? Would people agree with us, or not? They seemed to think Protagoras would agree too. Very well, my friends: since it turned out that our life's salvation lies in the correct choice between pleasure and pain—the more and the less, the greater and the smaller, the farther and the nearer—doesn't this appear, first of all, to be a matter of measurement, since it's an examination of excess, deficiency, and equality relative to one another? Necessarily so. And since it's measurement, it must surely be some art and some knowledge. They'll agree to that. What sort of art and knowledge this is, we'll examine another time; but that it is knowledge is enough for the proof that I and Protagoras need to give concerning the question you asked us. You asked—if you remember—back when we were agreeing with one another that nothing is stronger than knowledge, and that knowledge always rules wherever it's present, over pleasure and everything else; but you said that pleasure often rules even the person who knows. Since we didn't agree with you, you then asked us: Protagoras, and you, Socrates, if this experience isn't being overcome by pleasure, then what is it, and what do you claim it is? Tell us. Now if we had told you right then that it was ignorance, you would have laughed at us; but as it is, if you laugh at us, you'll be laughing at yourselves. For you yourselves have agreed that people who go wrong in choosing pleasures and pains—which are, after all, the good and the bad—do so from a lack of knowledge, and not just knowledge in general, but, as you agreed earlier still, a lack of the art of measurement. And an action gone wrong without knowledge, you yourselves know, is done out of ignorance. So this is what being overcome by pleasure amounts to: the greatest ignorance, which Protagoras here claims to cure, and Prodicus, and Hippias. But you, because you think it's something other than ignorance, don't send yourselves or your children to these sophists, their teachers, as though it weren't teachable—instead, hoarding your money and not paying them, you do badly, both privately and publicly.
SOCRATES: That would be our answer to the crowd. But you, Hippias and Prodicus, along with Protagoras, I ask—let the argument be shared among you—whether you think I'm speaking the truth or lying. It seemed to all of them, remarkably, that what had been said was true. So you agree, I said, that the pleasant is good and the painful is bad. As for Prodicus's distinctions between names, I'll set those aside—whether you call it pleasant or delightful or joyous, or however and wherever you like to name such things, my excellent Prodicus, just answer me with respect to what I'm asking. Prodicus laughed and agreed, and so did the others. Well then, gentlemen, I said, what about this: aren't all the actions aimed at living painlessly and pleasantly fine and beneficial? And isn't a fine deed both good and beneficial? They agreed. So if the pleasant is good, I said, then no one who knows or believes that other things available to him are better than what he's doing, and possible to do, goes on to do the worse instead, when the better is available. And being weaker than oneself is nothing other than ignorance, just as being stronger than oneself is nothing other than wisdom. They all agreed. Well then—do you call this ignorance: holding a false belief and being deceived about matters of great importance? They all agreed to that too. So then, I said, no one willingly goes toward bad things, or toward what he believes to be bad; it isn't, it seems, in human nature to want to go toward what one believes to be bad instead of toward the good. And when forced to choose between two bad things, no one will choose the greater when the lesser is available. All of us agreed to all of this. Well then, I said—do you have some word for dread and fear? And is it what I mean by it (I say this to you, Prodicus)? I mean by it some expectation of something bad, whether you call it fear or dread. Protagoras and Hippias thought this was dread and fear; Prodicus thought it was dread, but not fear. It makes no difference, Prodicus, I said—here's the point: if what's been said so far is true, will anyone be willing to go toward the things he dreads, when he could go toward other things instead? Or is that impossible, given what we've agreed? For it has been agreed that what a person dreads, he believes to be bad; and what he believes to be bad, no one willingly goes toward or takes up. They all agreed to this as well.
SOCRATES: Given these things settled, I said, Prodicus and Hippias, let Protagoras here defend how his first answer was correct—not his very first answer of all: back then, with virtue having five parts, he said none of them was like any other, each having its own distinct power. That's not what I mean, but what he said afterward. For afterward he said that four of them were fairly close to one another, but one differed greatly from the rest—courage—and he said I'd recognize this by the following mark: you'll find, Socrates, he said, people who are utterly unholy, unjust, undisciplined, and ignorant, and yet extremely courageous; from this you'll see that courage differs greatly from the other parts of virtue. And I was quite amazed by this answer right from the start, and even more so once we'd gone through it together with you. So I asked him whether he meant that the courageous are bold. And he said: yes, and impetuous too. Do you remember, Protagoras, I said, giving that answer? He admitted he did. Come then, I said, tell us—toward what do you say the courageous are impetuous? Toward the same things the cowardly go toward? He said no. Toward other things, then. Yes, he said. Do the cowardly go toward what's reassuring, while the courageous go toward what's terrible? That's what people say, Socrates. That's true, I said, what you're saying—but that's not what I'm asking. I'm asking what you say the courageous are impetuous toward. Is it toward the things they believe to be terrible, or toward the things that aren't? But that, he said, has just been shown impossible in the argument you were making. That's also true, I said—so if that was shown correctly, then no one goes toward what he believes to be terrible, since being weaker than oneself was found to be ignorance. He agreed. But surely everyone alike goes toward what they're confident about—both cowards and the courageous—and in that respect the cowardly and the courageous go toward the same things. But still, Socrates, he said, it's exactly the opposite of what the cowardly and the courageous go toward. Take war, for instance: some are willing to go, others aren't. And is going to war, I said, a fine thing or a shameful one? Fine, he said. And if it's fine, then we already agreed earlier that it's good too—for we agreed that all fine actions are good. That's true, and it always seems so to me.
SOCRATES: Quite right, I said. But which people do you say are unwilling to go to war, when war is a fine and good thing? — The cowards, he said. — Then, I said, if it's fine and good, it's also pleasant? — That much has been agreed, he said. — So do the cowards, knowing this, refuse to go toward what is finer, better, and more pleasant? — But if we agree to that too, he said, we'll be wrecking our earlier agreements. — And what about the courageous man? Doesn't he go toward what is finer, better, and more pleasant? — He has to agree to that, he said. — So on the whole the courageous don't feel shameful fears when they feel fear, nor take shameful confidence when they're confident? — True, he said. — And if not shameful, then fine? — He agreed. — And if fine, then also good? — Yes. — So the cowardly, the rash, and the mad, on the other hand, feel shameful fears and take shameful confidence? — He agreed. — And do they take confidence in shameful, bad things for any reason other than ignorance and lack of understanding? — That's how it is, he said. — Well then, this thing that makes cowards cowardly — do you call it cowardice or courage? — Cowardice, for my part, he said. — And weren't they shown to be cowardly on account of their ignorance of what is to be feared? — Quite so, he said. — So it's because of this ignorance that they're cowardly? — He agreed. — And you agree that whatever makes them cowardly is cowardice? — He assented. — So ignorance of what is to be feared and what is not would be cowardice? — He nodded. — But surely, I said, courage is the opposite of cowardice. — He agreed. — So wisdom about what is to be feared and what is not is the opposite of ignorance about these things? — Here too he still nodded. — And ignorance of these things is cowardice? — Here he nodded only very reluctantly. — Then wisdom about what is to be feared and what is not is courage, being the opposite of ignorance about these things? — At this point he was no longer willing even to nod, and fell silent. — And I said: Why is it, Protagoras, that you neither affirm nor deny what I'm asking? — Finish it yourself, he said. — Just one thing more, I said, let me ask you — whether it still seems to you, as it did at first, that there are some people who are most ignorant and yet most courageous. — You seem to me, Socrates, he said, to be bent on making me the one who answers. Well, I'll indulge you, and I say that on the basis of what we've agreed, it seems to me impossible. — I'm not asking all this, I said, for any reason but to examine how things stand regarding virtue, and what virtue itself actually is.
SOCRATES: I know that once that's made clear, it would above all bring to light that other matter, about which you and I each delivered a long speech — I arguing that virtue isn't teachable, you that it is. And it seems to me that our recent exit from the argument, like some person, is accusing us and laughing at us, and if it took on a voice it would say: You two are strange, Socrates and Protagoras. You, saying earlier that virtue isn't teachable, are now straining to argue the opposite of yourself, trying to show that everything is knowledge — justice, self-control, and courage too — which is exactly the way virtue would most appear to be teachable. For if virtue were something other than knowledge, as Protagoras tried to argue, it clearly wouldn't be teachable; but as it is, if it turns out to be entirely knowledge, as you are straining to show, Socrates, it would be strange if it weren't teachable. Protagoras, on the other hand, having assumed at the start that it's teachable, now seems to be straining toward the opposite, that it would turn out to be almost anything rather than knowledge — and so it would least of all be teachable. So I, Protagoras, seeing all this thrown into terrible confusion, top to bottom, am thoroughly eager to see it made clear, and I would like us to go through all this and arrive at what virtue is, and then examine again whether it is teachable or not — in case that Epimetheus of yours trips us up and deceives us yet again in our inquiry, just as he neglected us in the distribution, by your own account. I liked Prometheus better than Epimetheus in the story too — following his example, and taking forethought on behalf of my whole life, I busy myself with all this. And if you're willing, as I said at the start, I'd be very glad to examine these things together with you. And Protagoras said: For my part, Socrates, I praise your eagerness and the way you've conducted the argument. I don't think I'm a bad man in other respects, and I'm the least envious of men — indeed I've told many people about you, that of everyone I meet I admire you by far the most, among men of your age especially, and I say I wouldn't be surprised if you became one of the men renowned for wisdom. As for these matters, we'll go through them another time, whenever you like — but for now it's time to turn to something else.
SOCRATES: Well, I said, that's what we should do, if it seems best to you. I too have long been due to go where I said I was going — but I stayed to do a favor for the handsome Callias. Having said this and heard this, we went our ways.
EUCLIDES: Just in from the country, Terpsion, or have you been back a while? TERPSION: A fair while. And I was looking for you in the marketplace, wondering why I couldn't find you. EUCLIDES: Because I wasn't in the city. TERPSION: Where, then? EUCLIDES: On my way down to the harbor I ran into Theaetetus being carried from Corinth, from the army camp, on his way to Athens. TERPSION: Alive or dead? EUCLIDES: Alive—but only just. He's in a bad way from some wounds, but what's really taking hold of him is the sickness that broke out in the army. TERPSION: Not the dysentery? EUCLIDES: Yes. TERPSION: What a man to have in danger. EUCLIDES: A fine and noble one, Terpsion. Just now, in fact, I was hearing people praising him warmly for his conduct in the battle. TERPSION: Nothing strange in that—it would be far more astonishing if he weren't that kind of man. But why didn't he stop here in Megara? EUCLIDES: He was in a hurry to get home. I begged him, I urged him, but he wouldn't hear of it. So I saw him on his way, and walking back I found myself remembering Socrates and marveling at how prophetic he was—about this man, among so much else. I believe it was shortly before his death that he met Theaetetus, then just a boy, and after spending time with him and talking with him, he was deeply impressed by his nature. When I went to Athens, he recounted to me the conversations he'd had with him—well worth hearing—and said the boy was absolutely bound to become someone of note, if he lived to grow up. TERPSION: And he spoke the truth, it seems. But what were those conversations? Could you recount them?
EUCLIDES: No, by Zeus—not from memory, not off the top of my head. But I made notes right away, as soon as I got home, and later, at my leisure, I wrote it out as I recalled it; and every time I went to Athens I would ask Socrates again about whatever I hadn't remembered, and correct it when I got back here. So by now I have practically the whole conversation written down. TERPSION: True—I've heard you say so before, and I've always meant to ask you to show it to me, but I've dawdled until now. Well, what's stopping us from going through it right away? I certainly need a rest anyhow, after coming in from the country. EUCLIDES: For that matter, I walked Theaetetus as far as Erineum myself, so I wouldn't mind a rest either. Let's go, and while we rest, the boy will read to us. TERPSION: Good idea. EUCLIDES: Here's the book, Terpsion. Now, I wrote the conversation out this way: not with Socrates narrating it to me, as he actually told it, but as if he were talking directly with the people he said he'd talked with—he said it was with Theodorus the geometer and with Theaetetus. So that the narrative bits in between wouldn't clutter the written version—the 'and I said' or 'and I remarked' whenever Socrates was speaking, or, about the person answering, that 'he agreed' or 'he wouldn't grant it'—I cut all that out and wrote it as if he were conversing with them himself. TERPSION: Nothing wrong with that, Euclides. EUCLIDES: Well then, boy, take the book and read. SOCRATES: If I cared more about the people of Cyrene, Theodorus, I'd be asking you about things there and about them—whether any of the young men over there are devoting themselves to geometry or any other branch of philosophy. But as it is, I love them less than I love these people here, and I'm more eager to know which of our own young men show promise of turning out well. That's what I keep an eye on myself, as far as I can, and I ask the others too—anyone I see the young men choosing to spend time with. And no small number of them gather around you, and rightly so: you deserve it, for geometry and for much else. So if you've come across anyone worth mentioning, I'd be glad to hear it.
THEODORUS: Well, Socrates, it's certainly worth my telling and your hearing what a boy I've come across among your citizens. If he were beautiful, I'd be very afraid to say so, in case someone thought I was in love with him. But as it is—and don't be annoyed with me—he is not beautiful: he resembles you, with the snub nose and the bulging eyes, though he has them less than you do. So I can speak without fear. I tell you, of all the boys I've ever met—and I've been around a great many—I've never yet noticed one so astonishingly gifted by nature. To be quick to learn, as few others are, and yet exceptionally gentle, and on top of that brave beyond anyone—I wouldn't have thought that combination could exist, and I don't see it occurring. The sharp ones like him, the quick-witted, the ones with good memories, are mostly also quick to flare up; they go darting about like ships without ballast, and grow up more manic than manly, while the steadier sort come to their studies sluggish somehow, loaded down with forgetfulness. But this one moves toward his lessons and inquiries so smoothly, so surely, so effectively, and with such perfect gentleness—like a stream of oil flowing without a sound—that it's a wonder someone his age gets these things done that way. SOCRATES: Good news. And whose son is he, of our citizens? THEODORUS: I've heard the name, but I don't remember it. But he's the middle one of these boys coming toward us. He and some companions of his were just oiling themselves in the outer track, and now that they're done, I think they're coming this way. See if you know him. SOCRATES: I know him. He's the son of Euphronius of Sunium—very much, my friend, the sort of man you describe this boy to be, and well thought of generally; what's more, he left a very large fortune. But I don't know the boy's name. THEODORUS: Theaetetus, Socrates—that's his name. As for the fortune, I believe some trustees have run through it. Yet even so, he's astonishingly generous with money, Socrates. SOCRATES: A noble fellow, by your account. Ask him to come and sit here with us. THEODORUS: I will. Theaetetus—over here, next to Socrates. SOCRATES: Yes, do, Theaetetus, so I can examine my own face and see what it looks like—Theodorus says it resembles yours. Now, suppose each of us had a lyre and he said they were tuned alike: would we take his word for it right away, or would we look into whether he was a musician when he said it? THEAETETUS: We'd look into it. SOCRATES: And if we found he was, we'd believe him; if he had no music in him, we wouldn't? THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: But now, I take it, if we care at all about this likeness of faces, we need to consider whether he speaks as one with a painter's eye or not. THEAETETUS: I think so. SOCRATES: Well, is Theodorus a painter? THEAETETUS: Not as far as I know. SOCRATES: Nor a geometer either? THEAETETUS: Of course he is, Socrates. SOCRATES: And an astronomer, and a calculator, and a musician—everything that belongs to education? THEAETETUS: I'd say so. SOCRATES: Then if he says we're alike in some feature of our bodies, whether in praise or blame, it's hardly worth paying him much attention. THEAETETUS: Perhaps not. SOCRATES: But what if he praised the soul of one of us for virtue and wisdom? Wouldn't the one who hears the praise be right to be eager to examine the one praised, and the other be right to show himself off willingly? THEAETETUS: Certainly, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then it's time, my dear Theaetetus, for you to show yourself and for me to examine. Because I assure you, Theodorus has praised many people to me, foreigners and citizens both, and he's never yet praised anyone the way he praised you just now. THEAETETUS: That would be fine, Socrates—but watch out he wasn't joking. SOCRATES: That's not Theodorus's way. Don't back out of what we've agreed on the pretext that he was joking, or he may be forced to testify—no one is going to charge him with perjury, after all. So take heart and stand by the agreement. THEAETETUS: Well, I must, if that's what you think. SOCRATES: Tell me, then: you're learning some geometry from Theodorus? THEAETETUS: I am. SOCRATES: And astronomy too, and harmonics and calculation? THEAETETUS: I'm doing my best, anyway. SOCRATES: So am I, my boy—from him and from anyone else I think knows something about these things. Still, though I manage well enough with them in general, there's one small point I'm stuck on, which I need to examine with you and these others. Tell me: isn't learning becoming wiser about the thing one is learning? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And it's by wisdom, I take it, that the wise are wise. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And does that differ at all from knowledge? THEAETETUS: Does what differ? SOCRATES: Wisdom. Aren't people wise about exactly the things they have knowledge of? THEAETETUS: Well, yes. SOCRATES: So knowledge and wisdom are the same thing? THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, that's exactly what I'm stuck on and can't adequately grasp on my own: knowledge—what in the world is it? So can we say what it is? What do you all say? Which of us will speak first? Whoever misses—and whoever keeps missing—shall 'sit down and be donkey,' as the children say in their ball game; and whoever comes through without a miss shall be our king and command us to answer whatever he pleases. Why the silence? Theodorus, I hope my love of argument isn't making me rude, in my eagerness to get us talking and make us friendly and conversable with one another? THEODORUS: Not at all, Socrates—nothing rude in that. But do tell one of the boys to answer you. I'm unused to this kind of discussion, and I'm past the age for getting used to it. It would suit these boys, though, and they'd improve much more by it; youth truly has room to grow in everything. So don't let Theaetetus off—keep questioning him, as you began. SOCRATES: You hear what Theodorus says, Theaetetus. You won't want to disobey him, I imagine—and it wouldn't be right for a younger man to disobey a wise man's instructions in matters like this. So speak up, well and nobly: what do you think knowledge is? THEAETETUS: Well, I must, Socrates, since you both insist. And in any case, if I do slip somewhere, you'll set me straight. SOCRATES: Certainly—if we're able. THEAETETUS: Then I think that the things one could learn from Theodorus are knowledges—geometry and the ones you went through just now—and then again shoemaking and the crafts of the other artisans: all of them, and each of them, are nothing other than knowledge. SOCRATES: Nobly and open-handedly done, my friend! Asked for one thing, you give many—a rich variety instead of something simple. THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: Perhaps nothing—but I'll tell you what I think. When you say 'shoemaking,' you mean nothing other than knowledge of the making of shoes? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: And when you say 'carpentry'? Anything other than knowledge of the making of wooden furnishings? THEAETETUS: No, only that. SOCRATES: So in both cases, you're specifying what each knowledge is of? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But that wasn't what was asked, Theaetetus—what knowledge is of, or how many knowledges there are. We didn't ask because we wanted to count them, but to grasp knowledge itself: what in the world it is. Or am I talking nonsense? THEAETETUS: No, you're exactly right.
SOCRATES: Now consider this too. Suppose someone asked us a plain, ordinary question -- say, about clay, what it is -- and we answered him: there's the clay potters use, and the clay used for oven-makers, and the clay used by brickmakers. Wouldn't that be ridiculous? THEAETETUS: Maybe. SOCRATES: For one thing, we'd be assuming the questioner understands, just from our answer, what "clay" means, whether we add "the kind doll-makers use" or any other craftsman's kind. Or do you think anyone understands the name of a thing when he doesn't know what the thing itself is? THEAETETUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: So someone who doesn't know what knowledge is doesn't understand "knowledge of shoemaking" either. THEAETETUS: No, he doesn't. SOCRATES: So anyone who doesn't grasp knowledge doesn't grasp shoemaking, or any other craft. THEAETETUS: That's right. SOCRATES: So it's a ridiculous answer, when someone is asked what knowledge is, to answer with the name of some craft -- since he's naming knowledge of some particular thing, when that wasn't the question. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And besides, when he could have given a plain, short answer, he wanders off down an endless road. Take the question about clay -- it would have been plain and simple to say that clay is earth mixed with liquid, and let go of whose clay it is. THEAETETUS: Put that way, Socrates, it does look easy. But I think you're asking the same kind of question that came up recently between me and my friend here, this other Socrates, when we were talking. SOCRATES: What sort of question, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Theodorus here was working something out for us about powers -- showing, for the square of three feet and the square of five feet, that they aren't commensurable in length with the one-foot square, and going through them one by one up to the square of seventeen feet, where for some reason he got stuck. Since the powers seemed endless in number, it occurred to us to try to gather them into one thing, some single name to call all these powers by. SOCRATES: And did you find something like that? THEAETETUS: I think we did -- see what you make of it yourself. SOCRATES: Go on. THEAETETUS: We split all number into two kinds. The kind that can come out as an equal number multiplied by itself we likened in shape to a square, and called it square, or equal-sided. SOCRATES: Very good so far.
THEAETETUS: Now the number in between -- the kind that includes three and five and every number that can't come out as an equal multiplied by itself, but only comes out as a smaller number taken more times or a larger number taken fewer times, so that it's always bounded by a larger side and a smaller side -- that kind we likened to an oblong shape, and called it oblong number. SOCRATES: Excellent. So what came next? THEAETETUS: All the lines that square off the equal-sided plane number, we marked off as length; and those that square off the oblong number, we called powers, since they aren't commensurable in length with the others, but only in the plane areas they can produce. And there's another such distinction for solids. SOCRATES: Best of anyone, my boys! It seems to me Theodorus won't be liable for false testimony after all. THEAETETUS: And yet, Socrates, what you're asking about knowledge I couldn't answer the way I answered about length and power -- though you seem to me to be after just that sort of thing. So once again Theodorus turns out to have spoken falsely. SOCRATES: Well now -- if he'd praised you for running and said he'd never met a young man so fast, and then you raced the fastest man in his prime and lost, do you think his praise would have been any less true? THEAETETUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: And knowledge -- do you think it's some small thing to track down, as I was just saying, and not a task for the very best? THEAETETUS: By Zeus, I do think it's a task for the very best, the very hardest. SOCRATES: Then take heart about yourself, and believe Theodorus, and be eager, every way you can, to get hold of an account of knowledge, along with everything else, of what it actually is. THEAETETUS: As far as eagerness goes, Socrates, it will show itself. SOCRATES: Come then -- you set us off well just now -- try, imitating the answer about powers, the way you gathered those, many as they are, under one form: try in the same way to address the many kinds of knowledge with one account. THEAETETUS: But I assure you, Socrates, I've tried many times to work this out myself, hearing the questions reported from you. But I can't persuade myself that I've said anything adequate, nor have I heard anyone else say it the way you keep urging -- and yet I can't shake off caring about it either. SOCRATES: That's because you're in labor, dear Theaetetus -- you're not empty, you're pregnant. THEAETETUS: I don't know about that, Socrates. I'm just telling you what I feel.
SOCRATES: Then, you absurd boy, haven't you heard that I'm the son of a midwife, a fine, sturdy woman named Phaenarete? THEAETETUS: I have heard that. SOCRATES: And have you heard that I practice the same trade? THEAETETUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: Well, know that I do -- only don't give me away to the others. It's a secret, my friend, that I have this skill. People, not knowing it, don't say this about me, but they do say I'm the strangest of men and that I get people stuck. Have you heard that too? THEAETETUS: I have. SOCRATES: Shall I tell you the reason? THEAETETUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Think through the whole business of midwives, and you'll grasp what I'm after more easily. You know, I suppose, that none of them still attends other women in labor while she herself is capable of conceiving and bearing -- only those who are already past childbearing do the delivering. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And the reason for that, they say, is Artemis -- since she was allotted care of childbirth though she herself never bears children. She didn't grant midwifery to the barren, since human nature is too weak to master a skill in something it has no experience of; but to those who, through age, no longer bear, she assigned it, honoring their likeness to herself. THEAETETUS: That's likely. SOCRATES: And isn't this too likely, even necessary -- that midwives are better than anyone else at recognizing who is pregnant and who isn't? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And more than that -- by giving drugs and chanting charms, midwives can stir up labor pains, and, if they choose, make them gentler; they can bring on birth for women having a hard time of it; and if it seems best to cause a miscarriage while it's still early, they do that too. THEAETETUS: That's true. SOCRATES: Have you noticed this about them as well -- that they're also the cleverest matchmakers, since they're thoroughly wise about knowing which woman ought to be paired with which man so as to produce the best children? THEAETETUS: I didn't know that at all. SOCRATES: Well, know that they take more pride in that than in cutting the cord. Think about it -- do you suppose it belongs to one craft or a different one, to tend and gather the crops of the earth, and also to know which soil suits which plant and seed? THEAETETUS: No -- the same craft. SOCRATES: And for a woman, my friend, do you think it's one craft for that and a different one for the gathering? THEAETETUS: That doesn't seem likely.
SOCRATES: No, it isn't. But because of the unjust, unskilled way of bringing a man and woman together -- which goes by the name of pimping -- midwives avoid matchmaking too, being women of honor, afraid of falling under that same charge on that account; since it's really only the true midwives who are fit to match couples correctly. THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: That, then, is the extent of what midwives do -- and it's less than what I do. For it isn't the case with women that they sometimes bear phantoms and sometimes real children, with the difference hard to tell; if it were, distinguishing the true from the false would be the greatest and finest work of midwives -- don't you think? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: Well, my art of midwifery has everything theirs has, but differs in that I attend men, not women, and I watch over souls in labor, not bodies. And the greatest thing about my art is this: it's able to test in every way whether the young mind is bringing forth a phantom, something false, or something fertile and true. For this too belongs to me, just as it does to midwives: I myself am barren of wisdom. And the charge many have already brought against me -- that I question others but never state my own views about anything, because I have nothing wise in me -- that charge is true. The reason for it is this: the god compels me to serve as midwife, but has forbidden me to give birth. So I myself am not at all wise, nor do I have any discovery of my own to show, born of my own soul. But those who keep my company -- some seem quite stupid at first, yet as our association goes on, all of them, those the god allows, make progress that's astonishing, both to themselves and to others. And it's plain that this happens though they never learn anything from me -- they discover many fine things themselves, out of themselves, and simply bring them to birth. But the delivery is the work of the god and of me. Here's how you can see it: many, not understanding this, have taken the credit to themselves and thought little of me, and, either on their own or persuaded by others, have left me too soon. And once gone, they've miscarried the rest through bad company, and lost what I helped bring to birth by raising it badly, valuing lies and phantoms above the truth, until in the end they seemed, to themselves and everyone else, to be fools.
SOCRATES: Aristides, son of Lysimachus, was one of these, and a great many others besides. When they come back begging for my company again, doing extraordinary things to get it, sometimes the sign that comes to me forbids me to spend time with them, sometimes it allows it, and then they make progress again. Now, those who keep company with me suffer this same thing that women in labor do: they're in pain and filled with confusion, night and day, far more than women are -- and it's my art that can rouse this pain or put it to rest. So much for those. But there are others, Theaetetus, who don't seem to me to be pregnant at all in any way; and once I see they have no need of me, I very kindly play matchmaker for them, and, if I may say so with the god's blessing, I'm quite good at guessing whose company would do them good. Many of these I've given over to Prodicus, and many to other wise and inspired men. I've gone on at such length, my excellent friend, for this reason: I suspect that you, as you think yourself, are in labor with something inside you. So come to me as to the son of a midwife, one who is himself skilled in midwifery, and do your best to answer whatever I ask in whatever way you can. And if, as I examine what you say, I judge it to be a phantom and not true, and quietly take it from you and throw it away, don't get angry the way first-time mothers do over their children. Many, my friend, have gotten so worked up at me that they're truly ready to bite, whenever I remove some piece of nonsense from them -- they don't think I'm doing it out of good will, being far from knowing that no god means humans harm, and that I do nothing of the sort out of ill will either; it's simply not permitted for me to let a falsehood stand and hide the truth away. So once more from the beginning, Theaetetus -- try to say what knowledge is. And never say you can't. For if the god is willing, and you play the man, you will be able. THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, with you urging me on like that, it would be shameful not to do everything I can to say what I have to say. It seems to me that someone who knows something perceives the thing he knows, and as it appears to me right now, knowledge is nothing other than perception. SOCRATES: Well said, and bravely, my boy -- that's how one ought to speak, stating one's view plainly. But come, let's examine it together, and see whether it's something fertile, or just wind. Knowledge, you say, is perception? THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: You seem, though, to have stated no small account of knowledge — indeed the very one Protagoras used to give. He put it a different way, but it comes to the same thing. He says, somewhere, that man is the measure of all things — of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not. You've read that, surely? THEAETETUS: I've read it, many times. SOCRATES: Then he means something like this: as each thing appears to me, so it is for me, and as it appears to you, so it is for you — and you and I are both 'man.' THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what he says. SOCRATES: It stands to reason a wise man wouldn't talk nonsense. So let's follow him. Isn't it true that sometimes, when the same wind blows, one of us feels cold and the other doesn't — one a little, the other a lot? THEAETETUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Then are we going to say the wind itself, in itself, is cold or not cold? Or will we go along with Protagoras — that it's cold for the one who feels cold, and not for the one who doesn't? THEAETETUS: It looks that way. SOCRATES: And it appears that way to each of them too? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And 'appearing' is 'perceiving'? THEAETETUS: It is. SOCRATES: So appearance and perception are the same thing in matters of heat and everything of that kind. Whatever each person perceives, that is — apparently — how things are for him. THEAETETUS: It looks that way. SOCRATES: So perception is always of what is, and, being knowledge, it can't be false. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then, by the Graces, was Protagoras some kind of all-round genius, who tossed this out to the common rabble like us as a riddle, while telling his students the truth in secret? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you — and it's no small account either. It's this: that nothing is, in itself, just one thing — you couldn't even correctly call anything by any particular name at all — but if you call something big, it will turn out to look small too, and if heavy, light, and so on for everything, on the ground that nothing is one thing, or of any particular sort, or any quantity at all. It's out of motion and change and mixture with one another that all the things we say 'are' come to be — and we're wrong to call them that, since nothing ever simply is; everything is always coming to be. And on this point all the wise men, in a row, agree — except Parmenides — Protagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and, among the poets, the top men of each genre: Epicharmus in comedy, Homer in tragedy. Homer, who spoke of 'Ocean, the begetter of gods, and Tethys their mother,' meant that all things are the offspring of flux and motion. Or don't you think that's what he's saying? THEAETETUS: I do.
SOCRATES: Who, then, could stand up against so vast an army with Homer as its general, and not end up looking ridiculous? THEAETETUS: It wouldn't be easy, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, it wouldn't, Theaetetus. And here's more evidence for the theory: what seems to be, and coming-to-be, are produced by motion, while not-being and perishing come from rest. Heat itself — fire, which generates and governs everything else — is itself generated by friction and motion; and those are both kinds of motion. Aren't these the ways fire comes to be? THEAETETUS: Yes, they are. SOCRATES: And the whole race of living things grows out of these same processes. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And again — doesn't the condition of our bodies waste away under rest and idleness, but get preserved, largely, by exercise and movement? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the condition of the soul — doesn't it acquire learning and improve and stay sound through study and practice, which are both motions, while under rest — meaning lack of practice and lack of learning — it learns nothing, and forgets whatever it did learn? THEAETETUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: So motion is the good, for soul and body alike, and rest is the opposite? THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Shall I go on — windless calms, stillness of the sea, and all such things — how stillness rots things and destroys them, while the opposite preserves them? And to cap it all, I'll force in — I'll drag in — the golden chain, which Homer means nothing other than the sun: showing that as long as the heavenly revolution and the sun keep moving, everything among gods and men exists and is preserved, but if that came to a stop, as if bound fast, everything would be destroyed, and it would all become — as the saying goes — turned upside down. THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, it does seem to me that this is what he's showing. SOCRATES: Then take it this way, my excellent friend. Start with the eyes. What you call the color white — don't think of it as some separate thing existing outside your eyes, or even inside your eyes; don't assign it any place at all. If you did, it would already have a fixed position, would stay put, and wouldn't be in a process of coming-to-be. THEAETETUS: Then how should I think of it?
SOCRATES: Let's follow the argument we just gave, and posit that nothing is, in itself, a single, self-standing thing. On this view, black and white and any other color will appear to have come into being out of the collision of the eye with the appropriate motion, and what we call 'the color' in each case will be neither the agent doing the striking nor the thing struck, but something in between, particular to each occasion. Or would you insist that whatever color appears to you, the same appears to a dog, or to any other creature? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, I wouldn't. SOCRATES: Well then — does anything appear the same to another person as it does to you? Are you confident of that — or far more confident that it isn't even the same to you yourself, since you're never in the same state as yourself from one moment to the next? THEAETETUS: That seems more likely to me than the other. SOCRATES: Well then — if the thing we measure against, or touch, were itself big, or white, or hot, it could never become something different by coming into contact with something else, without itself changing. And conversely, if the thing doing the measuring or touching were itself any of these fixed things, then it too couldn't become something different just because something else approached it or was affected, without itself being affected. As it stands, my friend, we're being forced, rather too easily, into saying all sorts of strange and ridiculous things — the very things Protagoras, and anyone arguing his position, would say. THEAETETUS: How so? What sort of things do you mean? SOCRATES: Take a small example and you'll see everything I mean. Say there are six knucklebones: if you set four beside them, we say they are more than the four — half again as many — but if you set twelve beside them, we say they are fewer — half as many. And no other way of speaking is tolerable. Or would you tolerate it? THEAETETUS: I would not. SOCRATES: Well then — if Protagoras, or anyone else, asked you: Theaetetus, can anything become bigger or more, in any way other than by being increased? What would you answer? THEAETETUS: If I answer according to what seems true given this question, Socrates, I'd say no, it can't. But if I answer with the earlier question in mind, being careful not to contradict myself, I'd say yes, it can. SOCRATES: Well said, by Hera, my friend — a truly inspired answer! Though it seems that if you answer 'yes, it can,' something worthy of Euripides will follow: our tongue will be unrefuted, but our mind will not. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: Now if you and I were clever and wise, having examined everything in our minds down to the last detail, we'd already be sparring with each other out of sheer surplus skill, colliding our arguments against each other's like sophists in a contest of that sort. But as it is, being ordinary people, we'll want first to look at the things themselves, to see what they really are that we have in mind — whether they agree with one another or not at all. THEAETETUS: That is exactly what I would want.
SOCRATES: And so would I. Since that's how things stand, shall we, calmly, as people with plenty of leisure, go back and examine ourselves again — not out of irritability, but really testing ourselves — as to what in the world these appearances within us are? Looking at them first, I think we'll say that nothing could ever become bigger or smaller, either in bulk or in number, so long as it remains equal to itself. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Second: whatever has nothing added to it and nothing taken away from it never increases or decreases, but always stays equal. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And third — isn't it also true that whatever was not before, but is later, cannot be so without having come to be and being in the process of coming to be? THEAETETUS: It does seem so. SOCRATES: These three admissions, I think, conflict with one another in our minds when we talk about the knucklebones, or when we say that I, being the age I am, without growing or undergoing the opposite, am, within a year, bigger than you, who are young now, and later smaller — not because anything has been taken away from my bulk, but because you have grown. For I am later what I was not before, without having become so — since it's impossible to become something without the process of coming to be — yet without losing any of my bulk I could never become smaller. And countless other things like this happen too, if we're going to accept these premises. You're following me, I take it, Theaetetus — you don't strike me as inexperienced in these matters. THEAETETUS: Yes, by the gods, Socrates — I'm astonished, overwhelmingly, at what these things could possibly be, and sometimes, looking straight at them, I really do feel dizzy. SOCRATES: Theodorus, my friend, seems to have judged your nature well. This feeling — wonder — is very much the mark of a philosopher; philosophy has no other starting point than this, and whoever said Iris was the child of Thaumas was tracing her lineage well. But do you understand yet why these things are as they are, given what we say Protagoras means — or not yet? THEAETETUS: Not yet, I think. SOCRATES: Then will you be grateful to me if I help you dig out, along with you, the truth hidden in the thinking of a man — or rather, of several famous men? THEAETETUS: Of course I'll be grateful, very much so. SOCRATES: Look around, then, and make sure none of the uninitiated are listening. These are the people who think nothing is real except what they can grip firmly with both hands — who won't accept actions, or comings-to-be, or anything invisible, as part of reality.
THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, the men you're describing certainly sound tough and hard-headed. SOCRATES: They are, my boy — thoroughly graceless. But there are others, much subtler, whose mysteries I'm about to reveal to you. Their starting point, from which everything we've just been saying hangs, is this: that everything is motion, and there is nothing besides motion — but motion comes in two kinds, each infinite in number, one having the power to act, the other to be acted upon. Out of their meeting and rubbing against each other come offspring, infinite in number, but always born in pairs — on one side something perceived, on the other a perception, always emerging and being generated together with the thing perceived. Our perceptions have names like these: sight, hearing, smell, feelings of cold and of heat, and also pleasures and pains, desires and fears, and others besides — countless ones without names, and a great many that do have names. And the class of perceptible things, in turn, is born alongside each kind of perception: colors of every sort alongside sight, sounds likewise alongside hearing, and other perceptible things akin to each of the other perceptions. Now what is this story meant to tell us, Theaetetus, in relation to what came before? Do you see it? THEAETETUS: Not entirely, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then pay attention and see if it comes together. What it means to say is that all these things, as we've been saying, are in motion, but there is speed and slowness in their motion. Whatever is slow keeps its motion fixed in place, directed at what comes near it, and in that way it generates — and what is generated in this way moves faster, since it is carried along, and motion is, by nature, in that carrying. So whenever an eye, and some other thing commensurate with it, come near each other and generate whiteness, together with the perception connatural to it — things that would never have come to be if either of those two had gone toward something else instead — then, while sight travels from the eyes and whiteness travels from the thing that co-produces the color, in the space between them, the eye becomes filled with sight and so comes to see, and becomes not sight itself but a seeing eye; while the thing that joined in generating the color becomes saturated with whiteness, and becomes not whiteness itself but a white thing — whether it turns out to be a piece of wood, a stone, or whatever else happens to be colored with that color.
SOCRATES: And we should think the same way about everything else — hard, hot, all of it. None of these things is anything in itself, as we said before; they all come to be, in all their varieties, out of the interaction of things in motion. Because even the notion of a fixed 'agent' or 'patient' — something that acts and something acted upon, each taken separately — doesn't hold up, as the wise say. Nothing is an agent until it meets something to act on, and nothing is acted upon until it meets something acting; and whatever meets one thing and acts turns out, when it collides with something else, to be acted upon instead. So out of all this — which is exactly what we said from the start — nothing is ever one thing, fixed in itself, but always something coming-to-be for something else, and 'being' has to be struck out everywhere, even though force of habit and plain ignorance have just made us use the word ourselves, repeatedly. But that's not allowed, according to the theory of the wise — we mustn't grant that anything is 'something,' or 'someone's,' or 'mine,' or 'this,' or 'that,' or give it any name that makes it stand still; we should speak in accordance with nature and say things are 'coming to be,' 'being made,' 'perishing,' 'changing' — since anyone who makes something stand still in speech is easily refuted. And this has to apply piece by piece and also to things gathered into groups — which is the kind of grouping people label 'a man' or 'a stone' or any given animal or kind. Well, Theaetetus, does all this seem pleasant to you? Would you taste it and find it agreeable? THEAETETUS: I really don't know, Socrates — in fact I can't even tell about you, whether you're saying what you actually think or just testing me. SOCRATES: You forget, my friend, that I myself know nothing and claim nothing of this sort as my own — I'm barren of such things. I act as midwife for you, and that's why I chant incantations and serve you tastes from each of the wise, until I've helped bring your own view out into the light. Once it's delivered, I'll examine whether it turns out to be wind or something with real substance. So take heart, be patient, and answer bravely and honestly whatever seems true to you about what I ask. THEAETETUS: Go on and ask, then. SOCRATES: Tell me again, then: does it please you to say that nothing simply is, but everything is always coming to be — good, beautiful, and all the things we just went through? THEAETETUS: Yes, for my part — hearing you lay it out this way, it strikes me as remarkably sound, and I think it has to be accepted just as you've explained it. SOCRATES: Then let's not leave out what's still missing. What remains concerns dreams, and illnesses — including madness — and all the cases of mishearing, misseeing, or misperceiving in some other way. You know, I suppose, that in all these cases the theory we just went through seems, by common agreement, to be refuted, since in them, more than anywhere, false perceptions occur in us — and far from it being true that what appears to each person also is, quite the opposite: none of the things that appear actually is.
THEAETETUS: That's very true, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then what theory is left, my boy, for someone who claims perception is knowledge, and that what appears to each person also is, for the one to whom it appears? THEAETETUS: I hesitate to say I have nothing to answer, Socrates, since you just scolded me for saying that very thing. But I honestly couldn't dispute that madmen and dreamers hold false beliefs, when some of them think they're gods, and others think they're birds and imagine themselves flying in their sleep. SOCRATES: Don't you also notice a further puzzle about these cases, especially about waking and dreaming? THEAETETUS: What puzzle? SOCRATES: One you've surely heard people raise before: what proof could someone offer, if asked right now, whether we're asleep and dreaming everything we're thinking, or awake and genuinely talking with each other? THEAETETUS: Really, Socrates, it's hard to see what proof one could give — everything lines up as if in matching pairs. The very conversation we're having now could just as well be something we imagine having in our sleep, and whenever we dream that we're telling our dreams, the resemblance between the two is uncanny. SOCRATES: So you see it's not hard to raise the dispute, since even whether we're awake or dreaming is disputable — and given that we spend roughly equal time in each state, in both cases our soul insists that whatever it currently believes is true beyond anything else, so that for equal stretches of time we claim these things are real, and equally we claim those other things are real, and we're just as adamant on both sides. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And doesn't the same reasoning apply to illness and madness too, except that the time involved isn't equal? THEAETETUS: Right. SOCRATES: Well then — will truth be decided by how much or how little time something lasts? THEAETETUS: That would be absurd in all sorts of ways. SOCRATES: But can you point to anything else clear enough to show which of these beliefs are true? THEAETETUS: I don't think so. SOCRATES: Then listen to me, and hear what those who define whatever seems true to someone as actually true for them would say about all this. I imagine they'd put the question this way: Theaetetus, whatever is entirely different from something else — could it possibly share any power at all with that other thing? And let's not assume that the thing we're asking about is the same in one respect and different in another — no, let's mean wholly different.
THEAETETUS: Then it's impossible for it to have anything the same, whether in power or in any other respect, when it is completely different. SOCRATES: And isn't it also necessary to grant that such a thing is unlike the other? THEAETETUS: I think so. SOCRATES: So if it happens that something becomes like or unlike something else — whether like itself or like something else — we'll say that in becoming like, it becomes the same, and in becoming unlike, it becomes different? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Now, didn't we say earlier that the things acting are many and unlimited, and likewise the things acted upon? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And also that one thing combined with another, and again with yet another, will generate not the same results but different ones? THEAETETUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then let's take you and me and everything else by the same reasoning — Socrates healthy, and Socrates sick again. Shall we say this one is like that one, or unlike it? THEAETETUS: Do you mean the sick Socrates as a whole, compared to the whole healthy Socrates? SOCRATES: You've grasped it exactly — that's just what I mean. THEAETETUS: Unlike, surely. SOCRATES: And therefore different, just as it's unlike? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And you'll say the same about Socrates asleep, and all the other cases we just went through? THEAETETUS: I will. SOCRATES: So each of the things whose nature it is to act on something — will it treat healthy Socrates as one thing to work on, and treat sick Socrates as another? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And in each of these two cases, we'll generate different results — I who am acted upon, and that thing which acts? THEAETETUS: Naturally. SOCRATES: So when I, being healthy, drink wine, it appears to me pleasant and sweet? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Because, following what we've already agreed, the agent and the patient generated sweetness together with a perception, both moving in tandem — the perception, coming from the side of the one acted upon, made the tongue perceiving, while the sweetness, coming from the wine and moving around it, made the wine both be and appear sweet to the healthy tongue. THEAETETUS: Yes, that's exactly what we agreed earlier. SOCRATES: But when I'm sick, in truth didn't it first meet a different me? For it approached someone unlike the other. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So this Socrates, in this condition, and the drinking of the wine, together generated something different again — a perception of bitterness around the tongue, and a bitterness coming to be and moving around the wine; and the wine becomes not bitterness but bitter, and I become not perception but one perceiving? THEAETETUS: Exactly so.
SOCRATES: So I myself will never become anything else in this same way of perceiving — for a perception of one thing is different from a perception of another, and it makes the perceiver different and other. Nor will that thing which acts on me, ever meeting something else, generate the same result and remain what it was — for by generating something different from something different, it will itself become different. THEAETETUS: That's so. SOCRATES: And I am not the same to myself, either, nor will that other thing be the same to itself. THEAETETUS: No, indeed. SOCRATES: But it's necessary that I become something's — mine, that is, of some object — whenever I come to be perceiving; for it's impossible to become one perceiving while perceiving nothing. And that other thing must become something's, too, whenever it comes to be sweet or bitter or anything of the sort — for it's impossible for it to become sweet without being sweet to someone. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So what's left to us, I think, is to be bound to each other — if we exist, to exist for each other, and if we come to be, to come to be for each other — since necessity binds our very being together, yet binds it to nothing else, not even to ourselves alone. So what's left is that we're bound together with one another. So whether someone speaks of 'being' or 'becoming,' he must say it is being or becoming for someone, or of something, or in relation to something; but 'being' or 'becoming' something on its own, in itself — that he must neither say himself, nor accept from anyone else who says it — as the argument we've gone through shows. THEAETETUS: Absolutely right, Socrates. SOCRATES: So then, since whatever acts on me belongs to me and to no one else, I'm the one who perceives it, and no one else? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So my perception is true for me — since it always belongs to my own being — and I am, as Protagoras says, judge of the things that are, that they are, for me, and of the things that are not, that they are not? THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: So then, being free from falsehood and never stumbling in my thinking about the things that are or come to be, how could I fail to have knowledge of the very things I perceive? THEAETETUS: There's no way you could fail to. SOCRATES: So it's been beautifully said by you, that knowledge is nothing other than perception, and it all comes together into one — according to Homer and Heraclitus and the whole tribe of people like them, that everything moves like flowing streams; according to Protagoras, wisest of all, that man is the measure of all things; and according to Theaetetus, given all this, that perception becomes knowledge. Isn't that right, Theaetetus? Shall we call this newborn child yours, and my delivery of it? Or how do you put it? THEAETETUS: It has to be so, Socrates.
SOCRATES: This, then, it seems, we've finally managed to give birth to, whatever it actually turns out to be. But after the delivery, we really do need to run the child around in a circle in our discussion — the way people do at the naming ceremony — to make sure we're not missing that what's been born isn't worth raising at all, but is only wind and falsehood. Or do you think we absolutely must raise whatever's yours and not set it aside — or will you put up with seeing it examined and refuted, and not get too angry if someone, as with a firstborn, tries to take it away from you? THEODORUS: Theaetetus will put up with it, Socrates — he's not at all difficult that way. But in god's name, tell us in what way it isn't so. SOCRATES: You really are a lover of argument, Theodorus, and a good one, if you think I'm some kind of sack full of arguments, ready to pull one out easily and say that after all this isn't how things are. But you don't notice what's actually happening — that none of the arguments comes from me at all, but always from whoever is talking with me; I myself know nothing beyond a little — just enough to take an argument from another wise person and receive it fairly. And now I'll try to get this from our friend here, not say it myself. THEODORUS: You put it better that way, Socrates — do it so. SOCRATES: Do you know, then, Theodorus, what I find strange about your friend Protagoras? THEODORUS: What is it? SOCRATES: Everything else he's said pleases me very much — that whatever seems true to each person, is true for them. But I'm puzzled by the opening of his argument, that he didn't begin his book called Truth by saying that the measure of all things is a pig, or a dog-headed baboon, or some still stranger creature capable of perception — that would have been a truly grand and utterly contemptuous way to begin speaking to us, showing us that while we were admiring him for his wisdom as if he were a god, he was in fact no better in intelligence than a tadpole, let alone any other human being. What are we to say, Theodorus? If whatever each person judges true through perception really will be true for him, and no one can judge another's experience better than he can, nor is anyone in a better position to examine whether another's belief is right or wrong, but rather — as has been said many times — each person alone will judge his own beliefs, and all of them will be correct and true, then why on earth, my friend, is Protagoras so wise as to be rightly regarded as a teacher of others, and paid handsomely for it, while we are more ignorant and ought to go sit at his feet — when each of us is, in himself, the measure of his own wisdom? How can we avoid saying that Protagoras is just playing to the crowd with this? As for my own art of midwifery, and how much ridicule we bring on ourselves — and the whole practice of dialectic along with it — I say nothing. For isn't examining and trying to refute one another's impressions and opinions, when each person's opinions are correct, an enormous and endless piece of nonsense — if Protagoras's Truth really is true, and wasn't just speaking playfully from the inner sanctuary of his book?
THEODORUS: Socrates, he's a friend of mine, as you just said. So I wouldn't want Protagoras refuted through my agreeing to things, nor would I want to resist you against my own judgment. Take up Theaetetus again — he seemed to be following you quite gracefully just now. SOCRATES: Theodorus, if you went to Sparta and visited the wrestling grounds, would you think it fair to watch other men naked, some of them in poor shape, without stripping down yourself and showing your own form? THEODORUS: Well, what do you think, if they were going to let me off and be satisfied — just as I think I'll persuade you two to let me watch and not drag me, stiff as I already am, onto the mat, but wrestle instead with this younger, more supple fellow? SOCRATES: Well, Theodorus, if that's your pleasure, it's no trouble to me either, as the proverb goes. So back we go to our wise Theaetetus. Tell me, Theaetetus — about what we just went through — doesn't it strike you as strange that you should suddenly turn out to be, in wisdom, no worse than any man alive, or even any god? Or do you think Protagoras's 'measure' applies less to gods than to men? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, I don't — and that's exactly what puzzles me about your question. When we were going through how people say that what seems to each person is also true for the one it seems to, it struck me as very well put; but now it's suddenly flipped to the opposite. SOCRATES: That's because you're young, my dear boy — you're quick to catch the drift of a popular speech and let it persuade you. Protagoras, or someone speaking for him, will answer this: 'You fine fellows, old and young alike, sitting there making speeches together and dragging the gods into it — gods I steer clear of, both in speaking and writing, as to whether they exist or not — and you say what the crowd would gladly accept hearing, namely how terrible it would be if each human being were no better in wisdom than any random farm animal. But you offer no proof, no necessity whatsoever — you just rely on plausibility, and if Theodorus or any other geometer wanted to do geometry that way, he wouldn't be worth a thing. So you and Theodorus had better consider whether you're willing to accept arguments about matters this important resting on mere persuasiveness and plausibility.'
THEAETETUS: No, that isn't fair, Socrates — neither you nor we would say it was. SOCRATES: Then we must look at the question your argument and Theodorus's raises in another way, it seems. THEAETETUS: Yes, quite another way. SOCRATES: Let's look at it this way then: is knowledge the same thing as perception, or different? That's really what our whole discussion has been aiming at, and that's why we stirred up all these strange questions. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Well then — shall we agree that whatever we perceive by seeing or hearing, we also know at that same moment? Take the case of foreigners whose language we don't yet understand — shall we say we don't hear them when they speak, or that we both hear and understand what they say? And again, people who don't know how to read, looking at written letters — shall we say they don't see them, or that they know them, since they see them? THEAETETUS: We'll say we know just this much of them, Socrates — the very thing we see and hear: the shape and color of the letters we both see and know, and the pitch, high or low, of the sounds we both hear and recognize; but what the grammar teachers and interpreters teach about them, that we neither perceive by seeing or hearing, nor do we know. SOCRATES: Excellent, Theaetetus — and it wouldn't be worth arguing with you about that, so that you can keep growing. But look at this other point coming up, and see how we're going to fend it off. THEAETETUS: What point is that? SOCRATES: This one: if someone asked, is it possible for a person who has come to know something, and still retains and preserves the memory of that very thing, not to know, at the moment he remembers it, that very thing he remembers? I'm being long-winded, it seems, but I just want to ask whether someone who has learned something and remembers it can fail to know it. THEAETETUS: How could that be, Socrates? That would be monstrous. SOCRATES: Am I talking nonsense, then? Consider: don't you say that seeing is perceiving, and that sight is a kind of perception? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: Then hasn't the man who saw something come to know that thing he saw, by the argument we just made? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about memory — you do mean something by it? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Memory of nothing, or of something? THEAETETUS: Of something, surely. SOCRATES: Of things he learned and perceived — things of that sort? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So whatever someone saw, he sometimes remembers it later? THEAETETUS: He remembers it. SOCRATES: Even with his eyes shut? Or does shutting his eyes make him forget it? THEAETETUS: That would be absurd to say, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet we must say it, if we're going to save our earlier position — otherwise it's gone. THEAETETUS: I suspect as much myself, by Zeus, though I can't quite grasp it fully — tell me how. SOCRATES: Like this: the man who sees, we say, has come to know the thing he sees, since sight and perception and knowledge have been agreed to be the same. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But the man who saw, and came to know the thing he saw, if he shuts his eyes, remembers it but no longer sees it. Right? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But 'does not see' means 'does not know,' if indeed 'sees' means 'knows.' THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: So it follows that a man who has come to know something, and still remembers it, does not know it — since he doesn't see it. And we said that would be monstrous, if it happened. THEAETETUS: That's very true. SOCRATES: So something impossible turns out to follow, it seems, if one says that knowledge and perception are the same thing. THEAETETUS: It looks that way. SOCRATES: Then each of them must be called something different. THEAETETUS: I'm afraid so. SOCRATES: Then what in the world could knowledge be? It seems we must say it all over again from the beginning. And yet, Theaetetus, what are we even about to do? THEAETETUS: About what? SOCRATES: It strikes me that we're behaving like some worthless rooster, crowing in triumph and leaping away from the argument before we've actually won. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: We seem to be acting like professional debaters — securing agreement on the use of words, being satisfied to have gotten the better of the argument by some trick like that, and, though we claim not to be contestants but philosophers, we don't notice that we're doing exactly what those clever men do. THEAETETUS: I still don't understand what you mean. SOCRATES: Well, let me try to explain what I have in mind. We asked whether someone who has learned something and remembers it can fail to know it, and, by showing that a man who saw something and then shut his eyes remembers it while not seeing it, we proved that he doesn't know it, even while he remembers it — which is impossible. And so the Protagorean myth is destroyed, and along with it your idea too, that knowledge and perception are the same thing. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And yet, my friend, I don't think it would have gone this way if the father of the other myth were still alive — he would have put up quite a defense. As it is, we're trampling on it now that it's an orphan. Not even the guardians Protagoras left behind are willing to come to its aid — and Theodorus here is one of them. So it looks like we'll have to defend it ourselves, for justice's sake.
THEODORUS: It isn't really my job, Socrates — Callias, son of Hipponicus, is more the guardian of his ideas; we turned rather quickly from bare arguments toward geometry. Still, I'll be grateful to you if you defend him. SOCRATES: Well said, Theodorus. Consider, then, what my defense amounts to. One might agree to things even stranger than what we said before, if one doesn't pay close attention to the words — which is what we're mostly in the habit of doing, affirming and denying. Shall I explain it to you, or to Theaetetus? THEODORUS: To both of us together — but let the younger one answer; he'll be less embarrassed if he trips up. SOCRATES: Well, here's the most formidable question of all, and it runs something like this: is it possible for the same person, knowing something, not to know that very thing he knows? THEODORUS: Well, Theaetetus, what shall we answer? THEAETETUS: It's impossible, I should think. SOCRATES: Not if you're going to maintain that seeing is knowing. What will you do with an inescapable question — caught, as the saying goes, down a well — when a bold questioner covers one of your eyes with his hand and asks whether you see his cloak with the covered eye? THEAETETUS: I'll say no, not with that one — but with the other, yes. SOCRATES: So you both see and don't see the same thing at once? THEAETETUS: In a manner of speaking, yes. SOCRATES: 'That's not what I'm asking or claiming,' he'll say, 'I only asked whether the thing you know, you also don't know. But as it stands, you're shown to see a thing you don't see. And you've already agreed that seeing is knowing and not seeing is not knowing. So work out for yourself what follows from that.' THEAETETUS: Well, I work out that the consequence is the opposite of what I assumed. SOCRATES: And perhaps, my astonishing friend, you'd have run into even more trouble like that if someone had gone on to ask you whether it's possible to know something both sharply and dimly, to know it from close up but not from far away, to know the same thing both intensely and faintly, and a thousand other such things — the kind of ambush a mercenary skirmisher lying in wait with words would spring on you, once you'd set down knowledge and perception as the same, hurling in hearing and smelling and perceptions of that sort, refuting you relentlessly and never letting up, until, marveling at his much-vaunted cleverness, you found yourself entangled in his snares — and once he had you in his grip and bound fast, he could then ransom you for whatever price the two of you agreed on. So you might ask, what argument will Protagoras offer in his own defense? Shall we try to state it ourselves? THEAETETUS: By all means.
SOCRATES: All the points we've just been making in his defense, I think he'll charge straight at us, full of contempt, and say: 'So this is the celebrated Socrates — when a little child was asked whether the same person could remember and not know the same thing at the same time, he got frightened, and because he couldn't see ahead, he said no, and made a laughingstock of me in the argument. But the truth, Socrates, you laziest of men, is this: when you examine one of my positions by questioning, if the person questioned answers as I would have answered and stumbles, then I am refuted; but if he answers differently, then the one questioned is refuted, not I. For instance — do you really think anyone will grant you that a memory present in someone of what he once experienced is the same kind of experience as the one he had while actually experiencing it, now that he's no longer experiencing it? Far from it. Or again, will he hesitate to admit that it's possible for the same person to know and not know the same thing? Or if he's afraid of that, will he ever grant that a person who has changed is the same as he was before he changed — or rather, that he is even a single person and not many, indeed infinitely many, once change keeps occurring — if we really must be on our guard against catching each other out over mere words? No, my good man,' he'll say, 'come at what I actually mean more nobly, if you can, and refute this: that private perceptions do not arise for each of us, or that, granting they are private, what appears would be no more true for the one it appears to — or, if we must speak of 'being,' would be so for whomever it appears to. As for talking about pigs and baboons, not only are you yourself behaving like a pig, you're persuading your listeners to treat my writings that way too — and that's not well done. For I maintain that the truth is as I've written it: each of us is the measure of what is and what is not, yet one person differs enormously from another in just this respect, that different things are and appear to one than to another. And I am far from denying that there is such a thing as wisdom or a wise man — rather, I call wise precisely the man who, for any of us to whom bad things appear and are, can by a change make good things appear and be instead. Don't chase after my words, though — understand more clearly still what I mean, in this way. Recall what was said before: to the sick man, what he eats appears and is bitter, while to the healthy man it is and appears the opposite.'
SOCRATES: Well, we shouldn't try to make either of them wiser than the other — that isn't even possible — and we shouldn't say that the sick man is ignorant for judging as he does, while the healthy man is wise for judging differently. What's needed is a change from the one condition to the other, since the second state is better. And it's the same in education: one has to move from a worse condition to a better one. Only the doctor produces the change with drugs, while the sophist does it with words. It isn't that anyone ever takes a person who judges falsely and later makes him judge truly — that's not possible, since one cannot judge things that are not, nor anything other than what one is actually experiencing, and what one experiences is always true. Rather, I think, when someone is in a bad state of soul and judges things akin to that condition, a good state makes him judge other things of the same kind — things which some people, out of inexperience, call true appearances, while I call the one set better than the other, but not one bit truer. And as for the wise, my dear Socrates, I'm nowhere near calling them frogs — with respect to bodies I call them doctors, with respect to plants, farmers. For I say that these people too, instead of the bad sensations plants have when something in them is weak, instill good and healthy and true sensations in them; and likewise the wise and good public speakers make what is beneficial seem just to their cities instead of what is harmful. For whatever seems just and fine to a given city is just and fine for that city as long as it holds that belief. But the wise man makes what is beneficial seem — and be — in place of what was harmful for them in each such case. On the same reasoning, the sophist too, who can educate his students in this way, is wise and worth a great deal of money to those he has educated. And so it is true both that some people are wiser than others and that no one judges falsely, and you, whether you like it or not, must put up with being a 'measure' — for this is exactly how the argument holds together. Now if you can dispute this from the beginning, dispute it — set out a counter-argument. Or if you'd rather proceed by questioning, do that instead — there's no need to avoid it either; in fact a person of sense should pursue it above everything. Only do this: don't be unjust in your questioning. It would be quite absurd for someone who claims to care about virtue to do nothing but act unjustly in arguments.
SOCRATES: And one acts unjustly in this business whenever one doesn't keep contests and conversations separate — treating them as one and the same — playing and tripping people up as much as one can in the one, but in genuine conversation being serious and correcting one's partner, pointing out to him only those errors into which he has been led by himself or by earlier discussions. If you do this, the people who spend time with you will blame themselves for their own confusion and perplexity, not you, and they'll pursue you and love you, while hating and fleeing from themselves, toward philosophy, so that they may become different people and be rid of who they were before. But if you do the opposite, as most people do, the opposite will happen to you, and you'll turn those who spend time with you against philosophy itself once they're older. So if you're persuaded by me — as was said before — you'll approach the question calmly, without hostility or combativeness, but with real goodwill, and consider what we actually mean when we say all things are in motion, and that whatever seems so to each person and city, is so for that person or city. And from there you'll examine whether knowledge and perception are the same thing or different, rather than the way you were doing it just now — arguing from the ordinary usage of words and names, which most people drag about however it happens to suit them and thereby create all sorts of puzzles for each other. This much, Theodorus, I've contributed on behalf of your friend, to the best of my ability — a small offering from small resources. If he were still alive, he would have come to his own defense in far grander style. THEODORUS: You're joking, Socrates — you've defended the man quite vigorously. SOCRATES: Well said, my friend. And tell me — did you notice, when Protagoras was speaking just now and reproaching us for arguing against his position by playing on a child's fears, and calling it a kind of cheap cleverness, while praising the solemnity of his 'measure of all things' — did you notice that he was urging us to take his argument seriously? THEODORUS: Of course I noticed, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then? Do you tell us to obey him? THEODORUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Then you see that everyone here except you is a child. So if we're going to obey the man, you and I need to question and answer each other and take his argument seriously, so he can't complain that we examined his argument as if playing games with mere boys. THEODORUS: But surely Theaetetus could follow a closely reasoned argument better than many men with big beards?
SOCRATES: Not better than you, though, Theodorus. So don't imagine that I have to defend your departed friend by every means, while you get no defense at all. Come now, my good man, follow along a little way — at least until we know whether it's really you who must be the measure where geometrical figures are concerned, or whether everyone is equally capable, like you, in astronomy and the other fields in which you're said to excel. THEODORUS: It isn't easy, Socrates, to sit beside you and refuse to give an account of oneself. I was talking nonsense a moment ago, saying you'd let me off without stripping down, and wouldn't force me the way the Spartans do — you seem to me to lean more toward Sciron. The Spartans tell a man either to leave or strip; but you seem to me to play the part of Antaeus rather — you don't let a man who approaches you go until you've forced him to strip and wrestle with you in argument. SOCRATES: You've compared my affliction very aptly, Theodorus — though I'm actually tougher than those two. Countless Heracleses and Theseuses, strong in argument, have already run into me and given me a fine thrashing, yet I don't give up one bit more for it — such is the strange passion that has taken root in me for this kind of exercise. So don't you begrudge me either — rub up against me and do us both some good. THEODORUS: I won't argue any further — lead on wherever you like. In any case, whatever fate you spin for me in this business, I must endure being tested by it. Only I won't be able to offer myself to you beyond what you've already proposed. SOCRATES: Even this much will be enough. And please watch closely for this: that we don't somehow slip into a childish kind of argument without noticing, and someone reproach us for it again. THEODORUS: Well, I'll try, as far as I'm able. SOCRATES: Then let's take up again the same point we did before, and see whether we were right or wrong to be unhappy and find fault with the argument for making each person self-sufficient in wisdom — and Protagoras conceded to us that some people surpass others regarding better and worse, and that these are the ones who are wise. Isn't that so? THEODORUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now if he himself were here to agree to it, rather than us conceding it on his behalf in his defense, there would be no need to take it up again and secure it. But as things stand, someone might well say we have no authority to make that concession on his behalf. So it's better to come to a clearer agreement about this very point ourselves — for it makes no small difference whether it is so or not. THEODORUS: True.
SOCRATES: Then let's not get our agreement from other quarters, but from his own argument, in the shortest way possible. THEODORUS: How? SOCRATES: Like this: he says that whatever seems so to each person, is so for the one to whom it seems so? THEODORUS: Yes, that's what he says. SOCRATES: Well then, Protagoras, we too are speaking of the beliefs of a human being — or rather of all human beings — and we say there is no one who does not consider himself wiser than others in some respects, and others wiser than himself in other respects; and indeed in the greatest dangers, when men are hard pressed in wars or illness or storms at sea, they treat the leaders in each situation as if they were gods, expecting them to be their saviors, differing from the rest in nothing but knowledge. And the whole human world is full of people seeking teachers and rulers, for themselves and for other creatures and for their various trades, and believing in turn that some are competent to teach and to rule, and others not. And in all this, what else can we say except that human beings themselves believe that wisdom and ignorance exist among them? THEODORUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: And don't they consider wisdom to be true thinking, and ignorance false belief? THEODORUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then, Protagoras, what are we to do with the argument? Shall we say that human beings always judge truly, or sometimes truly and sometimes falsely? For from either answer, it follows that they don't always judge truly, but judge both ways. Consider, Theodorus, whether any follower of Protagoras — or you yourself — would be willing to fight to maintain that no one considers anyone else ignorant or holds false beliefs. THEODORUS: That's hard to believe, Socrates. SOCRATES: And yet the argument that man is the measure of all things is driven to exactly this conclusion. THEODORUS: How so? SOCRATES: Whenever you form a judgment about something in your own mind and declare it to me as your belief, then, according to his argument, this is true for you. But is it not possible for the rest of us to become judges of your judgment, or do we always judge that you believe truly? Or do countless people, every time, oppose you with contrary beliefs, thinking that you judge and believe falsely? THEODORUS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates — countless indeed, as Homer says, are those who give me trouble from other people. SOCRATES: Well then? Do you want us to say that you at that moment believe truly for yourself, but falsely for the countless others? THEODORUS: It seems that must follow from the argument.
SOCRATES: And what about Protagoras himself? Isn't it necessary that, if neither he himself nor the majority of people believed that man is the measure — as indeed they don't — then this truth he wrote about would be true for no one at all? But if he himself believed it, while the majority don't share his opinion, then you realize that, first of all, to the extent that those who disagree outnumber those who agree, to that same extent it is more not the case than the case. THEODORUS: That must follow, if indeed it is to be and not to be depending on each individual belief. SOCRATES: And next comes the cleverest point of all: he concedes, about his own opinion, that the opinion of those who hold the opposite view — the view that he is wrong — is true, since he admits that everyone believes what is the case. THEODORUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't he be conceding that his own view is false, if he admits that the view of those who consider him wrong is true? THEODORUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: But the others, for their part, don't concede that they themselves are wrong, do they? THEODORUS: No, they don't. SOCRATES: And he, in turn, admits that this belief too is true, on the basis of what he has written. THEODORUS: Apparently. SOCRATES: So it will be disputed by everyone, starting with Protagoras himself — or rather, it will be conceded by him himself, whenever he grants that the person who says the opposite believes truly — at that point Protagoras himself will be conceding that not even a dog, nor any random human being, is the measure of anything he hasn't learned. Isn't that so? THEODORUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then, since it is disputed by everyone, Protagoras's 'Truth' would be true for no one — not for anyone else, and not even for the man himself. THEODORUS: We're running my friend down rather severely, Socrates. SOCRATES: But look, my friend, it isn't even clear that we're running past what's right. It stands to reason that, being older, he's wiser than we are; and if he could suddenly pop up out of the ground right here, up to the neck, he would very likely expose plenty of nonsense in me and, I'd guess, get agreement from you too — and then sink back down and go running off. But we, I think, have no choice but to make use of ourselves as we are, and to keep saying whatever seems true to us. And so now too, shall we say that anyone at all would agree to this much — that one person can be wiser than another, and also more ignorant? THEODORUS: That's certainly how it seems to me. SOCRATES: And would the argument best hold its ground at the point where we sketched it out in Protagoras's defense — that most things are, for each person, just as they seem to him: hot, dry, sweet, and everything of that sort. But if it's ever going to be conceded that one person differs from another in anything, it would be willing to grant this concerning what is healthy and what causes disease — that not every little woman or child, or even an animal, is capable of curing itself by knowing what is healthy for it, but that here, if anywhere, one person differs from another? THEODORUS: That's how it seems to me too.
SOCRATES: And the same holds for matters of the city — the fine and the shameful, the just and the unjust, the pious and the impious: whatever each city decides on and enacts as its own law, that is what's true for that city, and in these matters no private person is any wiser than another, nor is one city wiser than another. But when it comes to laying down what's advantageous or not advantageous for itself, there — if anywhere — he'll agree that one adviser really does differ from another, and one city's judgment from another's, as measured against the truth; he wouldn't dare to claim that whatever a city enacts as advantageous, believing it so, is bound to turn out advantageous. But in the other matter I mentioned — the just and unjust, the pious and impious — they're willing to insist that none of these has any fixed nature of its own, that whatever a community collectively decides becomes true the moment it's decided, and stays true for just as long as the decision stands. Even those who don't go the whole way with Protagoras's doctrine end up handling wisdom something like this. But look, Theodorus, one argument keeps overtaking us, a bigger one springing from a smaller. THEODORUS: Well, we've got the leisure for it, haven't we, Socrates? SOCRATES: So it seems. And in fact, my good man, I've often noticed before, and I notice again now, how natural it is that people who've spent a long time in philosophy look ridiculous when they show up in a courtroom as speakers. THEODORUS: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: Those who've been dragged through courtrooms and the like since they were young, compared with those raised in philosophy and that sort of pursuit — I'd guess the first are like household slaves next to free men. THEODORUS: How so? SOCRATES: In this way: the philosophers always have what you just called leisure, and they carry on their discussions at their ease, in peace — just as we ourselves are now taking up a third topic in place of the last one — and so it is with them too, if whatever comes along pleases them more than the subject in hand, as has happened to us; and it makes no difference to them whether they speak long or short, so long as they hit on what's really so. But the others are always talking against the clock — the water clock keeps pressing them on — and they aren't free to make their speeches about whatever they'd like; their opponent stands over them under compulsion, with the sworn deposition being read out alongside, which they aren't allowed to stray from. Their speeches are always about a fellow slave, addressed to a master seated on the bench, holding some lawsuit in his hands; the contests are never for some abstract prize but always for the man's own stake, and often life itself is on the line. All this makes them tense and sharp, skilled at flattering the master with words and courting him with deeds — but small in soul, and crooked.
SOCRATES: Their growth, their straightness, their freedom — all this is stripped away by slavery from their youth, forcing them into crooked practices, throwing great dangers and fears onto souls still soft, burdens they can't bear along with justice and truth; so they turn at once to lying and to cheating one another in return, and get bent and twisted so many times over that they end up going from boys to men with nothing sound left in their minds, though they think themselves clever and wise. Well, that's the sort they are, Theodorus. Now do you want us to go through the men of our own chorus, or leave that be and turn back to the argument, so we don't overindulge — as we were just saying — in this freedom and hopping from one topic to another? THEODORUS: No, not at all, Socrates — go through them. You put it very well just now, that we who dance in this sort of chorus aren't servants of our arguments, but our arguments are like servants to us, and each one waits around to be finished off whenever we see fit; there's no judge standing over us, and no audience either, ready to find fault and set the rules, the way there is for poets. SOCRATES: Let's talk, then, it seems, since that's your pleasure, about the leaders among them — for what would anyone say about those who spend their time in philosophy only halfheartedly? These men, from their youth, don't even know the way to the marketplace, or where the courthouse is, or the council chamber, or any other public meeting place of the city; laws and decrees, spoken or written, they neither see nor hear; the scrambling of political clubs after office, their meetings, dinners, and revels with flute-girls — such things don't even occur to them in a dream. Whether someone in the city has turned out well or badly, or what trouble has come down to a man from his ancestors, on the father's side or the mother's, escapes him more thoroughly than, as they say, the pints of water in the sea. And he doesn't even know that he doesn't know all this — he doesn't hold back from it for the sake of reputation, but really and truly it's only his body that lies and dwells in the city, while his mind, judging all these things petty and worthless, disdains them utterly and takes wing, as Pindar says, to survey the earth from below and its flat surface, to chart the stars above the heavens, and to search out the whole nature of everything that is, in every direction, never lowering itself to anything close at hand.
THEODORUS: What do you mean by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: The same sort of thing happened to Thales, Theodorus — he was studying the stars, looking upward, and fell into a well, and they say a clever and pretty Thracian servant girl made fun of him, saying he was so eager to know what was up in the sky that he couldn't see what was in front of him, right at his feet. The same joke fits everyone who spends his life in philosophy. Truly, such a man doesn't notice his neighbor next door — not just what he's doing, but hardly even whether he's a man or some other creature. What a human being is, though, and what it belongs to such a nature to do or undergo that's different from anything else — that he searches after and goes to great trouble to work out. You follow me, Theodorus? Or not? THEODORUS: I do, and what you say is true. SOCRATES: So, my friend, when a man like this meets someone in private or in public — as I said at the start — if he's forced, in a courtroom or somewhere else, to talk about what's right at his feet and in front of his eyes, he gives the whole crowd something to laugh at, not just the Thracian girls, falling into wells and every kind of confusion out of sheer inexperience; his awkwardness is dreadful, and it makes him look like a fool. When it comes to insults, he has nothing of his own to throw at anyone, since he knows no evil of anyone, never having bothered to learn any; so, at a loss, he looks ridiculous. And when others sing their own praises and boast, his laughter is plainly not put on but genuine, and so he seems a simpleton. When he hears a tyrant or a king praised, he thinks he's hearing about one of the herdsmen — a swineherd, say, or a shepherd, or a cowherd — congratulated on how much he's managed to milk out of his flock; except he thinks such men have a harder and more treacherous animal to shepherd and milk, and that a man like that, penned in behind his walls up on some hill, is bound to grow just as coarse and uneducated as any herdsman, for want of leisure. And when he hears that someone owns ten thousand acres of land, or even more, and thinks that's an amazing amount to possess, it sounds to him like next to nothing, since he's used to taking in the whole earth at a glance.
SOCRATES: And when men chant their pedigrees — someone proud to point to seven wealthy grandfathers — he thinks their praise is altogether dull-eyed and short-sighted, since through lack of education they can't keep the whole picture in view, or work out that everyone has had countless thousands of grandfathers and ancestors before him, among whom rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks, have turned up again and again for anyone you like. When people pride themselves on a roll of twenty-five ancestors and trace their line back to Heracles, son of Amphitryon, he finds the pettiness of it absurd — that they don't stop to reckon that the twenty-fifth ancestor back from Amphitryon was whatever chance made him, and so was the fiftieth before that — he laughs at their inability to do the arithmetic and shake off the puffed-up folly of an unreflective mind. In all these situations, then, such a man is laughed at by the crowd — partly because he seems arrogant, partly because he's ignorant of, and at a loss over, what's right in front of him. THEODORUS: What you describe is exactly how it happens, Socrates. SOCRATES: But then, my friend, when he himself pulls someone up out of that world, and gets him to leave behind questions like 'What wrong have I done you, or you me?' and turn instead to examining justice and injustice in themselves — what each of them is, and how they differ from everything else and from each other — or to leave behind 'Is a king happy?', 'Does he own piles of gold?', and turn to examining kingship and human happiness and misery generally, what sort of things they are, and in what way it belongs to a person by nature to attain the one and escape the other — when it's time for that small, sharp, litigious mind to give an account of all this, then it's his turn to return the joke: hung dizzy from the height, staring down bewildered from up there, unused to it, at a loss, stammering — he no longer gives the Thracian girls anything to laugh at, or any other uneducated person, since they don't even notice, but he gives it to everyone who's had the opposite upbringing from slaves. That, Theodorus, is the character of each: the one truly raised in freedom and leisure — the man you call a philosopher — who can't be blamed for seeming simple and useless when he's dropped into some menial task, not knowing how to pack up his own bedroll, say, or season a dish, or turn out flattering speeches; the other, who can handle all such tasks briskly and sharply, but doesn't know how to drape his cloak properly like a free man, or catch the true harmony of words to sing, as it should be sung, the truly happy life of gods and blessed men.
THEODORUS: If you could persuade everyone of what you're saying, Socrates, just as you've persuaded me, there'd be more peace and less evil among mankind. SOCRATES: But evil can't be destroyed, Theodorus — there must always be something opposed to the good — nor can it have its seat among the gods; it must, of necessity, haunt mortal nature and this region here below. That's why we should try to escape from here to there as quickly as we can. And escape means becoming like god so far as that's possible; and becoming like god means becoming just and pious, with understanding. But it's not at all easy, my excellent friend, to convince people that the reason most men give for avoiding wickedness and pursuing virtue — that one should practice the one and not the other for the sake of seeming good rather than bad — isn't the real reason. That, it seems to me, is just old wives' babble. Let's state the truth instead: god is in no way, in no respect, unjust, but as just as it's possible to be, and nothing is more like him than whichever of us becomes most just in turn. This is the true measure of a man's ability, and of his worthlessness and unmanliness. Knowing this is wisdom and true virtue; not knowing it is plain ignorance and vice. All the other so-called abilities and forms of cleverness, when found in political power, are vulgar, and in the arts, mechanical. So for the man who does wrong and speaks or acts impiously, by far the best course is not to grant that his wrongdoing makes him clever; such men glory in the reproach, thinking it means people take them for something other than fools, mere dead weight on the earth, but as the sort of men a city needs to survive. We should tell them the truth instead: precisely because they don't think themselves such, they are all the more truly such; for they're ignorant of the penalty of injustice, which is the one thing it's least excusable to be ignorant of. It isn't what they imagine — beatings and executions, which sometimes fall even on those who've done no wrong — but a penalty impossible to escape. THEODORUS: What penalty do you mean?
SOCRATES: Since there really are two patterns set up in the world, my friend—one divine and perfectly happy, the other godless and perfectly wretched—people don't see that this is so, and in their stupidity and utter thoughtlessness they don't even notice that through their unjust actions they're becoming like the one and unlike the other. And for this they pay a penalty: they go on living out the kind of life that resembles what they've become. If we tell them that unless they rid themselves of this cleverness of theirs, that place free of evils won't receive them even when they die, and that here on earth they'll go on forever having a life that matches the sort of person they are—bad people spending their time with other bad people—when they hear all this, being the clever, cunning men they are, they'll think it's just the ravings of fools. THEODORUS: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: I know it, my friend. But there's one thing that happens to them: when it comes to a private conversation, when they have to give and take an account of the very things they condemn, and they're willing to hold out bravely for a good long while instead of running off like cowards, then—strange as it is, my good man—in the end they're not satisfied with their own arguments about these very things, and that famous rhetoric of theirs somehow withers away, so that it seems no better than a child's babbling. Well, since this is really a digression from our subject, let's drop it—otherwise more and more will keep pouring in and burying our original argument—and let's go back to where we were before, if that's all right with you. THEODORUS: For my part, Socrates, I don't find such things unpleasant to hear—they're easier to follow for someone my age. Still, if you think we should, let's return to the argument. SOCRATES: Well then, we were somewhere around the point where we said that those who claim reality is in flux, and that whatever seems true to each person is true for that person, are willing to insist on this most strongly in other matters, and not least concerning what is just—that whatever a city establishes as its considered judgment is indeed just for that city, for as long as it remains established. But when it comes to what is good, no one is brave enough anymore to maintain, in the same way, that whatever a city establishes as beneficial to itself, believing it to be so, is in fact beneficial for exactly as long as it's established as such—except perhaps someone quibbling over the mere name, which would really just be mockery of what we're discussing. Wouldn't it? THEODORUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Let's not have him quibble over the name, then—let him look at the thing that's named. THEODORUS: Let's not, indeed. SOCRATES: Well, whatever name the city gives this thing, that's surely what it's aiming at when it makes law, and it establishes all its laws, so far as it can judge and manage, as the most beneficial to itself it can. Or is it looking toward something else when it legislates?
THEODORUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: And does it always hit the mark, or does each city often miss badly? THEODORUS: I should think it misses too. SOCRATES: There's a further point that would make everyone agree with this even more readily, if the question were asked about the whole class of things to which the beneficial belongs. That, I take it, has to do with future time as well. For whenever we legislate, we lay down our laws on the assumption that they'll be beneficial in time to come—and that's rightly called 'the future.' THEODORUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come, then, let's ask Protagoras—or anyone else who says the same things he does—this: 'Man is the measure of all things,' you say, Protagoras—of white, heavy, light, and everything of that sort. For having the standard for judging them in himself, he thinks things are the way he experiences them, and so he believes them to be true for himself, and real. Isn't that so? THEODORUS: It is. SOCRATES: Then does he also, we'll say, Protagoras, hold the standard within himself for things that are going to be—and does whatever he thinks will happen actually come about for the one who thought it? Take heat, for instance: when an ordinary person thinks he's coming down with a fever and that this heat is going to occur, while another person, a doctor, thinks the opposite—according to whose judgment should we say the future will turn out? Or according to both—so that for the doctor he'll turn out neither hot nor feverish, but for himself he'll be both? THEODORUS: That would be absurd. SOCRATES: No, I think when it comes to the sweetness or dryness a wine is going to have, it's the farmer's judgment that counts, not the lyre-player's. THEODORUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Nor, again, would a trainer judge better than a musician about whether something is going to be in tune or out of tune—something that will later seem well-tuned to the trainer himself. THEODORUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: So too, when a meal is being prepared, the judgment of someone who isn't a cook, about the pleasure it's going to give, is less authoritative than the cook's judgment, when that person is going to be the one dining. As for what's already pleasant to someone, or has already happened to be pleasant, let's not argue about that just yet—but as for what's going to seem pleasant, and going to be pleasant, to each person—is each person the best judge of that for himself, or would you, Protagoras, judge in advance, better than any layman, what argument is going to persuade each of us in a courtroom? THEODORUS: Indeed, Socrates, that's exactly what he claimed to be better at than anyone—that above all.
SOCRATES: Yes, by Zeus, my friend—otherwise no one would have paid him large sums of money to talk with him, if he hadn't persuaded the people around him that when it comes to what's going to happen and what's going to seem so, neither a prophet nor anyone else could judge better than the man himself. THEODORUS: Perfectly true. SOCRATES: And legislation, too, and the beneficial, concern the future—so wouldn't everyone agree that a city, in making its laws, is often bound to miss what's most beneficial? THEODORUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Then we'll be speaking fairly to your teacher when we say that he's forced to admit that one man is wiser than another, and that such a man is the measure, while for me, who knows nothing, there's no necessity at all that I become the measure—as the argument on his behalf just now was forcing me to be, whether I wanted it or not. THEODORUS: That seems to me, Socrates, the point where the argument is most caught out—caught also in this, that it makes other people's opinions authoritative, and these opinions turned out to regard his own statements as not true at all. SOCRATES: In many other ways too, Theodorus, a claim like this—that every opinion of everyone is true—could be caught out. But regarding each person's present experience, from which perceptions and the opinions that go with them arise, it's harder to convict these of being untrue. Perhaps I'm talking nonsense, though—maybe they really are impregnable, and those who claim they're clear and count as knowledge may well be saying something true, and our friend Theaetetus here wasn't off the mark in identifying perception with knowledge. So we must come in closer, as the argument on Protagoras's behalf demands, and examine this reality-in-motion, tapping it to see whether it rings sound or cracked. There's been no small fight over it, and not a few fighters. THEODORUS: Far from small—in Ionia, in fact, it's spreading enormously. Heraclitus's followers champion this doctrine with great vigor. SOCRATES: All the more reason, my dear Theodorus, to examine it thoroughly, starting from the beginning, just as they themselves present it.
THEODORUS: By all means. And indeed, Socrates, concerning these followers of Heraclitus—or, as you put it, of Homer, and thinkers even older—the men themselves around Ephesus, who claim expertise in it, are no more possible to have a discussion with than madmen driven by a gadfly. They're literally swept along in accordance with their own writings; as for staying still on a point and an argument, and calmly answering and asking in turn—there's less of that in them than nothing at all. Rather, the sheer absence of any stillness in these men goes beyond 'nothing'—it's less than nothing. If you ask one of them something, he pulls out little riddling phrases from a quiver, as it were, and shoots them at you, and if you try to get an account of what he meant, you'll be struck by another one, freshly renamed. You'll never come to any conclusion with any of them—and they don't with each other either. They're very careful to let nothing stand firm, either in argument or in their own souls, believing—so it seems to me—that stability itself is the enemy. They wage relentless war on it and drive it out from everywhere, as far as they're able. SOCRATES: Perhaps, Theodorus, you've seen the men in combat and haven't kept company with them at peace—for they're not your friends. But I imagine they explain these things to their students at leisure, whomever they want to make like themselves. THEODORUS: What students, my good man? None of these people becomes anyone else's student—they spring up on their own, wherever each happens to catch the inspiration, and each thinks the other knows nothing. So from them, as I was about to say, you'd never get an account, willing or not—we have to take the problem up ourselves and examine it as if it were a puzzle set before us. SOCRATES: And that's a fair point. Well, this puzzle we've inherited—haven't we gotten it in one form from the ancients, who concealed their meaning from the many under the veil of poetry, saying that the origin of everything else, Ocean and Tethys, are flowing streams, and nothing stands still; and in another form from the more recent thinkers, who, being wiser, declare it openly, so that even the shoemakers among their audience can learn their wisdom by hearing it and stop foolishly believing that some things stand still while others move, and, learning instead that everything moves, honor them for it? But I nearly forgot, Theodorus, that others in turn have declared the opposite of all this—such as 'unmoving is the name for the whole,' and all the other things that Melissus and Parmenides maintain, in opposition to all these people, insisting that all things are one and it stands still, in itself, having no room in which to move.
SOCRATES: What, then, my friend, are we to do with all these people? For advancing little by little, we've found ourselves, without noticing, caught in the middle between both sides, and unless we somehow fight our way clear and escape, we'll pay the penalty—like those who play the line game in the wrestling schools, when they're grabbed by both sides and dragged in opposite directions. So it seems to me we should first examine the one group—the ones we set out after, those who say everything flows—and if they seem to be saying something sound, we'll pull ourselves over to their side, trying to escape the others; but if the partisans of the unmoving whole seem to speak more truly, we'll flee to them instead, away from those who set even the unmoving things in motion. And if both sides turn out to be saying nothing reasonable, we'll look ridiculous, thinking that we, mere nobodies, have something worth saying, while we've rejected men of great age and great wisdom. So consider, Theodorus, whether it's worth advancing into so great a danger. THEODORUS: It's quite unbearable, Socrates, not to examine what each of these two schools of men is saying. SOCRATES: Examine it we must, then, since you're so eager. It seems to me the starting point of the inquiry should be about motion—what exactly they mean when they say all things move. I mean something like this: do they speak of it as a single kind, or, as it seems to me, as two? But don't let it seem so to me alone—join in with me, so that whatever happens to us in the process, we experience it together. Tell me: do you call it motion when something changes place from one place to another, or also when it spins in the same place? THEODORUS: I do. SOCRATES: Let that, then, be one kind. But when a thing stays in the same place yet grows old, or becomes black from white, or hard from soft, or undergoes some other alteration—isn't that worth calling a different kind of motion? THEODORUS: It seems to me it must be, yes. SOCRATES: So I call these two kinds of motion: alteration, and change of place. THEODORUS: Rightly said. SOCRATES: Having made this distinction, then, let's put the question to those who claim all things move, and ask: do you say everything moves in both ways—both changing place and altering—or does part of it move in both ways, and part in only one? THEODORUS: Well, by Zeus, I can't say—but I think they'd say both ways. SOCRATES: Because otherwise, my friend, things will appear to them both moving and standing still, and it will be no more correct to say that all things move than to say they stand still. THEODORUS: Very true.
SOCRATES: So since these things must move, and not-moving belongs to none of them, everything is always moving in every kind of motion. THEODORUS: It must be so. SOCRATES: Now look at this point with me. When we spoke of the coming-to-be of heat, or whiteness, or anything else, didn't we say something like this — that each of these travels, together with perception, in between the agent and the patient, and the patient becomes something that has the capacity to perceive, but is not yet a perception, while the agent becomes something of a certain quality, but is not yet a quality itself? Perhaps 'quality' sounds like a strange word all at once, and you don't follow it stated in one lump — so let me put it piece by piece. The agent is neither heat nor whiteness, but it becomes hot, or white, and so on with the rest. You'll remember from before that we said nothing is one thing by itself — not even the agent or the patient — but out of the two of them coming together with each other, perceptions and perceived things are born, the one becoming somehow qualified, the other becoming a perceiver. THEODORUS: I remember — of course. SOCRATES: Well then, let's leave the rest aside — whether they put it this way or that — and hold onto only the point for which we're saying this, and ask: are all things in motion and flux, as you people say? Isn't that so? THEODORUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And in both the kinds of motion we distinguished — moving-in-place and altering? THEODORUS: Of course — if it's really going to be complete motion. SOCRATES: Now if things merely moved in place without altering, we could say what sort of things these moving things are as they flow — or how else would we put it? THEODORUS: Just so. SOCRATES: But since not even this stays put — that the white thing flowing is white — but it changes, so that there is a flow of this very thing, whiteness, and a change into another color, so that it can never be caught staying put in that respect — can one ever call any color by name in a way that names it correctly? THEODORUS: How could one, Socrates? Or name anything else of that sort, if it's always slipping away as one speaks, being in flux as it is? SOCRATES: And what shall we say about any perception whatsoever — seeing, say, or hearing? Does it ever stay put in the very act of seeing or hearing? THEODORUS: It shouldn't, at least, if everything is in motion. SOCRATES: Then we shouldn't call it seeing any more than not-seeing, nor any other perception any more than not — given that everything, in every way, is in motion. THEODORUS: No, we shouldn't. SOCRATES: And yet perception is knowledge, as Theaetetus and I said. THEODORUS: That's what we said. SOCRATES: So when we were asked what knowledge is, we answered with something no more knowledge than not-knowledge.
THEODORUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: It would be a fine correction to our answer, after all our eagerness to prove that everything moves, just so that answer would turn out right! But instead, it seems, what's come to light is that, if everything moves, every answer, on whatever subject one answers, is equally correct — one can say it is so, and equally that it is not so, or, if you like, that it comes to be so, so as not to pin the movers down with our own words. THEODORUS: You're right. SOCRATES: Except, Theodorus, that I said 'so' and 'not so.' But one oughtn't even say 'so' — for then it would no longer be moving, this 'so' — nor 'not so' either, for that isn't motion. Rather, the people who hold this theory need to establish some other kind of language, since as things stand they have no words to fit their own position — unless perhaps 'not even so' suits them best, said without limit. THEODORUS: That's certainly the dialect most natural to them. SOCRATES: Well then, Theodorus, we're rid of your friend, and we're still not conceding to him that every man is the measure of all things, unless he's a man of good sense; nor will we concede that knowledge is perception — at least not by the method that has everything in motion — unless our friend Theaetetus has some other way of putting it. THEODORUS: Excellently said, Socrates — for once this business is settled, I too was supposed to be released from answering you, according to our agreement, once the argument about Protagoras reached its end. THEAETETUS: Not before, Theodorus, you and Socrates have gone through those who claim, on the contrary, that the whole stands still, just as you proposed a moment ago. THEODORUS: Young as you are, Theaetetus, are you teaching your elders to do wrong by breaking their agreements? Get ready instead to give Socrates an account of what's left. THEAETETUS: Yes, if he's willing. But I'd love nothing better than to hear about the things I'm asking about. THEODORUS: You're calling Socrates to a cavalry battle on open ground by inviting him into this discussion. Ask your questions, then, and you'll hear. SOCRATES: But I don't think, Theodorus, that on the matters Theaetetus is urging I'll do as he asks. THEODORUS: Why won't you?
SOCRATES: Melissus and the others who say the whole is one and at rest — I'm not too embarrassed to examine them, for fear of seeming crude, less embarrassed than I am about one man alone, Parmenides. Parmenides seems to me, in Homer's phrase, both an object of reverence and one to be feared. I met the man when I was quite young and he quite old, and he struck me as having a depth that was altogether noble. So I'm afraid we may not even grasp what was said, and fall far short of what he meant when he said it — and, worst of all, that the very question for whose sake the argument was set going — what knowledge actually is — may go unexamined, buried under all the arguments crashing in on us uninvited, if we let ourselves be swept along by them. Especially since the question we're now stirring up is itself immense — if one treats it as a side issue, it will get unworthy treatment, and if one treats it properly, being drawn out at length, it will bury the question of knowledge out of sight. Neither should happen. Instead we should try, using our art of midwifery, to deliver Theaetetus of what he's carrying about knowledge. THEODORUS: Well, if that's your judgment, that's what we should do. SOCRATES: Now then, Theaetetus, consider this further point about what's been said. You answered that knowledge is perception — right? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if someone asked you this: 'By what does a person see white and black things, and by what does he hear high and low sounds?' you'd say, I imagine, 'By the eyes and the ears.' THEAETETUS: I would. SOCRATES: Being easy about words and phrases, and not scrutinizing them too closely, is usually not a mark of bad breeding — quite the opposite is rather ungenerous — but sometimes it's necessary, and this is one of those times when we have to take hold of the answer you gave, insofar as it isn't right. Consider: which answer is more correct — that the eyes are that by which we see, or that through which we see; and that the ears are that by which we hear, or that through which we hear? THEAETETUS: I think it's more correct to say we perceive through them rather than by them, Socrates. SOCRATES: Yes, for it would be strange, my boy, if a number of perceptions were sitting inside us as if in wooden horses, rather than all of them converging on some single form — call it soul, or whatever one should call it — by which, through these as instruments, so to speak, we perceive whatever is perceivable. THEAETETUS: Yes, that seems more likely to me than the other way. SOCRATES: The reason I'm being so precise about this is to find out whether it's by some one and the same thing in us that we reach whites and blacks through the eyes, and other things again through the other senses, and whether, if asked, you'll be able to refer all such cases back to the body. But perhaps it's better for you to answer and say these things yourself, rather than have me busy myself on your behalf. Tell me: hot and hard and light and sweet things, which you perceive through the body — don't you assign each of them to the body? Or to something else? THEAETETUS: To nothing else.
SOCRATES: And will you also be willing to agree that what you perceive through one faculty, it's impossible to perceive through another — what you perceive through hearing, say, through sight, or what you perceive through sight, through hearing? THEAETETUS: Of course I'll agree to that. SOCRATES: So if you have some thought about both of them together, you couldn't be perceiving something common to both through either one of the two organs alone. THEAETETUS: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Now take sound and color. First, do you think this very thing about both of them — that they both exist? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: And also that each is different from the other, but the same as itself? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And that the two together are two, and each one is one? THEAETETUS: That too. SOCRATES: And are you also able to consider whether the two are unlike each other or alike? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Now through what do you think all these things about the pair? Neither through hearing nor through sight can one grasp what's common to them. Here's further evidence for what we're saying: if it were possible to examine whether the two of them are salty or not, you know you'd be able to say by what you'd examine it, and it plainly isn't sight or hearing, but something else. THEAETETUS: Of course — the power that works through the tongue. SOCRATES: Well put. But through what does the power work that reveals to you what's common to all things, including these — the very thing you're naming when you say 'is' and 'is not,' and the other things we were just now asking about them? What organs will you assign for all these, through which the perceiving part of us perceives each of them? THEAETETUS: You mean being and not-being, and likeness and unlikeness, and sameness and difference, and also oneness and numbers in general as applied to them. And clearly you're also asking through what bodily organ we perceive, with the soul, even and odd, and everything else that goes along with these. SOCRATES: You're following superbly, Theaetetus, and these are exactly the things I'm asking about. THEAETETUS: But by Zeus, Socrates, I couldn't say — except that it seems to me there's no special organ at all for these, the way there is for those other things; rather the soul itself, through itself, seems to me to survey what's common to everything. SOCRATES: You're a handsome man, Theaetetus, and not, as Theodorus said, ugly — for whoever speaks handsomely is both handsome and good. And besides being handsome, you've done me a great favor by freeing me from a very long argument, if it appears to you that the soul examines some things by itself, through itself, and others through the powers of the body. For that was exactly what I myself thought, and I wanted you to think it too.
THEAETETUS: Well, it certainly does appear that way. SOCRATES: To which class, then, do you assign being? For that above all attaches to everything. THEAETETUS: I'd put it among the things the soul itself reaches for by itself. SOCRATES: And likeness too, and unlikeness, and sameness and difference? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: What about the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad? THEAETETUS: These too, it seems to me, are among the things whose being the soul examines most of all by comparing them with each other, reckoning within itself things past and present against things to come. SOCRATES: Hold on. Won't it perceive the hardness of something hard through touch, and likewise the softness of something soft? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But their being, and that they both exist, and their opposition to each other, and again the being of that opposition — these the soul itself tries to determine for us by going back over them and comparing them with one another. THEAETETUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So some things are there for humans and animals alike to perceive by nature, the moment they're born — whatever experiences reach the soul through the body — while the reckonings about these, concerning their being and their usefulness, come only with difficulty and over time, through much trouble and education, to those to whom they come at all? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Is it possible, then, to attain truth where one doesn't even attain being? THEAETETUS: Impossible. SOCRATES: And will someone who misses the truth of a thing ever have knowledge of it? THEAETETUS: How could he, Socrates? SOCRATES: Then knowledge lies not in the experiences themselves, but in the reasoning about them — for it's there, it seems, that one can grasp being and truth, but not there, in the experiences. THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Do you really call those two the same thing, then, when they differ so greatly? THEAETETUS: That certainly wouldn't be right. SOCRATES: Then what name do you give to the other one — seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling cold, feeling hot? THEAETETUS: Perceiving — what else would I call it? SOCRATES: So you call the whole of it, together, perception? THEAETETUS: It must be so. SOCRATES: Something, we're saying, that has no share in reaching truth — since it has none in reaching being. THEAETETUS: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: Nor, then, in knowledge. THEAETETUS: No. SOCRATES: Then perception and knowledge, Theaetetus, could never be the same thing. THEAETETUS: It doesn't look like it, Socrates. And now, more than ever, it's become perfectly clear that knowledge is something other than perception.
SOCRATES: But surely this was never the point of our conversation—to find what knowledge is not, but what it is. Still, we've made this much progress: we no longer look for it in perception at all, but in whatever it is the soul is called when it goes to work by itself on the things that are. THEAETETUS: But surely that's called forming a judgment, Socrates, or so I think. SOCRATES: You think rightly, my friend. Now look again from the beginning, wiping away everything said before, and see whether you can see more clearly now that you've come this far. Tell me again what knowledge is. THEAETETUS: It's impossible to say it's judgment in general, Socrates, since judgment can also be false. But true judgment is probably knowledge, and let that be my answer. If it doesn't hold up as we go further, as it's holding up right now, we'll try to say something else. SOCRATES: That's the spirit, Theaetetus—better to answer boldly than to hesitate the way you did at first. If we go on like this, one of two things will happen: either we'll find what we're after, or we'll be less inclined to think we know what we don't know at all—and that would be no shabby reward. So tell me now: there being two kinds of judgment, one true and the other false, do you define knowledge as the true judgment? THEAETETUS: I do—that's how it looks to me now. SOCRATES: Then is it still worth going back over judgment— THEAETETUS: Which part do you mean? SOCRATES: Something has been troubling me, now and many times before, so that I've been at a total loss with myself and with others, unable to say what this experience is in us and how it comes about. THEAETETUS: Which experience? SOCRATES: Judging something falsely. I'm looking at it right now, still uncertain whether we should leave it be or examine it some other way than we just did. THEAETETUS: Why not, Socrates, if it really seems necessary? Just now you and Theodorus were saying, quite rightly, that in matters like these there's no need to rush. SOCRATES: A fair reminder—perhaps it isn't a bad time to pick up the trail again. Better to finish a small thing well than a large one inadequately. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, what exactly are we saying? We say that judgment is sometimes false, and that one of us judges falsely while another judges truly, as though that were simply how things are by nature? THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what we say.
SOCRATES: Now isn't this true for us about everything, taken one by one: either we know it or we don't know it? I'll set aside learning and forgetting as things that happen in between—they're irrelevant to our argument right now. THEAETETUS: But surely, Socrates, nothing else is left concerning any given thing except knowing it or not knowing it. SOCRATES: Then isn't it already necessary that anyone who judges is judging about something he either knows or doesn't know? THEAETETUS: Necessary. SOCRATES: And it's impossible for someone who knows a thing not to know that very thing, or for someone who doesn't know it to know it. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So does the person who judges falsely take things he knows and think they're not those things but some other things he knows—so that, knowing both, he's somehow ignorant of both at once? THEAETETUS: That's impossible, Socrates. SOCRATES: But perhaps he takes things he doesn't know to be other things he doesn't know—so that someone who knows neither Theaetetus nor Socrates could get it into his head that Socrates is Theaetetus, or Theaetetus is Socrates? THEAETETUS: How could he? SOCRATES: But surely no one takes things he knows to be things he doesn't know, nor things he doesn't know to be things he does know. THEAETETUS: That would be a monstrosity. SOCRATES: Then how could anyone still judge falsely? Outside these possibilities there's no way to judge at all, since everything falls under either knowing or not knowing, and within these it appears nowhere possible to judge falsely. THEAETETUS: Very true. SOCRATES: So shouldn't we look at what we're after not in terms of knowing and not knowing, but in terms of being and not being? THEAETETUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Maybe it's simply this: whoever judges what is not, about anything at all, cannot help but judge falsely, whatever state his mind happens to be in otherwise. THEAETETUS: That sounds likely too, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then—what shall we say, Theaetetus, if someone presses us on this: is it possible for anyone, and will any human being ever judge what is not, whether about something that is or all by itself? And it seems we'll answer: yes, whenever he believes something untrue while believing it. Or how shall we put it? THEAETETUS: That way. SOCRATES: Does the same sort of thing happen anywhere else? THEAETETUS: Which sort? SOCRATES: If someone sees something, but sees nothing. THEAETETUS: How could that be? SOCRATES: But surely if he sees some one thing, he sees something that is. Or do you think the number one can ever belong among things that are not? THEAETETUS: I don't. SOCRATES: So whoever sees some one thing sees something that is. THEAETETUS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: And whoever hears something hears some one thing, and hears something that is. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And whoever touches something touches some one thing, and something that is, if indeed it's one thing? THEAETETUS: That too. SOCRATES: And doesn't whoever judges, judge some one thing? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And whoever judges some one thing judges something that is? THEAETETUS: I grant it. SOCRATES: So whoever judges what is not judges nothing. THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: But surely whoever judges nothing isn't judging at all. THEAETETUS: That seems clear. SOCRATES: Then it's not possible to judge what is not, either about things that are or all by itself. THEAETETUS: It doesn't appear so. SOCRATES: Then judging falsely must be something different from judging things that are not. THEAETETUS: It seems different. SOCRATES: So neither this way nor the way we examined it a little earlier is false judgment present in us. THEAETETUS: No, it isn't. SOCRATES: But is this perhaps what we mean when we name it? THEAETETUS: How so? SOCRATES: We say false judgment is a kind of cross-judging—when someone, exchanging one thing that is for another thing that is, declares in his mind that it is that other thing. In this way he always judges something that is, but one thing instead of another, and since he misses the very thing he was aiming at, he could rightly be called someone judging falsely. THEAETETUS: Now you seem to me to have put it exactly right. When someone judges the ugly to be beautiful, or the beautiful to be ugly, that's truly judging falsely. SOCRATES: Clearly, Theaetetus, you're feeling bold with me rather than cautious. THEAETETUS: Why do you say that? SOCRATES: I don't think you'd let me get hold of true falsehood, if I asked whether it's possible for something quick to become slow, or something light to become heavy, in accordance with the nature of its opposite rather than its own—becoming, that is, the opposite of itself. Well, I'll let that go, so you don't get bold for nothing. But do you stand by this: that judging falsely is cross-judging? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: So on your view it's possible to set one thing down in the mind as another, and not as that very thing itself. THEAETETUS: It is indeed. SOCRATES: Then whenever someone's mind does this, isn't it necessary that it's thinking of both things, or one of them? THEAETETUS: Necessary—either both together, or one at a time. SOCRATES: Excellent. And do you mean by "thinking" what I mean? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by it?
SOCRATES: A discourse the soul carries on with itself about whatever it's examining. I'm telling you this as someone who doesn't really know, mind you. But this is how it appears to me: when the soul thinks, it's doing nothing but conversing—asking itself questions and answering them, affirming and denying. And when it has settled the matter, whether slowly or in a quick leap, and says the same thing at last without wavering, that's what we call its judgment. So for my part I call judging speaking, and judgment speech that has been spoken—not aloud to someone else, but silently to oneself. What about you? THEAETETUS: I agree. SOCRATES: So whenever someone judges one thing to be another, he's saying to himself, it seems, that the one thing is the other. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Try to recall, then, whether you've ever said to yourself that the beautiful is, in fact, ugly, or the unjust just. Or, to put the whole matter in one question: consider whether you've ever tried to convince yourself that one thing simply is another—or, on the contrary, whether even in a dream you've ever dared to say to yourself that odd numbers are, without qualification, even, or anything of that sort. THEAETETUS: What you say is true. SOCRATES: And do you think anyone else, sane or mad, would ever dare to tell himself in earnest, trying to persuade himself, that an ox must be a horse, or that two must be one? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: So if speaking to oneself is judging, then no one who says both things and judges both, grasping both in his soul, would say and judge that the one is the other. And you too must let go of that phrase "the other"—I mean by it that no one judges the ugly to be beautiful, or anything of that kind. THEAETETUS: Well, Socrates, I do let it go, and I think you're right. SOCRATES: Then someone thinking of both things at once can't possibly judge the one to be the other. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: But then again, someone thinking only of the one and not at all of the other will never judge the one to be the other either. THEAETETUS: True—for that would require him to grasp even what he isn't thinking of. SOCRATES: So neither thinking of both nor thinking of one alone leaves room for cross-judging. So if anyone means by false judgment this cross-judging, he's saying nothing—for false judgment turns out to be present in us neither this way nor in the way we examined before. THEAETETUS: It doesn't seem so. SOCRATES: And yet, Theaetetus, if this turns out not to exist, we'll be forced to admit a great many strange things. THEAETETUS: Such as what?
SOCRATES: I won't tell you until I've tried looking at it from every angle. I'd be ashamed on our behalf if, stuck as we are, we were forced to admit the sorts of things I have in mind. But if we find a way through and get free, then we can speak about others caught in that predicament, standing clear of the absurdity ourselves. But if we're stuck everywhere, then, humbled, I suppose we'll hand ourselves over to the argument to be trampled and used however it likes, the way seasick men are. So listen to how I still see a possible path through this inquiry. THEAETETUS: Just tell me. SOCRATES: I'll say we were wrong to agree, when we agreed that it's impossible for someone to judge things he doesn't know to be the very things he does know, and so be deceived. It's actually possible in a way. THEAETETUS: Do you mean what I suspected myself back when we first said it was like that—that sometimes I, knowing Socrates, but seeing someone else at a distance whom I don't know, thought he was the Socrates I know? Something like what you're describing does happen. SOCRATES: And didn't we back away from that idea because it made us, who knew things, not know them? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Then let's not set it up that way, but this way—maybe it will agree with us on some point, maybe it will resist. But we're caught in a place where we must test the argument by turning it every way. So see whether there's anything in this: is it possible for someone who doesn't yet know a thing to come to learn it later? THEAETETUS: It is indeed. SOCRATES: And again, one thing after another? THEAETETUS: Why not? SOCRATES: Now suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there's a block of wax lodged in our souls—larger in one person, smaller in another, of purer wax in one, dirtier in another, harder in some, softer in others, and in some of just the right consistency. THEAETETUS: I'll suppose it. SOCRATES: Let's say it's a gift from Memory, mother of the Muses, and that whenever we want to remember something we've seen or heard or thought up ourselves, we hold this wax under our perceptions and thoughts and stamp them into it, the way we press the design of a signet ring. And whatever gets stamped, we remember and know as long as the image remains in it; but whatever gets wiped away, or can't be stamped in the first place, we've forgotten and don't know. THEAETETUS: Let it be so. SOCRATES: Now take someone who knows these things but is looking at something he sees or hears, and consider whether he might judge falsely in some such way as this. THEAETETUS: In what way, exactly? SOCRATES: By thinking that things he knows are, at one moment, things he knows, and at another, things he doesn't know. For we were wrong earlier to agree that this was impossible. THEAETETUS: And how do you put it now?
SOCRATES: We need to state the whole thing from the beginning by drawing distinctions: it's impossible for someone to take something he knows -- holding a record of it in his soul, but not perceiving it -- and believe it to be something else he knows, something for which he also holds an imprint, but which he isn't perceiving either. And again, it's impossible to believe that something he knows is something he doesn't know and has no seal of at all -- or that something he doesn't know is something else he doesn't know -- or that something he doesn't know is something he does know. And it's impossible to believe that something he's perceiving is something else he's perceiving; or that something he's perceiving is one of the things he isn't perceiving; or that something he isn't perceiving is one of the things he isn't perceiving; or that something he isn't perceiving is something he is perceiving. And further still -- and this is even more impossible than those, if that's even possible -- to believe that something he both knows and perceives, and for which he holds the mark that matches the perception, is something else that he also knows and perceives and for which he also holds a matching mark. And when someone holds the record correctly for both what he knows and what he perceives, it's impossible for him to believe that what he knows is something he perceives in a way that doesn't match; and it's impossible that what he doesn't know and doesn't perceive is what he doesn't know and doesn't perceive; and impossible that what he neither knows nor perceives is what he doesn't know; and impossible that what he neither knows nor perceives is what he doesn't perceive. All these cases are beyond the reach of anyone forming a false belief within them. So what's left is that if false belief can arise anywhere, it's among cases of this last sort. THEAETETUS: Which sort? Maybe I'll understand better if you give me an example -- right now I'm not following. SOCRATES: Among things a person knows, he believes them to be some other things that he knows and perceives; or things he doesn't know, but perceives; or, among things he knows and perceives, that they're other things he also knows and perceives. THEAETETUS: Now I'm even further behind than before. SOCRATES: Then listen to it the other way around. I know Theodorus, and I have a memory in myself of what he's like, and the same with Theaetetus. Now, don't I sometimes see them and sometimes not, sometimes touch them and sometimes not, sometimes hear them or otherwise perceive them, and at other times have no perception of you two at all, yet remember you no less and know you within myself? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So here's the first thing I want you to grasp from what I'm saying: it's possible not to be perceiving something one knows, and it's also possible to be perceiving it. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: And with things one doesn't know, isn't it often possible neither to perceive them, and often possible only to perceive them? THEAETETUS: That's possible too.
SOCRATES: Now see if you follow a bit better now. Suppose Socrates knows Theodorus and Theaetetus, but sees neither of them, and has no other perception of them present to him -- he could never form the inner belief that Theaetetus is Theodorus. Am I saying something, or nothing? THEAETETUS: Yes, something true. SOCRATES: Well, that was the first of the cases I mentioned. THEAETETUS: It was. SOCRATES: Second, then: knowing one of you but not the other, and perceiving neither, I could never believe that the one I know is the one I don't know. THEAETETUS: Right. SOCRATES: And third: knowing neither of you and perceiving neither, I couldn't believe that the one I don't know is some other one I don't know. And take it that you've heard again, in order, all the earlier cases -- in none of them will I ever form a false belief about you and Theodorus, whether I know both of you or am ignorant of both, or know one and not the other; and the same holds for perceptions, if you're following. THEAETETUS: I'm following. SOCRATES: So what's left is for false belief to occur in this case: when I know both you and Theodorus, and hold, in that block of wax, the marks of both of you like the impressions of signet rings, but seeing you both from far off and not clearly enough, I try to assign each mark to its proper appearance, fitting it into its own track so that recognition happens -- and then I miss, and, like people putting shoes on the wrong feet, I cross the marks and apply each person's appearance to the mark that belongs to the other; or the way sight behaves in mirrors, when right flows over to left, I suffer the same sort of thing and go wrong. It's then that the crossing of beliefs happens, and false believing. THEAETETUS: Yes, it does seem so, Socrates. It's remarkable how you describe what happens with belief. SOCRATES: And further, when I know both of you, and I'm perceiving one of you along with knowing him, but not the other, and my knowledge of that other one doesn't match his perception -- this is what I meant earlier, and you didn't follow me then. THEAETETUS: No, I didn't. SOCRATES: What I meant was this: when I know one of you and perceive him, and my knowledge of him matches the perception, I'll never believe he's some other person whom I both know and perceive, and for whom my knowledge in turn matches the perception. Wasn't that it? THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: What was left out, though, is the case we're speaking of now -- the one where we say false belief arises: knowing both and seeing both, or having some other perception of both, but not holding each mark matched to its own perception -- rather like an unskilled archer who lets fly and misses the mark wide, going astray. And that, indeed, is exactly what has been named falsehood. THEAETETUS: With good reason. SOCRATES: And also when perception of the marks is present to one of them but not the other, and the mind fits the missing perception onto the one that's present -- in every such case the mind goes false. In short, about things a person neither knows nor has ever perceived, it seems there can be no falsehood and no false belief at all, if what we're saying now is sound; but about things we do know and perceive, it's right there, in those very things, that belief turns and twists, becoming false or true -- true when it draws together the matching impressions and imprints straight on and directly, false when it goes off at a slant, askew. THEAETETUS: Isn't that well put, Socrates? SOCRATES: You'll say so even more once you hear this too. Believing what's true is admirable, and being deceived is shameful. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Well, they say this is where it comes from. When the wax in someone's soul is deep and plentiful and smooth and worked to just the right softness, then the things that come in through the senses, stamped onto this heart of the soul -- as Homer called it, hinting at its likeness to wax -- leave marks in it that are clear and have enough depth, so they last a long time. People like this are, first of all, quick learners, and then retentive; they don't shuffle the marks of their perceptions around, but form true beliefs. Since the marks are distinct and set out with plenty of room, such people quickly sort each one onto its own stamp -- the things we call the things that are -- and they're the ones called wise. Or don't you agree? THEAETETUS: Enormously so. SOCRATES: But when someone's heart is shaggy -- the very thing that all-wise poet praised -- or when the wax is impure and full of grime, or too moist or too hard, then those with moist wax are quick to learn but forgetful, while those with hard wax are the opposite. And those whose hearts are shaggy and rough, full of stony grit or clay or dung mixed in, get blurred impressions.
SOCRATES: Blurred too are those whose wax is hard, since there's no depth to it; and blurred also are those whose wax is moist, since the marks quickly run together and become faint. And if, on top of all this, the marks are piled on top of one another for lack of room, because someone's little soul is cramped, they're even more blurred than the others. All these people are the sort prone to false belief. For when they see or hear or think of something, they can't quickly assign each thing to its proper place; they're slow, and they misappropriate what belongs to others, and they see wrong, hear wrong, and think wrong about a great many things -- and these people, in turn, are called mistaken about the things that are, and ignorant. THEAETETUS: What you say couldn't be more right, Socrates. SOCRATES: So should we say that false beliefs exist in us? THEAETETUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And true ones too? THEAETETUS: True ones too. SOCRATES: So now we think we've adequately agreed that both these kinds of belief certainly exist? THEAETETUS: Overwhelmingly so. SOCRATES: It really is a fearsome and unpleasant thing, Theaetetus, to be a man who talks too much, so it seems. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Why say that? SOCRATES: I'm annoyed at my own slowness to learn, and, frankly, at my own long-windedness. What else would one call it, when a person drags arguments up and down because he's too sluggish to be persuaded, and can't tear himself away from any single argument? THEAETETUS: But why are you annoyed? SOCRATES: I'm not just annoyed -- I'm afraid of what I'll answer if someone asks me: 'So, Socrates, have you discovered false belief? That it exists neither within the perceptions in relation to each other, nor within the thoughts, but in the joining of perception to thought?' And I imagine I'll say yes, preening myself as if we'd discovered something fine. THEAETETUS: It seems to me, Socrates, that what's just been shown isn't shameful at all. SOCRATES: 'So,' he'll say, 'you mean that a person, thinking only of a man -- not seeing him -- would never believe him to be a horse, something he neither sees nor touches, but only thinks of, with no other perception of it at all?' I think that's what I'll say he means. THEAETETUS: And rightly so. SOCRATES: 'Well then,' he'll say, 'take the number eleven, when someone is merely thinking of it and nothing else -- couldn't he, by this same argument, believe that it's twelve, when twelve too is something he's only thinking of?' Come now, you answer. THEAETETUS: Well, I'll answer that someone who's seeing or touching eleven things might believe they're twelve, but as for the eleven he holds purely in thought, he could never form that belief about them.
SOCRATES: Well then -- do you think anyone has ever, within himself, taken five and seven -- and I don't mean setting out seven men and five men to consider, or anything like that, but five itself and seven itself, the very things we say are recorded as imprints in that wax block, things about which we say false belief is impossible -- has anyone among men ever actually examined these very things, asking himself how many they come to, and has one person said, believing them to be eleven, while another said twelve -- or do all people alike say and believe they come to twelve? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus -- plenty of people say eleven. And if you take a larger number to examine, the error is even more likely. I take it you mean this to apply to any number whatsoever. SOCRATES: You're right to take it that way. And consider whether what happens then is anything other than believing that the very twelve in the wax block is eleven. THEAETETUS: It does seem so. SOCRATES: So doesn't this bring us back again to our earlier arguments? Whoever undergoes this takes something he knows to be some other thing that he in turn knows -- which we said was impossible, and it was precisely on this basis that we were forcing false belief not to exist, so that the same person wouldn't be compelled at once to know and not know the same things. THEAETETUS: Very true. SOCRATES: So we have to show that believing falsely is something other than a mismatch between thought and perception. For if that's what it were, we'd never be deceived within our thoughts themselves. But as things stand, either there's no such thing as false belief, or it's possible to not know something one knows. Which of these do you choose? THEAETETUS: You're offering me an impossible choice, Socrates. SOCRATES: And yet the argument does seem likely to rule out both at once. Still -- since we must be bold about everything -- what if we tried being shameless? THEAETETUS: How so? SOCRATES: By being willing to say what sort of thing knowing actually is. THEAETETUS: And what's shameless about that? SOCRATES: You don't seem to realize that this whole discussion of ours, from the start, has been a search for knowledge, on the grounds that we don't know what it is. THEAETETUS: I do realize it. SOCRATES: Then doesn't it seem shameless to declare what knowing is like when we don't yet know what knowledge is? But the truth is, Theaetetus, we've long since been thoroughly unable to converse in a clean way. Countless times we've said 'we recognize' and 'we don't recognize,' 'we know' and 'we don't know,' as if we understood each other while we're still ignorant of knowledge itself; and even now, if you like, in what we've just said, we've again made use of 'being ignorant' and 'understanding,' as if it were proper to use these words while we're deprived of knowledge. THEAETETUS: But then how will you carry on the discussion, Socrates, avoiding those words?
SOCRATES: No one, being who I am—though if that man skilled in refutation were here now, he'd say to steer clear of talk like this, and he'd scold us sharply for what I'm about to say. But since we're only ordinary men, do you want me to be bold and say what understanding is? It seems to me it might get us somewhere. THEAETETUS: Be bold then, by Zeus. You'll be forgiven plenty for not steering clear of it. SOCRATES: Have you heard what people nowadays say understanding is? THEAETETUS: Maybe—but I don't recall it just now. SOCRATES: They say it's a having of knowledge, I believe. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: Let's shift the wording slightly, then, and say it's a possessing of knowledge. THEAETETUS: How would you say that differs from the other? SOCRATES: Maybe not at all—but hear what I think and judge along with me. THEAETETUS: As long as I'm able to. SOCRATES: Well, having doesn't seem to me the same thing as possessing. Take a cloak: if someone buys one and has it in his power but isn't wearing it, we'd say he doesn't have it, though we'd say he possesses it. THEAETETUS: Rightly put. SOCRATES: Now consider whether it's possible to possess knowledge in that way without having it—say, if a man caught wild birds, doves or something else, and built himself a dovecote at home to keep them in. We might say he has them in a sense at all times, since he's got them. Right? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But in another sense he has none of them at all—rather, a power over them has come to be his, now that he's brought them under his control inside an enclosure of his own: the power to take hold of and grasp any one he wants, whenever he wants, catching whichever he chooses, and to let it go again, and to do this as often as he likes. THEAETETUS: That's so. SOCRATES: Once more, then, just as before we built some sort of waxen thing—whatever that odd device was—in people's souls, let's now make in each soul a kind of dovecote holding birds of every kind: some in flocks apart from the rest, some in small groups, others alone here and there, flying about the whole space however they happen to. THEAETETUS: All right, it's made. What comes next? SOCRATES: We should say that while we're children this container is empty, and instead of birds, think of pieces of knowledge; and whenever a man gets hold of some piece of knowledge and shuts it up inside the enclosure, we say he's learned or discovered the thing that knowledge is of—and that this is what understanding is. THEAETETUS: Let's grant it.
SOCRATES: Now consider what words are needed for going back and catching whichever piece of knowledge he wants, taking hold of it and having it, and then letting it go again—whether the same words as when he first acquired it, or different ones. You'll see more clearly what I mean from this: you speak of an art of arithmetic? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Take that to be a hunt for pieces of knowledge of everything even and odd. THEAETETUS: I take it so. SOCRATES: By means of this art, I think, a man both has the pieces of knowledge of numbers under his own control and hands them over to another when he teaches. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And we call the one handing them over a teacher, the one receiving them a learner, and the one who has them by possessing them in that dovecote, one who understands. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Now pay attention to what follows from this. A man who's a complete arithmetician—does he understand all numbers in some other sense? For he has within his soul pieces of knowledge of all numbers. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Could such a man, then, ever count anything—either the numbers themselves to himself, or some external thing that has a number? THEAETETUS: Of course he could. SOCRATES: But we'll take counting to be nothing other than examining how great some given number happens to be. THEAETETUS: That's so. SOCRATES: So it turns out that what he understands, he appears, in examining it, not to know—this very thing we agreed he knows as every number there is. You've heard such puzzles raised, I suppose. THEAETETUS: I have. SOCRATES: Well then, drawing our comparison from the acquiring and hunting of doves, we'll say the hunt was of two kinds: one before possessing them, for the sake of possessing them; the other, once possessed, for the sake of taking hold of and having in one's hands what one had possessed all along. In the same way, things a man already had pieces of knowledge of long ago, and knew, can be learned over again by taking up and grasping the knowledge of each of them anew—knowledge he'd possessed for a long time but didn't have ready at hand in his mind. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: This is just what I was asking a moment ago—what words one ought to use in speaking of these things, when the arithmetician sets out to count, or the grammarian to read something: does he, though he understands, go again as one who will learn from himself what he already understands? THEAETETUS: But that's absurd, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Well then, shall we say instead that he'll read and count things he doesn't understand, granting that he understands every letter and every number? THEAETETUS: But that too is unreasonable. SOCRATES: Do you want us to say, then, that we don't care at all about the words—whichever way someone likes to stretch 'understand' and 'learn'—but since we've drawn a distinction between possessing knowledge and having it, we say it's impossible not to possess what one has acquired, so that it never happens that a man doesn't know what he knows, though it is possible for him to get a false judgment about it? THEAETETUS: SOCRATES: For it's possible for him not to have that piece of knowledge, but another instead of it—whenever, in hunting for some piece of knowledge among those flying about, he misses and grabs one instead of another, and then he thinks eleven is twelve, having taken hold of the knowledge of eleven instead of that of twelve, the one inside himself, as it were a wood-pigeon instead of a dove. THEAETETUS: Well, that makes sense. SOCRATES: But when he grabs the one he's trying to grab, then he isn't deceived and judges the things that are, and so there is both true and false judgment, and none of the things that troubled us before stands in the way any longer? Perhaps you'll agree with me—or how will you take it? THEAETETUS: That way. SOCRATES: Yes, for we've gotten rid of the problem of a man not understanding what he understands—since it no longer happens anywhere that we fail to possess what we've possessed, whether we've been deceived about something or not. Still, another and more troubling difficulty seems to me to be showing itself. THEAETETUS: Which one? SOCRATES: If the exchange of pieces of knowledge for one another should ever turn out to be a false judgment. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: First, that a man who has knowledge of something should be ignorant of that very thing—not through lack of understanding, but by means of his own knowledge; and then that he should judge this thing to be that other thing, and that other thing to be this one—isn't it a great absurdity that, when knowledge is present, the soul should know nothing and be ignorant of everything? By this reasoning nothing prevents ignorance, when present, from making someone know something, and blindness from making someone see—if indeed knowledge is going to make someone ignorant of something at some point. THEAETETUS: Perhaps, Socrates, we didn't set up the birds well by putting only pieces of knowledge among them—we should also have put pieces of ignorance flying about together with them in the soul, and had the hunter sometimes catching a piece of knowledge, sometimes a piece of ignorance about the same thing, judging falsely by means of the ignorance and truly by means of the knowledge.
SOCRATES: It's not easy, Theaetetus, not to praise you—but look again at what you just said. Let it be as you say: the man who's caught the ignorance, you say, will judge falsely. Right? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But surely he won't also think that he's judging falsely. THEAETETUS: How could he? SOCRATES: No, he'll think he's judging truly, and he'll be disposed as one who knows regarding the very things about which he's been deceived. THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So he'll suppose he has, by his hunting, knowledge—not ignorance. THEAETETUS: Clearly. SOCRATES: So, after going a long way round, we're back again at the very first difficulty. That man skilled in refutation will laugh and say: Best of men, does someone who knows both of them—knowledge and ignorance—suppose that one of them, which he knows, is some other one of the things he knows? Or, knowing neither of them, does he suppose that one thing he doesn't know is some other thing he doesn't know? Or, knowing one but not the other, does he suppose the one he knows is the one he doesn't know? Or the one he doesn't know is the one he knows? Or will you tell me again that of the pieces of knowledge and ignorance there are in turn further pieces of knowledge, which their possessor has shut up in some other ridiculous dovecotes or waxen molds, and understands as long as he possesses them, even if he doesn't have them ready at hand in his soul—and so you'll be forced to run round and round to the very same point, over and over, getting nowhere? What shall we answer to this, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: But, by Zeus, Socrates, I really don't know what to say. SOCRATES: Then is the argument right, my boy, to rebuke us and to show that we're wrong to look for false judgment before understanding, setting the latter aside? It's impossible to know the one until someone has adequately grasped what understanding itself is. THEAETETUS: As things stand, Socrates, one has to think as you say. SOCRATES: Well then, what will someone say understanding is, starting over again from the beginning? For surely we're not going to give up just yet? THEAETETUS: Not at all, unless you yourself give up. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, what could we say it is that would least contradict ourselves? THEAETETUS: What we were trying before, Socrates—I have nothing else to offer. SOCRATES: What was that? THEAETETUS: That true judgment is understanding. Judging truly is surely free of error, and everything that comes of it turns out fine and good.
SOCRATES: The man leading the way across the river, Theaetetus, said he'd show it to us. And if we go on and search this out, maybe the thing itself, in getting in our way, will reveal what we're looking for—whereas if we stand still, nothing will become clear. THEAETETUS: You're right—let's go on and look. SOCRATES: Well, this much at least needs little examination: a whole art shows you that this can't be understanding. THEAETETUS: How so? Which art? SOCRATES: The art of those reckoned greatest in wisdom, the ones called orators and pleaders in the courts. These men, by their own art, persuade people not by teaching them but by making them judge whatever they want them to judge. Or do you think there are teachers so clever that, for people who weren't present to see money being stolen from someone, or some other act of violence, they can teach the truth of what happened well enough in the short time allowed at the water-clock? THEAETETUS: Not at all, I think—only persuade them. SOCRATES: And by persuading, you mean making them judge something? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So whenever jurors are rightly persuaded about matters that can only be known by having seen them, and not otherwise, and in judging these from hearsay they arrive at a true judgment, they've judged without understanding, even if they've been rightly persuaded, granted that they judged well? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But, my friend, if true judgment and understanding were the same thing, not even the finest juror would ever judge rightly without understanding. As it is, it seems the two are different things. THEAETETUS: There's something, Socrates, that I heard someone say once and had forgotten, but I recall it now: he said that true judgment together with an account is understanding, while true judgment without an account falls outside understanding; and things of which there is no account are not objects of understanding—calling them that—while those that have one are objects of understanding. SOCRATES: Well said. But tell me how he divided up these objects of understanding, and those that aren't, so we can see whether you and I have heard the same account. THEAETETUS: But I'm not sure I can work it out—though if someone else told it, I think I could follow along. SOCRATES: Listen, then, to a dream in exchange for a dream. I too seemed to hear from certain people that the primary things, so to speak—elements out of which we and everything else are composed—admit of no account.
SOCRATES: Each thing by itself, on this view, could only be named — nothing further could be said of it, neither that it is nor that it is not. To say that would already be to attach being or non-being to it, and nothing at all must be added, if one is going to speak of that thing alone. Indeed not even the words "itself," "that," "each," "alone," or "this" may be added, nor many other such words — for these go running around attaching themselves to everything, and are different from the things to which they are attached. Whereas if it were possible to state the thing itself, and it had an account proper to it, it would have to be stated apart from all the others. But as things stand it is impossible for any of the primary elements to be expressed in an account at all — for it has nothing but a name; that is all it has. But the things composed out of these elements — just as the elements themselves are woven together, so their names, woven together, become a statement. For the essence of a statement, on this view, is the weaving-together of names. So it turns out that the elements are without account and unknowable, though perceivable, while the syllables are knowable and expressible and can be grasped by true judgment. So then, when someone grasps the true judgment about something without an account, his soul is in a state of truth about it, but he does not know it — for whoever cannot give and receive an account of a thing has no knowledge of it. But once he has acquired an account, he becomes capable of all this and is fully equipped for knowledge. Is this the dream as you heard it, or something else? THEAETETUS: Exactly this, in every respect. SOCRATES: Are you satisfied, then, and do you hold to this, that knowledge is true judgment joined with an account? THEAETETUS: I certainly am. SOCRATES: Can it be, Theaetetus, that today, on this very day, we have laid hold of something that many wise men before us went gray searching for and never found? THEAETETUS: At any rate it seems to me, Socrates, that what has just been said is well put. SOCRATES: And it is likely that this very point is so — for what could knowledge even be, apart from an account and correct judgment? Yet there is one thing in what has been said that does not sit well with me. THEAETETUS: What is that? SOCRATES: The very point that seems to be put most cleverly — that the elements are unknowable while the class of syllables is knowable. THEAETETUS: And isn't that right? SOCRATES: We must find out. We have, after all, hostages for this account — the examples the man used when he said all this. THEAETETUS: What examples? SOCRATES: The elements and syllables of the alphabet. Or do you think the one who said what we're describing had his eye on anything else when he said it? THEAETETUS: No, on exactly this.
SOCRATES: Let us test them, then, by going back over them — or rather, let us test ourselves, on whether this is or is not how we learned our letters. Consider first: do the syllables have an account, while the elements are without account? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: That is certainly how it strikes me too. At any rate, if someone were asked about the first syllable of "Socrates" — Theaetetus, tell me, what is SO? — what would you answer? THEAETETUS: That it is sigma and omega. SOCRATES: And that is the account you have of the syllable? THEAETETUS: It is. SOCRATES: Come then, give the account of the sigma in the same way. THEAETETUS: But how could anyone state the elements of an element? Indeed, Socrates, the sigma is one of the voiceless letters, a mere noise, like the tongue hissing; and beta again has neither tone nor noise, nor do most of the letters. So it fits very well to say they are without account — seeing that even the clearest of them, the seven vowels, have only sound, and no account whatsoever. SOCRATES: On this point, then, my friend, we have got it right about knowledge. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: But what about this — that the element is unknowable while the syllable is knowable — have we shown that correctly? THEAETETUS: It seems likely. SOCRATES: Come then, when we speak of the syllable, do we mean both elements — and if there are more than two, all of them — or some single form that has come to be once they are put together? THEAETETUS: I think we mean all of them together. SOCRATES: Look at it with two: sigma and omega. Both together are the first syllable of my name. Whoever knows it knows both, doesn't he? THEAETETUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So he knows the sigma and the omega. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then — does he know each separately while being ignorant of both, and know both while knowing neither? THEAETETUS: But that would be strange and unreasonable, Socrates. SOCRATES: And yet if it is necessary to know each, given that one is going to know both, then it is absolutely necessary for anyone who is ever going to know a syllable to know the elements beforehand — and so our fine account will have run off and escaped us. THEAETETUS: Yes, and very suddenly too. SOCRATES: That's because we are not guarding it well. Perhaps we should have said that the syllable is not the elements, but some single form that has come to be out of them — a single character of its own, distinct from the elements. THEAETETUS: Quite so — and perhaps that is closer to the truth than the other way. SOCRATES: We must examine this and not betray so unmanfully so grand and solemn an account. THEAETETUS: No, we must not.
SOCRATES: Let it stand, then, as we are now saying: the syllable is a single form arising from each set of fitted-together elements, alike in letters and in everything else. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Then it must have no parts. THEAETETUS: Why is that? SOCRATES: Because wherever there are parts, the whole must necessarily be all the parts. Or do you also say that the whole, made up of the parts, is some single form distinct from all the parts? THEAETETUS: I do. SOCRATES: And do you call "the all" and "the whole" the same thing, or each different? THEAETETUS: I have nothing clear to say — but since you tell me to answer boldly, I'll take the risk and say they're different. SOCRATES: Your boldness, Theaetetus, is correct; whether your answer is too, we must examine. THEAETETUS: Yes, we must. SOCRATES: Then, by this present account, the whole would differ from the all? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well now — do "all things" and "the all" differ at all? Take it this way: when we say one, two, three, four, five, six — and likewise if we say twice three, or three times two, or four and two, or three and two and one — are we in all these saying the same thing or something different? THEAETETUS: The same. SOCRATES: Namely six, and nothing else? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: So in each way of saying it we have named all six? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And in saying "all things" do we name nothing at all? THEAETETUS: We must be naming something. SOCRATES: Nothing but the six? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: So, at least among things made up of number, "the all" and "all things" name the same thing? THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Let us put it this way, then: the number belonging to a plot of land and the plot of land itself are the same, aren't they? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And likewise the number of a stade and the stade. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And indeed the number of an army and the army, and all such cases alike — for in each of them the whole number is the whole thing itself. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the number belonging to each of these — is it anything other than its parts? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: So whatever has parts would be made up of parts? THEAETETUS: It appears so. SOCRATES: And it has been agreed that all the parts are the whole, since the whole number too will be the whole thing. THEAETETUS: That's so. SOCRATES: Then the whole is not made up of parts — for if it were, being all the parts, it would be the all. THEAETETUS: It doesn't seem so. SOCRATES: And is a part a part of anything else at all except the whole? THEAETETUS: Yes, of the all, at least.
SOCRATES: You fight bravely indeed, Theaetetus. But when nothing is missing, isn't that very thing the all? THEAETETUS: It must be. SOCRATES: And won't this same thing be the whole — that from which nothing anywhere stands apart? Whereas whatever a thing stands apart from is neither whole nor all, since it has become, from the same cause, no longer the same thing? THEAETETUS: It seems to me now that "all" and "whole" differ in no way. SOCRATES: Well then, weren't we saying that wherever there are parts, the whole and the all will be all the parts? THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So again, as I was trying to say just now — isn't it necessary, if the syllable is not the elements, that it does not have the elements as its parts, or else, being the same as them, it would be equally knowable as they are? THEAETETUS: That's so. SOCRATES: And wasn't it to prevent that from happening that we made it something different from them? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then — if the elements are not parts of the syllable, can you name anything else that is a part of the syllable, but not one of its elements? THEAETETUS: Not at all. For if, Socrates, I were to grant it some parts of its own, it would be absurd to set aside the elements and go looking for other things. SOCRATES: So entirely then, Theaetetus, by the present account, a syllable would be some single form without parts. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, my friend, that a little earlier we accepted it, thinking it well said, that there is no account of the primary things out of which everything else is composed — because each of them, taken by itself, is uncompounded, and it isn't even right to speak of "being" concerning it, or even the word "this," as something said in addition and foreign to it — and that this very reason made it without account and unknowable? THEAETETUS: I remember. SOCRATES: Well, is there any other reason for its being single in form and without parts than this very one? I for one see none other. THEAETETUS: No, indeed, none appears. SOCRATES: Then the syllable has fallen into the same case as the element, if it truly has no parts and is a single form. THEAETETUS: Entirely so. SOCRATES: If, then, the syllable is many elements and some whole, and these are its parts, then the syllables are knowable and expressible just as much as the elements, since "all the parts" turned out to be the same as the whole. THEAETETUS: Quite true. SOCRATES: But if it is one thing, without parts, then the syllable is equally without account and unknowable as the element — for the same reasoning will make them both so. THEAETETUS: I can't say otherwise. SOCRATES: So we must not accept it, then, from anyone who says that the syllable is knowable and expressible, while the element is the opposite. THEAETETUS: No, we must not, if we are persuaded by the argument.
SOCRATES: But what again — wouldn't you rather welcome the opposite claim, judging from what you yourself know from learning your letters? THEAETETUS: What claim is that? SOCRATES: That in learning, you did nothing else but try to distinguish the elements, both by sight and by hearing, each one on its own, so that their order in speech and in writing wouldn't confuse you. THEAETETUS: What you say is perfectly true. SOCRATES: And in the music school, wasn't full mastery just this — being able to follow each note and tell which string it belonged to — the very things everyone would agree are the elements of music? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. SOCRATES: So then, going by the elements and syllables we ourselves have experience of, if we are to draw a conclusion from these to the rest, we would say that the class of elements affords a far clearer and more authoritative knowledge than the syllable does, for grasping any subject fully — and if anyone says that the syllable is knowable but the element unknowable by nature, we will take him to be joking, whether he means to or not. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But other proofs of this could still be found, I think. Still, let us not lose sight, on account of these, of the question before us — namely, what in the world is meant by saying that knowledge is most complete when true judgment is joined by an account. THEAETETUS: Yes, we must look into that. SOCRATES: Come then, what can "the account" possibly mean for us? For it seems to me to be one of three things. THEAETETUS: Which three? SOCRATES: The first would be making one's own thought plain through speech, by means of verbs and nouns, imprinting one's judgment, as into a mirror or water, onto the stream that flows through the mouth. Doesn't something of that sort seem to you to be an account? THEAETETUS: It does to me. At any rate, we say that whoever does this is giving an account. SOCRATES: And isn't this, at least, something everyone is capable of doing, sooner or later — showing what he thinks about anything, unless he's been mute or deaf from birth? And so everyone who holds any correct judgment at all will turn out to have it along with an account, and correct judgment apart from knowledge will nowhere still occur. THEAETETUS: True.
SOCRATES: Let's not be too quick to convict the person who declared that knowledge is what we're now considering of saying nothing at all. Maybe what he meant wasn't that, but that when asked what any given thing is, one should be able to answer by breaking it down into its elements for the questioner. THEAETETUS: What sort of thing do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: The sort of thing Hesiod says about a wagon — that it has a hundred timbers. I couldn't list them, and I don't think you could either. We'd be satisfied, if asked what a wagon is, to be able to say: wheels, axle, body, rails, yoke. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But he might think we were being ridiculous — the way someone would be ridiculous if asked to spell your name and answered letter by letter. We'd be forming a correct judgment and saying what we say correctly, but thinking we were being literate, and that we possessed and could state the literate account of the name "Theaetetus" — when in fact one can't speak with real knowledge about anything until one has gone through it element by element together with true judgment, as was said somewhere earlier. THEAETETUS: Yes, it was said. SOCRATES: So too with the wagon: we have a correct judgment about it, but the person who can go through its being by way of those hundred parts has, by adding this, added an account to true judgment, and has become, instead of someone with mere judgment, someone skilled and knowledgeable about the being of a wagon, by working through the whole via its elements. THEAETETUS: And doesn't that seem right to you, Socrates? SOCRATES: If it seems right to you, my friend, and you accept that going through something element by element is an account of it, while going through it by syllables, or anything coarser still, is no account at all — then tell me so, so we can examine it. THEAETETUS: I do accept it, entirely. SOCRATES: Do you think someone has knowledge of anything at all, when the same thing seems to him at one time to belong to one thing and at another time to another — or when he judges the same thing to be, at one time one thing and at another time something else? THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, I don't. SOCRATES: Then have you forgotten how, when you were first learning your letters, you and everyone else behaved? THEAETETUS: Are you talking about how we'd take the same letter to be sometimes one thing and sometimes another, and would put the same letter now into the syllable it belonged in, and now into a different one? SOCRATES: That's what I mean. THEAETETUS: No, by Zeus, I haven't forgotten, and I certainly don't think people in that condition have knowledge yet.
SOCRATES: Well then — when someone in just that condition is writing "Theaetetus" and thinks he ought to write, and does write, theta and epsilon, and again, trying to write "Theodorus," thinks he ought to write, and does write, tau and epsilon — shall we say he knows the first syllable of your two names? THEAETETUS: But we just agreed that someone in that state doesn't yet know. SOCRATES: Is there anything to stop the same person from being in that condition regarding the second syllable, and the third, and the fourth? THEAETETUS: Nothing at all. SOCRATES: Then in that case, when he writes it in the correct order, does he write "Theaetetus" with the elemental breakdown plus correct judgment? THEAETETUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: But still without knowledge, while judging correctly — as we're saying? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Yet having an account together with correct judgment. For he wrote it having the path through the elements, which we agreed was an account. THEAETETUS: True. SOCRATES: So, my friend, there is such a thing as correct judgment with an account, which we shouldn't yet call knowledge. THEAETETUS: It looks that way. SOCRATES: So it seems we were dreaming when we thought we'd struck the truest possible account of knowledge. Or should we hold off on that verdict? Perhaps this isn't what someone would use to define it, but rather the remaining one of the three kinds we said someone might propose — namely that knowledge is correct judgment together with an account. THEAETETUS: You're right to remind me — there is still one left. One was like an image of thought in speech; the one just mentioned was the path through the elements to the whole; but what do you mean by the third? SOCRATES: What most people would say — having some mark to state by which the thing in question differs from everything else. THEAETETUS: Can you give me an example of what account of what you mean? SOCRATES: For instance, take the sun — I think it's enough for you to accept that it's the brightest of the things that travel through the sky around the earth. THEAETETUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Now grasp why I say this. It's what we were just saying: that if you grasp the way each thing differs from everything else, you'll get, as some say, an account of it; but as long as you're only touching on something common to it and other things, your account will apply to all the things that share that common feature. THEAETETUS: I understand — and it seems right to me to call that kind of thing an account. SOCRATES: And whoever adds, to correct judgment about any existing thing, its difference from everything else, will have become knowledgeable about the very thing he was previously only judging. THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what we're claiming. SOCRATES: But now, Theaetetus, now that I've come close, as it were, to the outline sketch of what's being said, I understand it not even a little — whereas as long as I stood back at a distance, it seemed to me that something was being said. THEAETETUS: How do you mean?
SOCRATES: I'll explain, if I can manage it. Suppose I have a correct judgment about you: if I add your account, then I know you; but if not, I merely judge. THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the account was supposed to be the expression of your distinguishing difference. THEAETETUS: Just so. SOCRATES: So then, when I was only judging, was I in my thinking touching on any of the things by which you differ from others? THEAETETUS: It seems not. SOCRATES: So I was thinking of one of the common features, none of which belongs to you any more than to anyone else. THEAETETUS: That must be so. SOCRATES: Then tell me, for God's sake — how, in that case, was I judging you rather than anyone else at all? Suppose I was thinking: this is Theaetetus, who is a human being and has a nose and eyes and a mouth, and so on for each of his limbs. Will that thought make me think of Theaetetus any more than of Theodorus, or of the most remote of the so-called Mysians? THEAETETUS: How could it? SOCRATES: But suppose I think not just of someone with a nose and eyes, but of someone snub-nosed and bug-eyed — will I then be judging you any more than myself, or anyone else like that? THEAETETUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: No — I don't think Theaetetus will be judged to be in my mind until this particular snubness has left in me some record distinguishing it from all the other snubnesses I've seen, and settled there — and likewise with everything else that makes you up — so that if I meet you tomorrow, it will remind me and make me judge correctly about you. THEAETETUS: That's exactly true. SOCRATES: So correct judgment, too, would concern the distinguishing difference of each thing. THEAETETUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then what more could there be to adding an account to correct judgment? If it means further judging in what way something differs from other things, the instruction becomes quite absurd. THEAETETUS: How so? SOCRATES: Of things we already have a correct judgment about, in respect of how they differ from other things, it tells us to add a correct judgment as to how they differ from other things. On this reading, the twirling of a rod, or a pestle, or whatever else people talk about, wouldn't be a patch on this instruction — it would more fairly be called the guidance of a blind man. For to order us to take up, in addition, what we already have, so that we may learn what we already judge — that looks like the product of someone thoroughly benighted. THEAETETUS: Then tell me — what was it you were just about to say when you asked your question?
SOCRATES: If, my boy, "adding an account" means being told to come to know the distinguishing difference, rather than merely to judge it, then this would be a charming business, this business of the finest account of knowledge! For to come to know is, I take it, to acquire knowledge — right? THEAETETUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So then, it seems, if asked what knowledge is, our man will answer: correct judgment together with knowledge of the distinguishing difference. For on his view, that's what "adding an account" would amount to. THEAETETUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And it's utterly simple-minded, when we're inquiring into what knowledge is, to say that it's correct judgment together with knowledge — whether of a distinguishing difference or of anything else at all. So neither perception, Theaetetus, nor true judgment, nor an account added on to true judgment, could be knowledge. THEAETETUS: It seems not. SOCRATES: So then, my friend, are we still pregnant and in labor over knowledge, or have we delivered everything? THEAETETUS: Yes, by Zeus — and thanks to you I've said more than I even had in me. SOCRATES: And doesn't our art of midwifery say that all of this was wind-eggs, not worth raising? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Well then, Theaetetus, if after this you ever try to become pregnant with other ideas, and if you do conceive, you'll be fuller of better things thanks to today's examination; and if you remain empty, you'll be less burdensome to the people around you, and gentler, since you'll soberly not think you know what you don't know. That much, and no more, is what my art can do — I know nothing that the others know, all those great and marvelous men who are and have been. This midwifery my mother and I received as our lot from a god — hers for women, mine for the young and noble and all who are beautiful. For now I must go to the King's Portico, to face the indictment Meletus has brought against me. But at dawn, Theodorus, let's meet here again.
When we arrived in Athens from our home in Clazomenae, we ran into Adeimantus and Glaucon in the marketplace. Adeimantus took my hand and said, "Welcome, Cephalus—if there's anything here we can help with, just say so." "As it happens," I said, "that's exactly why I've come—to ask a favor of you." "Then name it," he said. And I said: "What was the name of your half-brother on your mother's side? I don't remember. He was just a boy when I was here before, visiting from Clazomenae—and that was a long time ago now. His father, I think, was named Pyrilampes." "That's right," he said. "And the boy himself?" "Antiphon. But why do you ask?" "These men," I said, "are fellow citizens of mine, quite devoted to philosophy, and they've heard that this Antiphon spent a great deal of time with a certain Pythodorus, a companion of Zeno's, and that he has memorized the arguments that Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides once discussed—having heard them often from Pythodorus." "True enough," he said. "Well, we'd like to hear them." "That's no trouble," he said. "When he was a young man he worked hard at mastering them, though these days, like his grandfather and namesake, he spends most of his time with horses. But if you like, let's go find him—he just went home from here, and he lives nearby, in Melite."
With that we set off walking, and found Antiphon at home, handing a bridle over to a smith to have it fitted. Once the smith had gone, his brothers told him why we had come, and he recognized me from my earlier visit and greeted me warmly. When we asked him to go through the arguments, he hesitated at first—saying it was a great deal of work—but then he told the whole story. Antiphon said that Pythodorus told him that Zeno and Parmenides once came to Athens for the Great Panathenaea. Parmenides was already quite an old man, his hair very white, but handsome and of noble bearing—somewhere around sixty-five. Zeno at that time was nearly forty, tall and good-looking, and was said to have been Parmenides' beloved. They were staying with Pythodorus, outside the city wall in the Cerameicus, and Socrates went there, along with a good many others, all eager to hear Zeno's writings—for that was the first time they had been brought to Athens by their authors. Socrates was very young at the time. Zeno himself read the arguments aloud to them, while Parmenides happened to be out. Pythodorus said that only a small part of the arguments remained to be read when he himself came in from outside, together with Parmenides and Aristotle—the same man who later became one of the Thirty—and that they caught just a little of what was being read; not that it mattered to him, since he had heard it all before from Zeno. When Socrates had listened, he asked Zeno to read the first hypothesis of the first argument again, and once it had been read, he said: "What do you mean by this, Zeno? If existing things are many, then, you say, they must be both like and unlike—but that's impossible, since unlike things cannot be like, nor like things unlike. Isn't that your claim?" "Yes," said Zeno. "Then if it's impossible for unlike things to be like and like things unlike, it's also impossible for there to be many things—since if there were many, they would suffer these impossibilities. Is this the point of your arguments—simply to fight, against every common claim, the thesis that things are many? And do you take each of your arguments as proof of exactly this, so that you think you're offering as many proofs that there aren't many things as you've written arguments? Is that your meaning, or have I misunderstood?"
"No," said Zeno, "you've grasped very well the overall point of the piece." "I see, Parmenides," said Socrates, "that Zeno here wants to be linked with you not only in friendship but in his writing too. He's written, in a way, the same thing you have, but by changing the presentation he tries to make us think he's saying something different. You claim in your poems that the all is one, and you give fine, solid proofs of it; he, for his part, claims that it isn't many, and he too offers a great abundance of impressive proofs. So when one of you says 'one' and the other says 'not many,' and each of you speaks in such a way that you seem to be saying nothing the same, though you're really saying almost the same thing, what you've both said seems to go over the heads of the rest of us." "Yes, Socrates," said Zeno, "but you haven't caught the whole truth of the piece. Still, like a Spartan hound you track and chase down what's said quite well. First, though, you're missing this: the piece doesn't put on such airs as you suppose—as if it were written with some grand design in mind, to hide something important from people. What you mentioned is only incidental; the real truth is that this writing comes to the defense of Parmenides' argument against those who try to make fun of it by claiming that if it's one, the argument runs into many absurd and self-contradictory results. So this piece answers those who assert the many, and gives back the same treatment and more, aiming to show that their hypothesis—that things are many—would end up in even more absurd trouble than the hypothesis that it's one, if someone examined it thoroughly enough. I wrote it in that competitive spirit when I was young, and someone stole it once it was written, so I never even got the chance to decide whether to publish it or not. That's what you're missing, Socrates—you assume it was written from a young man's love of argument, rather than an older man's ambition for reputation. Though, as I said, your guess wasn't far off."
"Well, I accept that," said Socrates, "and I think it's just as you say. But tell me this: don't you think there is a form of likeness, itself by itself, and again another form opposite to it, which is unlikeness—and that you and I and the other things we call many come to share in these two? And that whatever shares in likeness becomes like, in that respect and to the degree it shares in it, while whatever shares in unlikeness becomes unlike, and whatever shares in both becomes both? And even if all things share in both, being opposite as they are, and by partaking of both are like and unlike themselves—what's so strange in that? If someone showed that the likes themselves become unlike, or the unlikes like, that would be a marvel; but if he shows that things which share in both undergo both, there's nothing odd in that, Zeno, to my mind—nor is it odd if someone shows that all things are one by sharing in the one, and that these same things are also many by sharing in multitude. But if he shows that what is itself one is many, and that the many are, in turn, one itself—now that would astonish me. And likewise with everything else: if he can show that the kinds and forms themselves undergo these opposite conditions in themselves, that's worth marveling at; but if he shows that I am one and many, what's strange in that, when to show me as many he says that my right side is different from my left, my front from my back, my top from my bottom—since I do partake of multitude—while to show me as one, he'll say that though we are seven, I am one man, sharing also in the one? So both are shown to be true. If, then, someone tries to show that the very same things—sticks, stones, and the like—are many and one, we'll say he's shown something to be many and one, not that the one is many or the many one, and that he's said nothing marvelous, only what we'd all agree to. But if someone first distinguishes, each by itself, the forms themselves—likeness, unlikeness, multitude, unity, rest, motion, and all such things—and then shows that these, in themselves, can be mixed together and separated, that, Zeno, is what I would admire."
"I think what you've done here has been argued with real courage—but I'd admire it far more if someone could show this same puzzle woven all through the forms themselves, just as you've shown it in the visible world, and display it likewise in the realm grasped by reasoning." Pythodorus said that as Socrates spoke, he himself expected that Parmenides and Zeno would grow annoyed at each point, but instead they paid him close attention, glancing at each other from time to time and smiling, as if in admiration of Socrates. And indeed, when Socrates finished, Parmenides said just that: "Socrates, you deserve admiration for your eagerness in argument. Now tell me—have you yourself drawn this distinction you speak of, separating certain forms, on the one hand, from the things that share in them, on the other? And do you think there is such a thing as likeness itself, apart from the likeness we ourselves have, and one and many and all the things you just heard Zeno discuss?" "I do," said Socrates. "And also things like these," said Parmenides, "such as a form of justice itself, by itself, and of beauty and goodness and all such things?" "Yes," he said. "And a form of man, apart from us and all those like us—some form itself of man, or of fire, or of water?" "I've often been at a loss, Parmenides, whether to say the same about these as about the others, or not." "And what about things like these, Socrates, which might seem quite laughable—hair, mud, dirt, or anything else utterly worthless and trivial? Are you at a loss whether to say there is a form for each of these too, separate from the things we handle, or not?" "Not at all," said Socrates. "These things are just what we see them to be; it would be too absurd to suppose there's a form of them. Though sometimes the worry does strike me that the same might hold for everything—but then, when I take that stand, I flee, afraid of tumbling into some abyss of nonsense and being destroyed. So I go back to the things we agreed do have forms, and spend my time on those." "That's because you're still young, Socrates," said Parmenides, "and philosophy hasn't yet taken hold of you the way it will, in my judgment—when you'll no longer look down on any of these things. For now you still defer to people's opinions, because of your age. But tell me this: do you think, as you say, that there are certain forms, from which the other things, by partaking of them, take their names—so that things partaking of likeness become like, of largeness become large, and of beauty and justice become beautiful and just?"
"Certainly," said Socrates. "So whatever partakes of the form partakes either of the whole of it or of a part of it. Or could there be some other way of partaking, apart from these two?" "How could there be?" he said. "Well then, do you think the whole form is present in each of the many things, being one, or how?" "What's to stop it being one?" said Socrates. "Then, being one and the same, it will be present whole at the same time in many things that are separate from one another, and so it will be separate from itself." "No it won't," he said, "not if it's like a day — one and the same day can be in many places at once without being separate from itself in the least. Suppose each of the forms is one and the same in all its instances in just that way." "How neatly you make one and the same thing be in many places at once, Socrates — as if you spread a sail over a number of people and then said one whole thing was over many. Isn't that the sort of thing you mean?" "Perhaps," he said. "Well then, would the sail be whole over each person, or would a different part of it be over each?" "A part." "So the forms themselves are divisible, Socrates, and the things that share in them would share in a part of them, and no longer would the whole form be in each thing, but only a part of it in each." "So it appears, at any rate." "Then will you be willing, Socrates, to say that the one form is really divided up, and still remains one?" "Not at all," he said. "Consider this," he said. "If you divide up largeness itself, and each of the many large things is large by a smaller part of largeness than largeness itself, won't that seem absurd?" "It certainly will," he said. "And what about this — if something takes off a small part of the equal, will what has that part, which is less than the equal itself, be equal to anything by it?" "Impossible." "But suppose one of us has a part of the small — the small itself will be larger than this part, since it is a part of it, and so the small itself will turn out larger; and whatever the removed piece is added to will become smaller, not larger than before." "That could never happen," he said. "Then in what way, Socrates," he said, "will the other things come to share in your forms, if they can partake of them neither part by part nor as wholes?" "By Zeus," he said, "it doesn't seem to me an easy thing to settle at all." "Well now, what do you say to this?" "To what?"
"I imagine it's something like this that makes you think each form is one: whenever a number of things seem large to you, there seems, perhaps, looking at them all, to be some one identical character over them, and that's why you take the large to be one." "True," he said. "But what about largeness itself and the other large things — if you look at all of them the same way in your mind, won't some further one large thing appear, by which all of these appear large?" "It seems so." "So another form of largeness will show up, arising alongside largeness itself and the things that share in it; and over all of these again another, by which all of them will be large; and each of your forms will no longer be one, but unlimited in number." "But, Parmenides," said Socrates, "maybe each of these forms is a thought, and it's not right for it to arise anywhere except in minds. In that way each would be one, and would no longer suffer what was just described." "Well then," he said, "is each of these thoughts one, but a thought of nothing?" "No, that's impossible," he said. "A thought of something, then?" "Yes." "Of something that is, or that is not?" "Of something that is." "Of some one thing, which that thought thinks as present over all the instances, some single character?" "Yes." "Then won't this thing that is thought to be one be a form, always the same over all the instances?" "That seems necessary again." "Well then," said Parmenides, "given the necessity by which you say the other things share in the forms, doesn't it follow that either each thing is made of thoughts and everything thinks, or else that they are thoughts which do not think?" "That doesn't make sense either," he said. "No, Parmenides, what appears to me most likely is this: these forms stand fixed in nature like patterns, and the other things resemble them and are likenesses of them, and this sharing that the other things come to have in the forms is simply their being modeled on them." "Well," he said, "if something resembles the form, can that form fail to be like the thing modeled on it, to the extent that it has been made like it? Or is there any way for a likeness not to be like its like?" "There is not." "And isn't it a great necessity that the like share in one and the same form as its like?" "It is." "And won't the thing by sharing in which like things are like be the form itself?" "Absolutely."
"So it's not possible for anything to be like the form, nor the form like anything else. Otherwise, alongside the form another form will always appear, and if that one is like anything, yet another again, and it will never stop, new forms constantly arising, if the form comes to be like what shares in it." "That's very true." "So it isn't by likeness that the other things share in the forms; some other means of sharing must be sought." "So it seems." "Do you see, then, Socrates," he said, "how great the difficulty is, if one marks the forms off as being just by themselves?" "I do indeed." "Then be assured," he said, "that you haven't even begun to touch how great the difficulty is, so to speak, if you're going to posit one form for each existing thing, marking it off every time." "How so?" he said. "There are many other reasons," he said, "but the greatest is this. Suppose someone said that the forms, being what we say they must be, aren't even the sort of thing that can be known — no one could show that person he was wrong, unless the one arguing against him happened to be widely experienced and not lacking in ability, and were willing to follow the demonstrator through a long and far-ranging argument; otherwise the one who insists that the forms are unknowable would remain unpersuaded." "How so, Parmenides?" said Socrates. "Because, Socrates, I think you — and anyone else who posits that each thing has some being that exists just by itself — would agree, first, that none of these beings exists in us." "How could it still be itself by itself, if it did?" said Socrates. "Well put," he said. "So all the forms that are what they are in relation to one another have their being in relation to themselves, not in relation to the things among us — whether we take these as likenesses or however else one posits them — things which, by sharing in them, give us each our names. And these things among us, though they share a name with those forms, are themselves again in relation to themselves, not in relation to the forms, and belong to themselves, not to those other things that are likewise named." "What do you mean?" said Socrates. "For instance," said Parmenides, "if one of us is master or slave of someone, he is not, of course, slave of mastery itself, of what mastery is, nor is the master, master of slavery itself, of what slavery is; rather, being a man, he is these things in relation to a man. But mastery itself is what it is in relation to slavery itself, and slavery likewise is itself in relation to mastery itself; the things among us do not have their power in relation to those, nor do those have theirs in relation to us — rather, as I say, those things are themselves in relation to themselves and belong to one another, and the things among us are likewise in relation to themselves.
"Or don't you follow what I mean?" "I follow perfectly well," said Socrates. "Then knowledge too," he said, "knowledge itself, what it is, would be knowledge of truth itself, what it is?" "Certainly." "And each particular kind of knowledge, what it is, would be knowledge of some particular thing that is, what it is — isn't that so?" "Yes." "But the knowledge that exists among us would be knowledge of the truth among us, and each kind of knowledge among us would turn out to be knowledge of some particular thing among us?" "Necessarily." "But indeed, as you agree, we neither possess the forms themselves nor can they exist among us." "No, we can't." "And the kinds themselves, what each of them is, are known, surely, by the form of knowledge itself?" "Yes." "Which we don't possess." "No, we don't." "Then none of the forms is known by us, since we have no share in knowledge itself." "It seems not." "So the beautiful itself, what it is, and the good, and all the things we take to be forms existing in themselves, are unknowable to us." "It looks that way." "Now see something still more alarming than this." "What is it?" "You'd surely agree that if there is indeed some kind of knowledge itself, it's far more exact than the knowledge that exists among us — and the same for beauty and everything else." "Yes." "So if anything else shares in knowledge itself, wouldn't you say no one has the most exact knowledge more than a god does?" "Necessarily." "Then will a god, having knowledge itself, be able to know the things among us?" "Why not?" "Because, Parmenides said, we've agreed that those forms don't have the power they have in relation to the things among us, nor do the things among us have theirs in relation to those forms — each set has power only in relation to itself." "Yes, we've agreed to that." "Then if the most exact mastery and the most exact knowledge are with the god, that mastery of theirs could never rule us, nor could that knowledge know us or anything else among us — rather, just as we do not govern them with our authority, nor know anything divine by our knowledge, so too, by the same reasoning, they, being gods, are neither our masters nor do they know human affairs." "But surely," he said, "this is far too strange an argument, if it's going to deprive god of knowing."
"And yet, Socrates," said Parmenides, "these difficulties and many others besides are unavoidable for the forms, if these characters of things really exist and one is going to mark off each form as a thing itself — so that the listener is left at a loss, and disputes whether they exist at all, and, if they do exist as much as possible, insists they must be altogether unknowable to human nature; and in saying this he seems to be saying something, and, as we said just now, he's remarkably hard to talk out of it. It would take a truly gifted man to grasp that there is a kind and a being in itself for each thing, and a still more remarkable one to discover this and be able to teach someone else who has worked it all out with sufficient rigor." "I grant you that, Parmenides," said Socrates. "You're speaking very much to my own mind." "And yet, Socrates," said Parmenides, "if someone, in light of all these difficulties and others like them, refuses to allow that there are forms of things, and won't mark off a form for each single thing, he won't have anywhere to turn his thought, since he won't allow that the character of each thing is always the same — and so he'll utterly destroy the power of discourse. It's this consequence, I think, that you've noticed especially well." "That's true," he said. "Then what will you do about philosophy? Which way will you turn, with all this left unresolved?" "I don't see my way clear at all, at least for the present." "That's because you're trying too soon, Socrates, before you've been properly trained, to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and each of the other forms. I noticed this the other day too, listening to you talking here with Aristotle. The impulse you feel toward argument is a fine and godlike one, be assured — but pull yourself back and train yourself more, while you're still young, in that discipline the many consider useless and call idle chatter. Otherwise the truth will slip past you." "Then what is this discipline, Parmenides," he said, "what form does the training take?" "The one you heard from Zeno," he said. "Except that there was one thing you said to him that I admired: you wouldn't let him confine the wandering inquiry to visible things and what concerns them, but made him range over those things that one could most grasp by reasoning and would take to be forms." "Yes," he said, "because it seems to me there's no difficulty at all, this way, in showing that visible things are both like and unlike, and undergo anything else whatever."
"Yes, and rightly so," he said. "But there's something else you should do besides this: not only suppose that each thing is, and examine what follows from that supposition, but also suppose that the same thing is not, if you want to get more practice." "What do you mean?" said Socrates. "Take, for instance," he said, "if you like, this hypothesis that Zeno proposed, that things are many—you should examine what must follow both for the many themselves in relation to each other and in relation to the one, and for the one in relation to itself and in relation to the many. And again, if things are not many, you must examine in turn what will follow for the one and for the many, both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other. And yet again, if you suppose that likeness exists or that it does not exist, you must ask what follows in each case, both for the things supposed and for everything else, both in relation to themselves and to each other. And the same method applies to unlikeness, to motion and to rest, to coming-to-be and passing away, and to being itself and not-being. In a word, whatever you ever suppose to exist or not to exist, or to undergo any other affection, you must examine what follows—both in relation to the thing itself and in relation to each of the other things, whichever you choose, and in relation to several of them and to all of them together; and likewise the other things too, both in relation to themselves and in relation to whatever else you choose, always—whether you suppose the thing you posited to exist or not to exist—if you're going to train yourself fully and see the truth clearly in the end." "That's an overwhelming task you're describing, Parmenides," he said, "and I don't quite follow it. Why don't you go through it yourself, taking some hypothesis, so I can understand it better?" "That's a lot to ask of a man my age, Socrates," he said. "Well, Zeno," said Socrates, "why don't you go through it for us?" And Zeno, he said, laughed and said: "Let's ask Parmenides himself, Socrates—this is no light matter he's describing. Don't you see what a task you're setting him? If there were more of us, it wouldn't be right to ask this of him; talking about such things in front of a large crowd isn't fitting, especially for a man his age—most people don't realize that without this thorough excursion through everything, this wandering, it's impossible to arrive at the truth with understanding. So I join Socrates in asking you, Parmenides, so that I too can hear it again after all this time." When Zeno had said this, Antiphon said that Pythodorus told him that he himself, along with Aristotle and the others, joined in asking Parmenides to demonstrate what he meant and not refuse. So Parmenides said: "I must do as you ask, then.
"And yet I feel I'm in the position of Ibycus's horse—the one that, being an old racehorse about to compete in a chariot race, trembled at what was coming because it knew from experience what it meant, and Ibycus, comparing himself to it, said that he too, old as he was, was being forced against his will into love. I feel much the same, remembering how frightened I am at how, at my age, I'm to swim across such a vast sea of arguments. Still, I must oblige you, since, as Zeno says, we're all friends here. So where should we begin, and what should we suppose first? Since it seems we're to play this laborious game, shall I begin from myself and my own hypothesis, taking the one itself as my subject, and asking what must follow whether it is one or not one?" "Yes, do that," said Zeno. "Then who will answer my questions?" he said. "The youngest one, perhaps? He'd be least likely to make trouble, and would answer just what he thinks—and at the same time his answers would give me a rest." "I'm ready for that, Parmenides," said Aristotle. "You mean me, when you say the youngest. Go ahead and ask, and I'll answer." "Very well," he said. "If it is one, the one couldn't be many, could it?" "How could it?" "So it must have neither part nor be a whole." "Why not?" "Because a part is part of a whole." "Yes." "And what is a whole? Isn't it that from which no part is missing?" "Certainly." "So in both ways the one would consist of parts, both as being a whole and as having parts." "Necessarily." "So in both ways the one would turn out to be many, not one." "True." "But it must be not many but one itself." "It must." "So it will be neither a whole nor have parts, if it is to be one." "No, it won't." "Now if it has no part, it can have neither beginning, nor end, nor middle—for such things would already be parts of it." "Right." "And surely an end and a beginning are the limit of anything." "Of course." "So the one is unlimited, if it has neither beginning nor end." "Unlimited." "And also without shape—for it partakes of neither the round nor the straight." "How so?" "The round, surely, is that whose extremities are everywhere equally distant from the middle." "Yes." "And the straight is that whose middle stands in front of both extremities." "Just so." "So the one would have parts and be many, whether it partook of straight or of round shape." "Certainly." "So it is neither straight nor round, since it has no parts at all." "Right.
"And being such, it could be nowhere—for it would be neither in another nor in itself." "How so?" "If it were in another, it would be surrounded on all sides by that in which it was contained, and would touch it at many points with many parts of itself; but what is one and partless and has no share of roundness cannot possibly touch something all around in a circle." "Impossible." "But then again, if it were in itself, it would be surrounded by nothing other than itself, since it would indeed be in itself—for it's impossible for a thing to be in something that doesn't contain it." "Impossible indeed." "So the container would be one thing and the contained another—for the same whole thing can't both undergo and produce the same effect at once; and in that way the one would no longer be one but two." "That's right." "So the one is not anywhere, being contained neither in itself nor in another." "It isn't." "Now consider whether, being so, it's possible for it to be at rest or in motion." "Why shouldn't it be?" "Because if it moved, it would either be carried along or be altered—those are the only kinds of motion." "Yes." "But the one, being altered from itself, surely couldn't still be one." "Impossible." "So it doesn't move by alteration, at least." "Apparently not." "Then does it move by being carried along?" "Perhaps." "But if the one were carried along, it would either revolve in a circle in the same place, or shift from one place to another." "It must be one or the other." "Now if it revolves in a circle, it must be fixed on a center, and the parts moving around the center must be other parts of itself; but for something to which neither center nor parts belong, what mechanism could ever carry it in a circle around a center?" "None." "But does it move by changing places, coming to be now here, now there?" "If it moves at all, yes." "But wasn't it shown to be impossible for it to be in anything?" "Yes." "Then isn't it even more impossible for it to come to be in something?" "I don't see how." "If a thing comes to be in something, mustn't it be that it isn't yet entirely in it while still coming to be, and yet isn't entirely outside it either, since it's already coming to be in it?" "Necessarily." "So if anything else is to undergo this, only that which has parts could undergo it—for part of it would already be in the thing, and part outside at the same time; but what has no parts can't possibly, as a whole, be neither wholly inside nor wholly outside something." "True." "And what has neither parts nor is a whole—isn't it even more impossible for it to come to be in something, since it can come to be neither part by part nor as a whole?" "So it seems.
"So it neither shifts place by going somewhere and coming to be in it, nor revolves in the same place, nor is altered." "It seems not." "So in every kind of motion, the one is unmoved." "Unmoved." "But we also said it's impossible for it to be in anything." "Yes, we did." "So it's never in the same place either." "Why?" "Because it would then be in that very thing in which it is the same." "Certainly." "But it was impossible for it to be in itself or in another." "Yes, it was." "So the one is never in the same place." "It seems not." "But what's never in the same place neither stays still nor is at rest." "No, it can't be." "So the one, it seems, is neither at rest nor in motion." "So it appears." "Nor again will it be the same as another or as itself, nor different from itself or from another. " "How so?" "If it were different from itself, it would be different from one, and so wouldn't be one." "True." "And if it were the same as another, it would be that other thing, and not itself; so it wouldn't be what it in fact is, namely one, but something different from one." "Just so." "So it won't be the same as another, or different from itself." "No." "Nor will it be different from another, so long as it's one—for it doesn't belong to one to be different from anything; that belongs only to different, in relation to different, and to nothing else." "Right." "So by virtue of being one, it won't be different." "No, indeed." "But if not by virtue of that, then not by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, then not itself; and being in no way different, it will be different from nothing." "Right." "Nor again will it be the same as itself." "How so?" "Because the nature of the one isn't, surely, the same as the nature of the same." "Why?" "Because a thing doesn't become one whenever it becomes the same as something." "What then?" "Whatever becomes the same as the many must become many, not one." "True." "But if the one and the same didn't differ at all, then whenever a thing became the same, it would always become one, and whenever one, the same." "Quite so." "So if the one is to be the same as itself, it won't be one with itself; and thus, being one, it won't be one." "But that's impossible; so it's impossible for the one to be either different from another or the same as itself." "Impossible." "So the one could not be either different or the same, either in relation to itself or in relation to another." "No, it couldn't.
"Nor again will it be like or unlike anything, either itself or another." "Why?" "Because whatever has undergone the same is, presumably, like." "Yes." "But the same was shown to have a nature separate from the one." "Yes, it was." "But if the one has undergone anything apart from being one, it would have undergone being more than one, and that's impossible." "Yes." "So the one can in no way have undergone the same as anything, either another or itself." "It seems not." "So it can't possibly be like anything, either another or itself." "It seems not." "Nor, again, has the one undergone being different—for in that way too it would have undergone being more than one." "Yes, more." "But what has undergone being different from itself or from another would be unlike itself or another, since what has undergone the same is like." "Right." "But the one, it seems, having in no way undergone being different, is in no way unlike, either itself or another." "No, indeed." "So the one could be neither like nor unlike, either another or itself." "It appears not." "And being such, it will be neither equal nor unequal, either to itself or to another." "How so?" "Being equal, it will be of the same measures as that to which it's equal." "Yes." "And being greater or smaller, in relation to things commensurate with it, it will have more measures than the smaller things and fewer than the larger." "Yes." "And in relation to things not commensurate with it, it will have smaller measures in one case and larger in the other." "Of course." "But isn't it impossible for a thing that has no share in sameness to have the same measures, or anything else the same, as another?" "Impossible." "So it won't be equal to itself or to another, having no share of the same measures." "It doesn't appear so." "But if it has more or fewer measures, it will have just as many parts as it has measures, and in this way again it will no longer be one but as many as its measures are." "Right." "And if it were of one measure, it would become equal to that measure; but that was shown to be impossible, for it to be equal to anything." "Yes, it was." "So having no share of one measure, or of many, or of few, and no share of the same at all, it will never, it seems, be equal to itself or to another; nor again will it be greater or smaller than itself or than another." "Just so, altogether." "Well then, does it seem possible for the one to be older or younger, or to have the same age, as anything?" "Why shouldn't it?" "Because if it had the same age as itself or another, it would share in equality and likeness of time, and we said the one had no share in either likeness or equality." "Yes, we did say that." "And we also said it has no share of unlikeness or inequality." "Quite so."
—So how could it be older or younger than anything, or the same age as anything, being such as this? —No way at all. —Then the one would be neither younger nor older nor the same age, either as itself or as anything else. —It doesn't appear so. —Well then, could the one exist in time at all, if it's like that? Or isn't it necessary, if a thing is in time, that it's always becoming older than itself? —Necessary. —And what's older is always older than something younger? —Of course. —So a thing becoming older than itself is at the same time becoming younger than itself, if indeed it's going to have something than which it becomes older. —What do you mean? —Like this. A thing that's already different from another doesn't need to become different — it already is; but what has become different has become so, what is going to be different is going to become so, and what is becoming different has neither become, nor is going to become, nor is yet different, but is in the process of becoming so, and can't be otherwise. —That's certainly necessary. —But 'older' is difference from 'younger', and from nothing else. —It is. —So a thing becoming older than itself must also, at the same time, be becoming younger than itself. —So it seems. —And further, it can't take a longer or shorter time than itself in becoming — it takes exactly the same time, both becoming and being and having become and being going to be. —Yes, that too is necessary. —So it seems necessary, then, that anything in time, anything that shares in this, must have exactly the same age as itself and, at the same time, must be becoming both older and younger than itself. —It looks that way. —But the one had no share in any of these conditions. —No, it had no share. —Then it has no share in time either, and doesn't exist in any time. —No, at least not by the argument's own reckoning. —Well now — don't 'was' and 'has become' and 'was becoming' seem to signify a sharing in time gone by? —They certainly do. —And don't 'will be' and 'will become' and 'will come to be' signify time yet to come? —Yes. —And 'is' and 'becomes' signify the present now? —Certainly. —So if the one has no share of time whatsoever, it never has become, nor was becoming, nor ever was; it hasn't now become, isn't becoming, isn't; and it won't become, won't come to be, and won't be hereafter. —Quite true. —Is there any way for something to share in being except along one of these lines? —There is not. —Then the one has no share in being whatsoever. —It seems not. —Then the one in no way is. —It doesn't appear to.
—Then it isn't even in such a way as to be one; for it would already be, and would share in being — but it seems, if we're to trust an argument like this, that the one neither is one nor is at all. —So it seems. —But can there be anything belonging to, or of, what does not exist, for that non-existent thing? —How could there? —Then it has no name, no account, no knowledge, no perception, and no opinion of it either. —It doesn't appear so. —So it isn't named, isn't spoken of, isn't opined about, isn't known, and nothing that exists perceives it. —It seems not. —Is it even possible for things to stand this way regarding the one? —I certainly don't think so. —Shall we go back to our starting assumption, then, and see if something different appears to us on going back over it? —Yes, I'd very much like that. —We're saying, then: if one is, we must come to agreement about what follows for it, whatever that turns out to be. Isn't that so? —Yes. —Look, then, right from the start. If one is, can it be, without sharing in being? —It cannot. —Then the being of the one would also exist, not being the same thing as the one; otherwise that being wouldn't be the being of that thing, nor would the one share in it, but it would be just like saying 'one is' and 'one one'. But that's not our assumption now — not what must follow if one is one, but what must follow if one is. Isn't that so? —Certainly. —So 'is' must mean something different from 'one'? —Necessarily. —So, whenever someone says in a single phrase that one is, wouldn't this just mean that the one shares in being? —Quite so. —Let's say again, then, what follows if one is. Consider whether this assumption doesn't necessarily mean that the one, being such as it is, has parts. —How so? —Like this. If 'is' is said of the one that is, and 'one' is said of the being that is one, and being and the one aren't the same thing, yet both belong to that same thing we assumed, namely the one that is — isn't it necessary that the one that is, being a whole, is itself one thing, and that 'one' and 'being' become parts of it? —Necessary. —Shall we call each of these two parts merely a part, or must each part be called a part of the whole? —Of the whole. —Then whatever is one is also a whole, and has a part. —Quite so. —Well then, of these two parts of the one that is, the one and the being — does either the one fall short of the part 'being', or the being fall short of the part 'one'? —That couldn't be.
—Then again, each of these parts too has the one and the being, and the smallest part again turns out to consist of two parts, and so on always, by the same reasoning: whatever turns out to be a part always has these two parts, since 'the one' always has 'being' and 'being' always has 'the one'. So whatever keeps becoming two can never be one. —Absolutely right. —Then wouldn't the one, existing in this way, be unlimited in multitude? —It seems so. —Come now, look at it this way too. —How? —We say the one shares in being, and that's why it is. —Yes. —And it's because of this that the one, being one, turned out to be many. —Just so. —But now — this 'one itself', which we say shares in being — if we grasp it by itself in thought, apart from that in which we say it shares, will it show up as just one, or will this very thing also turn out to be many? —One, I should think. —Let's see, then. Its being must be one thing and it itself another, if indeed the one isn't being, but as one, has partaken of being. —Necessary. —So if being is one thing and the one is another, it's not by being one that the one differs from being, nor by being being that being differs from the one, but they differ from each other by 'the different' and 'the other'. —Certainly. —So 'the different' is the same as neither the one nor the being. —How could it be? —Now then — if we pick out, say, being and the different, or being and the one, or the one and the different, don't we in each choice pick out a pair that it's right to call 'both'? —How so? —Like this. Can one say 'being'? —One can. —And again say 'one'? —That too. —Hasn't each of them, then, been named? —Yes. —And when I say 'being and one', haven't I named both? —Certainly. —And likewise if I say 'being and different', or 'different and one' — in every case I'm naming a pair? —Yes. —Now whatever pair is rightly called by both names — can it be both of these and yet not two? —It cannot. —And if they're two, is there any way for each of them not to be one? —None. —So since each of these pairs turns out to be a couple, each of them would also be one. —So it appears. —And if each of them is one, then when any one whatever is added to any pairing, doesn't the sum become three? —Yes. —And three is odd, while two is even? —Of course. —Well then — where there are two, mustn't there also be twice, and where three, thrice, given that two carries within it twice-one, and three carries thrice-one? —Necessary. —And given two and twice, isn't there necessarily two-times-two? And given three and thrice, isn't there necessarily three-times-three? —How could it be otherwise? —And again, given three and twice, and two and thrice — mustn't there be two-times-three and three-times-two? —Very much so.
—So there would be even numbers taken evenly, and odd numbers taken oddly, and even taken oddly, and odd taken evenly. —That's how it stands. —If that's so, do you think there's any number left over that need not exist? —None whatsoever. —So if one is, number must also be. —Necessary. —But if number exists, there would be many things, indeed an unlimited multitude of things that are — or doesn't number, unlimited in multitude, itself come to share in being? —It certainly does. —So if every number shares in being, wouldn't each part of number also share in it? —Yes. —Then being is distributed over all the many things there are, and is absent from none of them, neither the smallest nor the greatest — or is that an absurd question to even ask? —Absurd indeed; for how could being be absent from anything that is? —No way at all. —So it has been cut up into pieces as small and as great as can be, in every possible way, and has been divided more thoroughly than anything, and its parts are without limit. —That's how it stands. —Then its parts are the most numerous of all things. —Most numerous indeed. —Well then — is there any one of them that is a part of being, and yet no part at all? —How could that be? —No, rather, if it exists at all, it must, I think, always be some one thing so long as it exists, and it's impossible for it to be nothing. —Necessary. —So the one is attached to every single part of being, never absent from any part, whether smaller or greater or of any other size. —So it is. —Is the one, then, being one, present as a whole in many places at the same time? Consider that. —I am considering it, and I see that it's impossible. —Then it's divided up, if it isn't whole; for there's no other way it could be present to all the parts of being at once except by being divided. —True. —And what is divisible must be exactly as many as its parts. —Necessary. —So what we said just now wasn't true, when we said that being is distributed into the most parts of all. For it isn't divided into more parts than the one, but into parts equal to the one, as it seems — since neither does being fall short of the one, nor the one of being, but the two of them are everywhere equal, matched against each other throughout. —That's exactly how it appears. —So the one itself, cut up into pieces by being, is many, and unlimited in multitude. —So it appears. —So it's not only being-one that turns out to be many, but the one itself, distributed by being, must also be many.
And surely, since the parts belong to a whole, the one would be limited in respect of the whole — or are the parts not contained by the whole? They must be. And what contains would be a limit. Of course. So the one that is would be both one and many, both whole and parts, both limited and unlimited in number. So it appears. Then since it is limited, doesn't it also have extremities? It must. And again, if it is a whole, wouldn't it have a beginning, a middle, and an end? Or can anything be a whole without these three? No — if even one of them is missing, will it still consent to be whole? It will not. So the one, it seems, would have a beginning, a middle, and an end. It would. But surely the middle is equidistant from the extremities — otherwise it wouldn't be a middle. True. And being such, the one would partake of some shape, either straight or round or some mixture of the two. It would partake of one of these. Being so constituted, then, won't it be both in itself and in another? How so? Each of the parts is surely in the whole, and none outside the whole. That's so. And all the parts are contained by the whole? Yes. And surely all the parts, taken together, are the one — no more and no less than all. True. So the whole too is the one? Of course. If, then, all the parts happen to be in the whole, and the whole is both all the parts and itself, and the whole contains all the parts, then the one would be contained by the one — and thus the one itself would already be in itself. So it appears. But then again the whole is not in its parts — neither in all of them nor in any one. For if it were in all, it would have to be in one; for if it were not in some one part, it could hardly be in all of them; and if this one part is among all of them, but the whole is not in it, how could it still be in all of them? It couldn't. Nor is it in some of the parts; for if the whole were in some, the greater would be in the less, which is impossible. Impossible, yes. And not being in several parts, nor in one, nor in all the parts, mustn't it be in something else, or be nowhere at all? It must. And being nowhere, it would be nothing; but being a whole, since it is not in itself, it must be in something else? Quite so. So insofar as the one is a whole, it is in another; but insofar as it happens to be all its parts, it is in itself. And thus the one must be both in itself and in another. It must. Being naturally so constituted, mustn't the one also be both in motion and at rest? In what way?
It is at rest, surely, if it is in itself; for being in one thing and not shifting from it, it would be in the same thing — namely itself. It is, indeed. And what is always in the same thing must surely always be at rest. Quite so. But what about this: what is always in another — mustn't the opposite hold, that it is never in the same thing, and never being in the same thing, is not at rest either, and not being at rest, is in motion? So it seems. So the one, being always both in itself and in another, must always be both in motion and at rest. So it appears. And surely it must be the same as itself and different from itself, and likewise it must be the same as and different from the others, if indeed it has undergone what came before. How so? Everything, in relation to everything else, stands thus: either it is the same or different, or — if it is neither the same nor different — it would be a part of that to which it so relates, or it would stand to it as a whole to a part. So it appears. Is the one, then, a part of itself? By no means. Then it wouldn't be a whole in relation to itself as a part, being a part of itself. No, that couldn't be. But is the one different from one? Certainly not. Nor, then, could it be different from itself. No, indeed. If, then, it is neither different, nor a whole, nor a part in relation to itself, isn't it now necessary that it be the same as itself? It must be. But then, what's in one place being itself, while it is in the same place as itself — mustn't it be different from itself, if indeed it will also be elsewhere? So it seems to me. And this is just how the one was shown to be — both in itself and, at the same time, in another. It was shown so. Then in this respect the one would be different from itself, it seems. It seems so. Well then — if a thing is different from something, won't it be different from something different? It must. And all the things that are not one are different from the one, and the one is different from the things that are not one? Of course. So the one would be different from the others. Different. Now look: aren't sameness and difference themselves opposites of each other? Of course. Would the same ever consent to be in the different, or the different in the same? It would not consent. So if the different will never be in the same, then there is nothing among the things that are in which the different is present for any time at all; for if it were in anything at all, for that time the different would be in the same. Isn't that so? It is so. And since it is never in the same, the different could never be in any of the things that are. True. Then the different would not be present either in the things that are not one, or in the one. That follows. So the one would not be different from the things that are not one by virtue of the different, nor would the things that are not one be different from the one by that means. No, indeed.
Nor again would they be different from each other by being themselves, if they do not partake of the different. How could they? But if they are different neither by themselves nor by the different, wouldn't they altogether escape being different from each other? They would escape it. But surely the things that are not one do not partake of the one either; for otherwise they would not be not-one, but would somehow be one. True. Nor could the things that are not one be a number; for then too they would not be altogether not-one, if they had number. No, indeed. Well then — are the things that are not one parts of the one? Or would the things that are not one partake of the one in that way too? They would partake of it that way. If, then, the one is entirely one thing and the others are entirely not-one, the one could not be a part of the things that are not one, nor a whole of them as parts; nor again could the things that are not one be parts of the one, nor wholes with the one as their part. No, indeed. But we said that things which are neither parts nor wholes nor different from one another would be the same as one another. We did say that. Shall we say, then, that the one, standing thus in relation to the things that are not one, is the same as they are? Let's say so. So the one, it seems, is both different from the others and from itself, and the same as both them and itself. It certainly appears so, from the argument at least. Is it, then, also both like and unlike itself and the others? Perhaps. Since it was shown to be different from the others, the others too would surely be different from it. Of course. And is it different from the others in the same degree that they are different from it, neither more nor less? Why would it be otherwise? If, then, neither more nor less, then equally. Yes. So insofar as it has undergone being different from the others, and they likewise from it, in that respect the one and the others would have undergone the same thing as each other. How do you mean? Like this: don't you apply each of your names to something? I do. And could you utter the same name more than once, or only once? I could utter it more than once. And if you utter it once, do you name that of which the name is the name, and if many times, do you not name it? Or whether you speak the same name once or many times, mustn't you necessarily always mean the same thing? Of course. And isn't 'different' too a name for something? Certainly. So whenever you utter it, whether once or many times, you are naming nothing else, and calling nothing else, than that of which it is the name. Necessarily. So when we say that the others are different from the one, and the one is different from the others, in saying 'different' twice we are not thereby naming some other nature, but always naming that very nature whose name it is. Quite so.
So insofar as the one is different from the others and the others from the one, by that very fact of being different, the one would have undergone nothing other than what the others have undergone; and what has undergone the same thing is like — isn't that so? Yes. So insofar as the one has undergone being different from the others, in that very respect everything would be like everything; for everything is different from everything. So it seems. But surely the like is opposite to the unlike. Yes. And the different is opposite to the same as well. That too. But this too was shown — that the one is the same as the others. It was shown. And being the same as the others is the opposite condition to being different from the others. Quite so. But insofar as it is different, it was shown to be like. Yes. So insofar as it is the same, it will be unlike, by the opposite condition to the one that made it like — for the different, surely, made it like. Yes. So the same will make it unlike, or else it will not be the opposite of the different. So it seems. So the one will be both like and unlike the others: like insofar as it is different, unlike insofar as it is the same. And it does seem to have this argument too, it seems. Yes, and it has this one as well. Which one? Insofar as it has undergone being the same, it has undergone not being of another sort; and not being of another sort, it is not unlike; and not being unlike, it is like. But insofar as it has undergone being different, it is of another sort, and being of another sort, it is unlike. True. So the one, being both the same as the others and different from them, on both these grounds and on each separately, would be both like and unlike the others. Quite so. And likewise toward itself as well: since it was shown to be both different from itself and the same as itself, on both these grounds and on each, will it not appear both like and unlike itself? Necessarily. Now then — consider the question of the one's touching itself and the others, and of not touching, in respect of contact. I'm considering it. The one was shown to be, in itself, within the whole of itself. Rightly so. And is the one also within the others? Yes. So insofar as it is within the others, it would touch the others; but insofar as it is in itself, it would be kept from touching the others, while touching itself, being within itself. So it appears. So in this way the one would touch both itself and the others. It would touch them. But what about this: mustn't everything that is going to touch something lie next to that which it is to touch, occupying the position which, next to that in which the thing lies, would touch it? It must. So the one too, if it is going to touch itself, must lie immediately next to itself, occupying the place adjoining that in which it itself is. Yes, it must.
—So being two, the one would make these things happen, and it would be in two places at the same time; and as long as it is one, it won't allow that.—No, it won't.—So the same one is bound neither to be two nor to touch itself.—The same, yes.—But then it won't touch the others either.—Why not?—Because, we say, what is going to touch something must lie next to that thing, separate from it, with nothing else between them.—True.—So there must be at least two things, if there's to be any touching.—There must.—And if a third term is added next to the first two, there will be three things, but only two touchings.—Yes.—And so on: each time one thing is added, one touching is added too, and it turns out that the touchings are always one fewer than the total number of things. Because whatever advantage the first two had over their single touching—one more thing than touchings—that same advantage holds for every number after it: each additional thing adds one to the count and one to the touchings.—Right.—So however many things there are, the touchings are always one fewer than that number.—True.—But if there is only the one, and no two, there can be no touching.—Of course not.—And we say the others are not one and don't share in the one, if they really are other.—No, they don't.—So there's no number present in the others, since the one is not present in them.—Right.—So the others are neither one nor two nor named by any other number.—No.—The one, then, is alone one, and there can be no two.—So it seems.—So there's no touching where there aren't two things.—There isn't.—So neither does the one touch the others, nor do the others touch the one, since there's no touching.—No, indeed.—So by all this reasoning, the one both touches and does not touch itself and the others.—It seems so. —Now then—is it also both equal and unequal to itself and to the others?—How so?—If the one were larger or smaller than the others, or the others larger or smaller than the one, then merely by the one's being one and the others being other than the one, wouldn't neither be any larger or smaller than the other simply in virtue of what each is?—But if, beyond being what they are, each also had size, they would be equal to each other; but if one had largeness and the other smallness—or the one itself had largeness and the others smallness—then whichever kind had largeness attached to it would be larger, and whichever had smallness would be smaller.—Necessarily.
—Now these are two distinct forms, aren't they—largeness and smallness? For if they weren't, they couldn't be opposite to each other or come to exist in things that are.—How could they?—So if smallness comes to be present in the one, it must be present either in the whole of it or in a part of it.—Necessarily.—And what if it came to be present in the whole? Wouldn't it then either be stretched out through the whole of the one, matching it exactly, or else surround it?—Clearly.—Now if smallness matched the one exactly, wouldn't it be equal to it; but if it surrounded it, wouldn't it be larger?—How could it be otherwise?—Is it possible, then, for smallness to be equal to something or larger than something, and so to perform the functions of largeness and equality rather than its own?—Impossible.—So smallness cannot be in the whole of the one; if it's anywhere, it's in a part.—Yes.—Nor again in the whole of that part—otherwise it will do the same thing it did with the whole: it will be equal to, or larger than, the part it's in.—Necessarily.—So smallness will never be present in anything that is, whether it comes to be in a part or in a whole; nothing at all will be small except smallness itself.—So it seems.—And largeness won't be present in it either. For then something else besides largeness itself would be larger, namely whatever largeness were in—and this without there being anything small in it for it to exceed, if it's really going to be large. But that's impossible, since smallness is nowhere at all.—True.—But largeness itself is not larger than anything but its own smallness, nor is smallness itself smaller than anything but its own largeness.—No.—So the others are neither larger nor smaller than the one, having neither largeness nor smallness; nor do these two things themselves, largeness and smallness, have the power to exceed or be exceeded in relation to the one, but only in relation to each other; nor again could the one be larger or smaller than these two or than the others, having neither largeness nor smallness.—It doesn't appear so.—So if the one is neither larger nor smaller than the others, it must be that it neither exceeds them nor is exceeded by them.—Necessarily.—And surely what neither exceeds nor is exceeded must be quite necessarily on equal terms; and being on equal terms, it must be equal.—Of course.—And indeed the one would stand this way toward itself too: having neither largeness nor smallness in itself, it could neither exceed itself nor be exceeded by itself, but being on equal terms with itself, it would be equal to itself.—Quite so.—The one, then, would be equal both to itself and to the others.—So it appears.
—And yet, being in itself, it would also be around itself from outside; and containing itself, it would be larger than itself, while being contained, it would be smaller; and so the one would be both larger and smaller than itself.—Yes, it would be.—And isn't this also necessary: that there be nothing outside the one and the others?—Of course.—But surely what is must always be somewhere.—Yes.—And what is in something will be in something larger, being itself smaller—for that's the only way one thing could be in another.—Yes.—And since there is nothing else apart from the others and the one, and they must be in something, isn't it now necessary that they be in each other—the others in the one and the one in the others—or else be nowhere at all?—So it appears.—Because the one is in the others, the others would be larger than the one, containing it, while the one would be smaller than the others, being contained; and because the others are in the one, the one would by the same reasoning be larger than the others, and the others smaller than the one.—So it seems.—The one, then, is equal to, and larger than, and smaller than, both itself and the others.—So it appears.—And indeed, if it is larger and smaller and equal, it would be of equal and greater and lesser measures than itself and than the others; and since it has measures, it also has parts.—Of course.—Being then of equal and greater and lesser measures, it would also be, in number, fewer and more than itself and than the others, and equal to itself and to the others in the same way.—How so?—Whatever things it's larger than, it would be of more measures than those, and however many measures, so many parts too; and the same for whatever it's smaller than; and the same again for whatever it's equal to.—So it is.—Being then larger and smaller than itself, and equal to itself, it would be of equal and more and fewer measures than itself, and since it has measures, of parts too.—Of course.—Being then of equal parts with itself, it would be equal to itself in number; being of more parts, more; being of fewer, fewer than itself in number.—So it appears.—And won't the one stand the same way toward the others too? Because it appears larger than them, it must also be more in number than them; because smaller, fewer; and because equal in size, equal also in number to the others.—Necessarily.—So again, it seems, the one will be equal to, and more than, and fewer than, itself and the others in number.—It will. —Now then, does the one also share in time, and is it and does it become both younger and older than itself and than the others, and neither younger nor older than either itself or the others, sharing as it does in time?—How so?—Well, being belongs to it somehow, if it is indeed one.—Yes.
—And is being anything other than a sharing in existence together with present time, just as 'was' is a sharing in existence together with past time, and 'will be' in turn a sharing in existence together with future time?—It is indeed.—So it shares in time, if it also shares in being.—Certainly.—And time moves forward, doesn't it?—Yes.—So it is always becoming older than itself, if indeed it proceeds along with time.—Necessarily.—Now do we remember that when the younger becomes older, the older becomes younger?—We remember.—So since the one becomes older than itself, wouldn't it, as its younger self becomes, be becoming older than that younger self?—Necessarily.—So it is in this way that it becomes both younger and older than itself.—Yes.—And is it older, when, in the process of becoming, it occupies the present moment, the 'now' that lies between 'was' and 'will be'? For surely, in moving on from the past toward the future, it will not skip over the now.—No, it won't.—So doesn't it stop becoming older at that point, once it meets the now, and instead of becoming, it simply is, from then on, older? For if it kept moving forward, it could never be caught by the now. What moves forward is of such a nature as to touch both the now and the future at once, releasing the now and grasping the future, coming to be between the two, between the future and the now.—True.—But if everything that becomes must not pass over the now, then whenever it is at that point, it always stops becoming, and it simply is, at that moment, whatever it happens to be becoming.—So it appears.—So the one too, whenever in becoming older it meets the now, stops becoming and is, at that point, older.—Quite so.—So it is, at that moment, that of which it was becoming older—and it was becoming older than itself.—Yes.—And is the older older than the younger?—It is.—So the one, at that moment, is also younger than itself, when in becoming older it meets the now.—Necessarily.—But the now is always present to the one throughout the whole of its being; for it is always now, whenever it is at all.—Of course.—So the one always both is and becomes older and younger than itself.—So it seems.—But does it exist, or become, for a longer time than itself, or for an equal time?—For an equal time.—But surely whatever becomes or is for an equal time has the same age.—Of course.—And what has the same age is neither older nor younger.—No.—So the one, existing and becoming for an equal time with itself, is neither younger nor older than itself, and does not become so either.—I don't think it does.—Well then—what about the others?
—I can't say. —But you can say this much: that the others, if they're really other than the one, and not just other in the singular, are more than one. For if a thing were merely other, it would be one thing; but things that are others are more than one, and would have plurality. —Yes, they would. —And having plurality, they'd partake of a larger number than the one. —Of course. —Well then: shall we say that the many come to be, and have come to be, prior to the few, or the few before the many? —The few. —So the smallest number is first, and that is the one. —Yes. —So the one came to be first of all things that have number; and all the others have number too, since they're others and not just one other thing. —They do. —And what comes to be first, I think, comes to be earlier, and the others later; and what has come to be later is younger than what came to be earlier. So the others would be younger than the one, and the one older than the others. —So it would seem. —Now here's another question: could the one have come to be contrary to its own nature? Or is that impossible? —Impossible. —But we found that the one has parts, and if it has parts, it has a beginning, an end, and a middle. —Yes. —Now doesn't a beginning come to be first of all—first for the one itself and for each of the others—and after the beginning, everything else, right up to the end? —Of course. —And we'll say all these—the others—are parts of the whole, the one; and the one itself only becomes one and whole at the same moment as its end. —We will. —And the end, I think, comes to be last; and the one is naturally suited to come to be at the same time as that. So if the one truly cannot come to be contrary to its nature, it would come to be, along with its end, last of all—last in its natural coming-to-be relative to the others. —It appears so. —So the one is younger than the others, and the others older than the one. —That's how it appears to me too, again. —Now what about this: mustn't the beginning, or any other single part—of the one or of anything else—provided it's a part and not parts, be one itself, being a part? —Necessarily. —And wouldn't the one come to be together with whatever comes first, and together with whatever comes second, and lag behind none of the others as they come to be, but as each new thing is added to any other, the one keeps pace, all the way through to the last, until the whole has become one, with nothing—middle, first, last, or anything else—left out of the coming-to-be? —True.
—So the one has the very same age as all the others. So if the one itself is not naturally contrary to its own nature, it would have come to be neither earlier nor later than the others, but at the same time. And by this argument the one would be neither older nor younger than the others, nor they than it; but by the earlier argument, older and younger—and likewise the others in relation to it. —Quite so. —So that's how it stands, and how it has come to be. But what about its coming to be older and younger than the others, and the others than the one, and neither older nor younger in its becoming—does the same hold for becoming as for being, or differently? —I can't say. —But I can say this much: even if one thing really is older than another, it couldn't still be becoming older by any more than the difference it already had at the very moment it first came to be; nor could the younger thing still be becoming younger. For when equal amounts are added to unequal things—whether in time or in anything else—the difference remains forever equal to what it was at first. —Of course. —So what is, being one, could never become older or younger than what is, if it always differs by an equal age; rather, it is and has become older, and the other younger, but neither is becoming so. —True. —And so the one, being among the other things that are, never becomes either older or younger than them. —No, indeed. —But look and see whether they become older and younger in this other way. —What way? —The way in which the one appeared older than the others, and the others than the one. —Well then: when the one is older than the others, it has existed, I take it, for more time than the others. —Yes. —Now consider again: if we add an equal span of time to a longer span and a shorter one, will the longer differ from the shorter by the same fraction, or by a smaller one? —A smaller one. —So it won't be true that whatever difference in age the one had from the others at first, it keeps the same difference forever after; rather, taking on equal time along with the others, it will differ from them in age, as time goes on, by an ever smaller fraction than before. Isn't that so? —Yes. —And won't what differs in age by a smaller amount than before, relative to something, become younger than it was before in relation to those things it was previously older than? —Yes, younger. —And if that thing becomes younger, won't the others, in turn, become older relative to the one than they were before? —Certainly.
—So what has come to be younger becomes older relative to what came to be earlier and is older, yet it is never actually older—it only ever becomes older than that thing; for the one is always moving toward the younger, and the other toward the older. And likewise the older, in turn, becomes younger than the younger. For as the two move toward opposite states, they become the opposite of each other: the younger becomes older than the older, and the older becomes younger than the younger. But they couldn't ever finish becoming so; for if they had finished, they would no longer be becoming, but simply be. As it is, they are becoming older and younger than each other: the one becomes younger than the others, because it appeared older and had come to be earlier, while the others become older than the one, because they came to be later. And by the same reasoning the others stand the same way toward the one, since they appeared older than it and came to be earlier. —Yes, that's clearly how it appears. —Now, in the respect in which nothing becomes older or younger than another—the respect in which they always differ from each other by an equal number—in that respect the one would become neither older nor younger than the others, nor they than the one. But in the respect in which things that came to be earlier must always differ by a different fraction from things that came to be later, and vice versa, in that respect they must become older and younger than one another—both the others than the one and the one than the others. —Quite so. —So on all these grounds the one both is and becomes older and younger than itself and than the others, and also neither is nor becomes older or younger, either than itself or than the others. —Entirely so. —And since the one partakes of time, and of becoming older and younger, mustn't it also partake of the past, the future, and the present, given that it partakes of time at all? —Necessarily. —So the one was, is, and will be; it was becoming, is becoming, and will become. —Of course. —And there would be something that belongs to it and of it, both was, is, and will be. —Quite so. —And there would be knowledge of it, and opinion, and perception, since we ourselves are now doing all these things in regard to it. —Rightly said. —And it has a name and an account, and it's named and spoken of; and everything else that applies to other such things applies to the one as well. —That is entirely how things stand. Let's now take up a third point. If the one is such as we've described it—being both one and many, neither one nor many, and partaking of time—mustn't it, since it is one, at some point partake of being, and since it is not, at some other point not partake of being? —Necessarily. —Now when it partakes of being, will it be possible for it, at that very time, not to partake, or, when it doesn't partake, to partake? —Not possible. —So it partakes at one time and doesn't partake at another; for only in that way could it partake and not partake of the same thing.
—Right. —So isn't there also a time at which it takes on being, and a time at which it parts with it? Or how else could it sometimes have the same thing and sometimes not, unless it at some point takes it on and lets it go? —No other way. —And don't you call taking on being a coming-to-be? —I do. —And parting with being, isn't that a perishing? —Very much so. —So the one, it seems, in taking on and letting go of being, comes to be and perishes. —Necessarily. —And being one and many, and coming to be and perishing, when it comes to be one, doesn't its being many perish, and when it comes to be many, doesn't its being one perish? —Quite so. —And in coming to be one and many, mustn't it be separated and combined? —Very much so. —And when it comes to be unlike and like, mustn't it be made like and made unlike? —Yes. —And when it becomes greater, smaller, and equal, mustn't it grow, diminish, and be equalized? —Just so. —And when what is in motion comes to rest, and what is at rest changes to being in motion, surely it can't be in any single moment of time at all. —How so? —Because it can't undergo being at rest and then later in motion, or being in motion and then later at rest, without changing. —Of course not. —And there's no time in which a thing can be at once neither in motion nor at rest. —No, indeed. —But surely it doesn't change without changing. —That's not likely. —So when does it change? For it changes neither while at rest, nor while in motion, nor while in time. —No, indeed. —Is there, then, this strange thing in which it would be, at the moment it changes? —What sort of thing? —The instant. The instant seems to signify something like this: that from it a thing changes into each of two states. For a thing doesn't change out of rest while rest continues, nor out of motion while motion continues; rather, this strange nature, the instant, sits between motion and rest, being in no time at all, and it is into this and out of this that what is in motion changes into rest, and what is at rest changes into motion. —So it seems. —And the one too, if it is indeed at rest and in motion, would change into each state—since only in that way could it do both—and in changing it changes instantaneously, and when it changes, it would be in no time at all, and it would neither be in motion then nor come to rest. —No, indeed.
—So is it the same way with the other changes, whenever something changes from being to perishing, or from not-being to becoming—does it then come to be between certain states of motion and rest, and at that moment neither is nor is not, neither comes to be nor perishes? —So it seems, at least. —By the same reasoning, then, a thing passing from one to many and from many to one is neither one nor many, and is neither being separated out nor being combined. And passing from like to unlike and from unlike to like, it is neither like nor unlike, neither becoming like nor becoming unlike. And passing from small to large, and to equal, and into their opposites, it would be neither small nor large nor equal, and neither increasing nor diminishing nor being equalized. —It doesn't seem so. —So the one, if it is, would undergo all these affections. —How could it not? —But should we also examine what the other things must undergo, if the one is? —We should. —Let's say, then: if the one is, what must the others—as distinct from the one—have undergone? —Let's say. —Well, since they are other than the one, the one is not the others; for then they would not be other than the one. —Right. —Yet the others are surely not entirely deprived of the one either, but share in it somehow. —How so? —Because the others, presumably, are others by having parts; for if they had no parts, they would be entirely one. —Right. —And parts, we say, belong to whatever is a whole. —Yes, we say that. —But a whole must necessarily be one thing made of many, of which the parts will be parts; for each of the parts must be a part not of many things but of a whole. —How is that? —If something were a part of many things among which it itself was included, it would be a part of itself too, which is impossible, and likewise a part of each of the others, if indeed of all of them. For not being a part of one of them, it will be a part of the rest, apart from that one, and so it will not be a part of each one, and being a part of none of them individually, it will be a part of none of the many. And being nothing belonging to any of these things, of none of which it is anything, it is impossible for it to be a part, or anything else, of them. —So it appears. —So the part is not a part of the many, nor of all of them, but of some single form and some one thing that we call a whole—one complete thing come to be out of all of them—of that the part would be a part. —Quite so. —If, then, the others have parts, they would also share in the whole and the one. —Certainly. —So the others must necessarily be a whole, complete, having parts, being other than the one. —Necessarily.
—And indeed the same argument holds for each part: for this too must necessarily share in the one. For if each of them is a part, then surely each being one thing means something—marked off from the others, being by itself—if indeed each is to be. —Right. —And it would share in the one clearly by being something other than the one; for otherwise it would not share in it, but would itself be the one. But in fact it's impossible, presumably, for anything to be one except the one itself. —Impossible. —And both the whole and the part must necessarily share in the one. For the one will be a whole, of which the parts are parts; while each of the parts, in turn, will be one part of the whole, of which it is a part. —So it is. —So won't the things that share in the one, being other than it, share in it as things distinct from it? —How could they not? —And the things other than the one would be many; for if the others were neither one nor more than one, they would be nothing. —Just so. —And since the things that share in the one part and the things that share in the whole one are more than one, must not those very things that partake of the one already be unlimited in multitude? —How so? —Let's look at it this way. Isn't it the case that when they partake of the one, at the very moment they partake of it, they are not one and are not yet sharing in it? —Clearly. —So they are multitudes, in which the one is not present. —Multitudes indeed. —Well then, if we wanted to subtract from such things in thought as little as we possibly could, wouldn't that portion subtracted, if it did not share in the one, necessarily be a multitude and not one? —Necessarily. —So, always examining in this way the nature of the form taken by itself, apart from the one, won't as much of it as we ever see be unlimited in multitude? —Quite so. —And yet whenever each part becomes a part, it already has a limit in relation to the others and to the whole, and the whole in relation to the parts. —Precisely so. —So it turns out for the things other than the one that, out of the one and out of themselves combining, as it seems, something different comes to be within them, which provides a limit in relation to one another; while their own nature, taken by itself, provides unlimitedness. —It appears so. —Thus the others than the one, both as wholes and part by part, are unlimited and also share in limit. —Quite so. —And so are they both like and unlike one another and themselves? —How so? —Insofar as they are all unlimited according to their own nature, in that respect they would have undergone the same thing. —Quite so. —And insofar as they all share in limit, in that respect too they would all have undergone the same thing. —How could they not?
—But insofar as they have undergone being both limited and unlimited, these being opposite affections to one another, in that respect they have undergone opposite affections. —Yes. —And opposites are as unlike as can be. —Certainly. —So according to each affection taken separately, they would be like themselves and one another; but according to both together, they would be most opposite and most unlike of all. —It seems likely. —So the others would be both like and unlike themselves and one another. —So it is. —And likewise we will no longer have trouble finding that they are both the same as and different from one another, both in motion and at rest, and undergoing all the opposite affections, since these too have appeared to be things they undergo. —You're right. —So, if we now set these matters aside as evident, and examine again whether the one is, shall we ask whether the others than the one are affected in this way alone, or otherwise as well? —Certainly. —Let's say, then, from the start: if the one is, what must the others than the one have undergone? —Let's say it. —Isn't it that the one is separate from the others, and the others separate from the one? —Why so? —Because there is nothing else besides these that is other than the one on one hand and other than the others on the other; for everything has been named once we've said 'the one' and 'the others.' —Everything indeed. —So there is no longer anything else, other than these, in which the one and the others could both be found together. —No. —So the one and the others are never in the same thing. —It doesn't seem so. —So they are separate? —Yes. —Nor indeed do we say that the truly one has parts. —How could it? —So the one would be neither a whole present in the others nor parts of it present in them, if it is separate from the others and has no parts. —How could it? —So the others could in no way share in the one, neither by sharing in some part of it nor by sharing in the whole. —It doesn't seem so. —So the others are in no way one, nor do they have any one within themselves. —No indeed. —Nor, then, are the others many; for each of them would be one part of the whole, if they were many. But as it is, the others than the one are neither one nor many, neither a whole nor parts, since they share in it in no way at all. —Right. —So the others are neither two nor three, nor are these numbers present in them, if they are entirely deprived of the one throughout. —So it is. —Nor, then, are the others like or unlike the one, nor is likeness or unlikeness present in them; for if they were like or unlike, or had likeness and unlikeness within themselves, the others than the one would have two forms opposite to each other within themselves. —It appears so. —But it was impossible for things that share in neither of two things to share in either one of them. —Impossible.
—So the others are neither like nor unlike, nor both. For if they were like or unlike, they would share in one or the other form; and if both, in two opposite forms—and that has appeared impossible. —True. —So they are neither the same nor different, neither in motion nor at rest, neither coming to be nor perishing, neither larger nor smaller nor equal, nor have they undergone anything else of this kind. For if the others endure undergoing anything of this sort, they would share in one and two and three, and odd and even—things which it has appeared impossible for them to share in, given that they are entirely and altogether deprived of the one. —Most true. —So, if the one is, the one is everything, and is not even one, both in relation to itself and in relation to the others alike. —Absolutely so. —Well then; and if the one is not, what must follow—shouldn't we examine that next? —We should. —What, then, would this hypothesis be, that the one is not? Does it differ at all from this one—that not-one is not? —It does differ. —Does it merely differ, or is saying 'if the one is not' the complete opposite of saying 'if not-one is not'? —The complete opposite. —And what if someone said 'if largeness is not' or 'if smallness is not,' or anything else of that kind—wouldn't it be clear in each case that he meant something different by 'is not'? —Quite so. —So now too it's clear that he means something different from the others by 'is not,' when he says 'if the one is not'—and we know what he means? —We know. —First, then, he means something knowable, and second, something other than the others, when he says 'one,' whether he adds 'being' to it or 'not being'; for it is no less known what is said 'not to be,' and that it is different from the others. Isn't that so? —Necessarily. —So we must say, starting from the beginning: if the one is not, what must be the case? First, then, this must belong to it, it seems—that there is knowledge of it, or else it would not even be known what is meant when someone says 'if the one is not.' —True. —And also that the others are other than it, or else it could not even be said that that thing is other than the others. —Quite so. —So otherness also belongs to it, besides knowledge. For he does not mean the otherness of the others when he calls the one other than the others, but its own. —It appears so. —And indeed the not-being one shares in 'that,' and 'something,' and 'this,' and 'to this,' and 'of these,' and all such things; for the one would not have been spoken of, nor would the others than the one, nor would anything have belonged to that, nor would anything have been said of it, nor would anything have been said at all, if it shared neither in 'something' nor in any of these others. —Right.
"Being, then, can't belong to the one, if indeed it is not — but nothing stops it from partaking of many things; in fact it must, if it is that particular one and not something else that is not. But if neither the one nor that one is going to be, and the argument is about something else, we shouldn't even utter a word about it. But if it's assumed that that one, and no other, is not, then it must partake both of that one and of many other things." "Quite so." "So it has unlikeness to the other things — for the others, being different from the one, would be of a different sort." "Yes." "And things of a different sort aren't things of another kind?" "Of course they are." "And things of another kind aren't unlike?" "Unlike, certainly." "So if they're unlike the one, clearly it's by something unlike that unlike things are unlike." "Clearly." "So the one too would have an unlikeness, in virtue of which the others are unlike it." "So it seems." "But if it has unlikeness to the others, isn't it necessary that it have likeness to itself?" "How so?" "If the one had unlikeness to the one, the argument wouldn't be about anything of the sort the one is, nor would the hypothesis be about one, but about something other than one." "Quite so." "But it must not be." "No indeed." "So the one must have likeness to itself." "It must." "And again, it isn't equal to the others either — for if it were equal, it would already exist, and would be like them by virtue of the equality. But both of these are impossible, if the one is not." "Impossible." "And since it isn't equal to the others, isn't it necessary that the others also be unequal to it?" "Necessary." "And aren't unequal things unequal?" "Yes." "And aren't unequal things unequal by virtue of the unequal?" "Of course." "So the one partakes of inequality, in virtue of which the others are unequal to it?" "It partakes." "But inequality belongs to largeness and smallness." "It does." "So this sort of one has largeness and smallness in it?" "So it seems." "But largeness and smallness always stand apart from each other." "Quite so." "So there is always something between them." "There is." "Can you name anything else between them besides equality?" "No, only that." "So whatever has largeness and smallness also has equality, lying between the two." "It appears so." "So the one, though it is not, would partake of equality, and of largeness and smallness." "So it seems." "And what's more, it must also somehow partake of being." "How so?" "It must be in the state we're describing — for if it weren't, we wouldn't be speaking truly when we say the one is not. But if we're speaking truly, clearly we're speaking of things that are. Isn't that so?" "Just so."
"And since we say we're speaking truly, we must also be saying we're speaking of what is." "We must." "So the one is, it seems, not-being — for if it isn't going to be not-being, but is going to let go of being in some way toward not-being, it will straightaway be a being." "Absolutely." "So it must hold a bond of not-being to being-not-being, if it's to not-be — just as what is must have not-being of not-being, in order to be, completely, in turn — for that's how what is would most fully be, and what is not would not be, since the one partakes of being, in that it is-not, and of not-being, in that it is-not-not, if it's to be completely; while what is not must, in turn, partake of not-being of not-being, in that it is-not, and of being, in that it is-not, if what is not is likewise to be completely not." "Very true." "So then, since being belongs to what is in respect of not-being, and not-being belongs to what is not in respect of being, must not being also belong to the one, since it is not, in respect of not-being?" "It must." "So being, it appears, belongs to the one, if it is not." "It appears so." "And not-being too, then, if indeed it is not." "Of course." "Now can a thing that is in a certain state fail to be in that state without changing out of that condition?" "It cannot." "So everything of this kind — whatever is in one state and then not in it — signifies a change." "Of course." "And a change is a motion — or what shall we call it?" "A motion." "And hasn't the one appeared to be, and also not to be?" "Yes." "So it appears to be in one state and also not in it." "So it seems." "So the one that is not has also turned out to be in motion, since it undergoes a change from being to not-being." "It would seem so." "But then again, if it's nowhere among the things that are — as indeed it isn't, since it is not — it couldn't shift from one place to another either." "How could it?" "So it couldn't move by changing place." "No." "Nor again could it revolve in the same spot — for it never touches the same thing anywhere. For the same is a being, and it's impossible for what is not to be in any of the things that are." "Impossible, yes." "So the one, being not, couldn't revolve within that in which it is not." "No, indeed." "And surely the one doesn't alter from itself either, whether as a being or as a not-being — for the argument would no longer be about the one, if it altered from itself, but about something else." "Right." "But if it neither alters, nor revolves in the same place, nor shifts, could it still be in motion in any way at all?" "How could it?" "But surely what is unmoved must be at rest, and what is at rest must be standing still." "It must." "So the one, it seems, being not, both stands still and is in motion." "So it seems."
"And what's more, if it's in motion, it's under great necessity to alter — for whatever way a thing is moved, to that extent it no longer holds in the same state as before, but differently." "True." "So the one, in being moved, also alters." "Yes." "And surely, if it isn't moved in any way at all, it couldn't alter in any way at all." "No." "So insofar as the one that is not is moved, it alters; but insofar as it isn't moved, it doesn't alter." "No." "So the one that is not both alters and doesn't alter." "It appears so." "And mustn't whatever alters necessarily come to be something other than it was before, and perish out of its former condition, while whatever doesn't alter neither comes to be nor perishes?" "Necessarily." "So the one that is not, in altering, comes to be and perishes; and in not altering, neither comes to be nor perishes; and so the one that is not both comes to be and perishes, and also neither comes to be nor perishes." "Just so." "Let's go back again to the beginning, to see whether the same conclusions will appear to us as now, or different ones." "We must." "We're asking, then, what must hold for the one, if it is not." "Yes." "And when we say 'is not,' doesn't that signify nothing other than the absence of being from that of which we say it is not?" "Nothing else." "So whenever we say something is not, do we mean it both is not, in a way, and is, in a way? Or does this phrase 'it is not,' said simply, mean that it isn't anywhere, in any way, and doesn't partake of being at all, this thing that is not?" "Most simply put, yes." "So what is not could neither be, nor in any other way partake of being." "No." "And weren't coming-to-be and perishing nothing other than the one taking on being, and the other losing being?" "Nothing else." "But whatever has no share in being could neither take it on nor lose it." "How could it?" "So the one, since it isn't anywhere at all, mustn't be taken to have, or to be released from, or to partake of being in any way." "That's reasonable." "So the one that is not neither perishes nor comes to be, since it in no way partakes of being." "It doesn't appear to." "Nor does it alter at all — for if it did, it would already be coming to be and perishing by undergoing that." "True." "And if it doesn't alter, isn't it necessary that it also not be moved?" "Necessary." "And surely we won't say that what is nowhere stands still either — for what stands still must always be in some same place." "The same place — of course." "So, in this way too, let's say that what is not is never at rest and never in motion." "No, indeed."
"And what's more, none of the things that are belongs to it either — for if it partook of any such being, it would thereby partake of being." "Clear enough." "So neither largeness nor smallness nor equality belongs to it." "No." "Nor again could likeness or difference belong to it, either toward itself or toward the others." "It doesn't appear so." "Well then — could the others be in any state relative to it, if nothing at all need belong to it?" "They could not." "So the others are neither like nor unlike it, neither the same as it nor different from it." "No." "Well then — could the terms 'of that,' 'to that,' 'something,' 'this,' 'of this,' 'of another,' 'to another,' 'once,' 'later,' 'now,' knowledge, opinion, perception, speech, name, or anything else among the things that are, apply to what is not?" "They could not." "So the one that is not is in no condition whatsoever." "It certainly doesn't appear to be in any condition at all." "Let's go on and say what must hold for the other things, if the one is not." "Let's say it." "They must, at any rate, be others — for if they weren't even others, there'd be nothing to say about 'the others.'" "Just so." "And if the argument is about the others, the others are different things. Or don't you use 'other' and 'different' for the same thing?" "I do." "And we say the different is different from something different, and likewise the other is other than something other?" "Yes." "So if the others are to be others, there is something they will be other than." "Necessarily." "What, then, could that be? For they won't be other than the one, since it is not." "No." "So they must be other than each other — that's the only option left them, unless they're other than nothing." "Right." "So each group is other than each other group by virtue of its multitude — for they couldn't be so by virtue of being one, since there is no one." "No — but as it seems, each mass of them is unlimited in multitude, and even if one takes what seems to be the smallest bit, it suddenly appears, like something in a dream, to be many instead of one, seeming just now the smallest, and instead turns out immense compared to the fragments cut from it." "Quite right." "So by such masses the others would be other than one another, if, the one not being, there are others at all." "Exactly so." "So there will be many masses, each appearing as one but not being one, if indeed there's to be no one." "Just so." "And number too will seem to belong to them, if each of them appears as one, though they are many." "Quite so." "And some among them will appear even and some odd, though not truly, if indeed there's to be no one." "No, indeed."
—And surely the smallest too will seem to be present in them; yet this appears many and large in relation to each of the many, as though they were small. —How could it not? —And each mass will be thought equal to the many small things; for it could not pass from larger to smaller in appearance without first seeming to arrive at a middle point, and this would be an appearance of equality. —That's likely. —So then, having a limit in relation to some other mass, it has, in relation to itself, neither beginning nor end nor middle? —How so? —Because whenever anyone grasps in thought any one of them as being some one thing, another beginning always appears before the beginning, and another end is left over after the end, and in the middle other things more middle than the middle, but smaller, because it's impossible to grasp any single one of them, since the one does not exist. —Very true. —So everything that is, whatever anyone grasps in thought, must, I think, be crumbled and broken into bits; for it would always be grasped as a mass without unity. —Quite so. —So then such a thing, seen from a distance and dimly, must necessarily appear as one, but seen up close and sharply thought through, each one must appear infinite in multitude, if indeed it is deprived of the one, since the one does not exist? —Most necessarily so. —So in this way each of the other things must appear both unlimited and limited, and one and many, if the one does not exist, and the others are other than the one. —So it must. —So they will also seem to be both like and unlike? —How so? —Like things sketched in shadow-painting, when one stands apart, all appear as one, and seem to have undergone the same thing and to be alike. —Quite so. —But drawing near, they appear many and different, and by the appearance of difference, different and unlike each other. —Just so. —So the masses themselves must appear both like and unlike, both to themselves and to each other. —Quite so. —And also both the same and different from each other, and both touching and apart from themselves, and moving with every kind of motion and standing still in every way, and both coming to be and perishing and neither, and all such things, which it is now easy for us to run through, if, the one not existing, many things exist. —Most true. —Now let us go once more, once again, back to the beginning and say: if the one does not exist, but the others are other than the one, what must they be. —Let us say it, then. —So then the others will not be one. —Of course not. —Nor indeed many either; for in things that are many the one would also be present. For if none of them is one, all of them are nothing, so that they could not even be many. —True. —And since the one is not present among the others, the others are neither many nor one.
—Nor indeed do they even appear as one or as many. —Why is that? —Because the others have no communion whatsoever, in any way or manner, with any of the things that do not exist, nor does any part of the things that do not exist belong to any of the others; for the things that do not exist have no part at all. —True. —So there is no opinion of what does not exist among the others, nor any appearance of it, nor is what does not exist thought of in any way whatsoever with respect to the others. —No indeed. —So if the one does not exist, none of the others is thought to be one, nor many; for without the one it is impossible to think of many things. —Impossible indeed. —So if the one does not exist, the others neither exist nor are thought to be one or many. —It seems not. —Nor then are they thought like or unlike. —No. —Nor indeed are they the same or different, nor touching nor apart, nor any of the other things we went through before as appearing to be so — none of these things is true of the others, nor does it appear to be, if the one does not exist. —True. —So then, if we were to say it all together: if the one does not exist, nothing exists — would we be speaking correctly? —Absolutely. —Let this, then, be said, and also this: that, as it seems, whether the one exists or does not exist, it itself and the others, both in relation to themselves and to each other, all in every way both are and are not, and both appear and do not appear. —Most true.
THEODORUS: Here we are, Socrates, right on schedule after yesterday's agreement — and we've brought this gentleman with us, a visitor from Elea, one of the circle around Parmenides and Zeno, and very much a philosopher. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, Theodorus, it isn't a visitor you've brought but some god, without realizing it — as Homer has it. He says the gods, and not least the god of strangers, accompany men who have a decent sense of respect, watching over the outrages and the good order of mankind. So maybe this companion of yours is one of those higher powers, come to observe and expose how feeble we are in argument — a sort of god of refutation. THEODORUS: That's not our visitor's style, Socrates. He's more moderate than the people who make a serious business of quarreling. And in my view the man is no god at all — though he is godlike. That's what I call all philosophers. SOCRATES: And rightly so, my friend. But that breed, I suspect, is hardly easier to make out than the god's. These men — the genuine philosophers, not the counterfeits — appear in all sorts of guises, thanks to everyone else's ignorance, as they roam from city to city, looking down from above on the life below. To some people they seem worth nothing at all, to others worth everything; sometimes they show up looking like statesmen, sometimes like sophists, and sometimes they can give the impression of being completely out of their minds. But I'd be glad to ask our visitor, if he doesn't mind, what the people in his part of the world thought about all this, and what names they used.
THEODORUS: What things do you mean? SOCRATES: Sophist, statesman, philosopher. THEODORUS: What exactly is your difficulty about them? What sort of question did you have in mind? SOCRATES: This: did they consider all these to be one thing, or two? Or did they distinguish three kinds, matching the three names, and attach one kind to each name? THEODORUS: I don't imagine he'll begrudge going through it. Or how shall we put it, sir? VISITOR: Just so, Theodorus. I don't begrudge it at all, and it's not hard to say that they counted them as three. But to define clearly what each of them is — that is no small task, and no easy one. THEODORUS: As luck would have it, Socrates, you've hit on questions very like the ones we happened to be pressing him with before we came here. And he made the same excuses to us then that he's making to you now — though he admits he has heard the whole matter thoroughly and hasn't forgotten it. SOCRATES: Then don't refuse us, sir, the first favor we ask. Just tell us this much: which do you generally prefer — to work through what you want to demonstrate on your own, in one long speech, or to do it through questions? That was the method I once saw Parmenides use, developing some magnificent arguments, when I was young and he was already a very old man. VISITOR: With a partner who responds easily and gives no trouble, Socrates, the way with another person is easier; otherwise, the way by oneself. SOCRATES: Then you may choose whomever you like from the company — they'll all answer you good-naturedly. But if you take my advice, you'll pick one of the young ones: Theaetetus here, or any of the others who suits you. VISITOR: Socrates, meeting you all for the first time as I am, I feel a certain embarrassment about turning our gathering into a long solo performance, spinning out an extended speech by myself or even addressing one to someone else, as if I were putting on a display. For the question as you've just put it is really not as small as one might hope from the way it was asked — it needs a very long discussion. On the other hand, to refuse you and these gentlemen, especially after what you've said, strikes me as unfriendly to a guest, even barbarous. As for Theaetetus, I accept him gladly as my partner in the discussion, both from my own earlier conversation with him and from your recommendation just now.
THEAETETUS: Then do that, sir, and as Socrates said, you'll be doing us all a favor. VISITOR: There's probably nothing more to be said on that point, Theaetetus. From here on, it seems, the discussion is to be with you. And if the length of it wears you down and becomes a burden, don't blame me — blame these friends of yours. THEAETETUS: I don't think I'll give out just yet. But if anything like that does happen, we'll bring in this other Socrates here — Socrates' namesake, my own age-mate and training partner; sharing hard work with me is nothing new to him. VISITOR: Well said. You can decide that privately as the discussion goes on. But together with me you must now investigate, beginning — so it seems to me — with the sophist: searching him out and making plain in words what on earth he is. At present, you see, you and I share only the name where he's concerned; the thing we each call by it we may well hold privately, each to ourselves. But on every subject one should always agree on the thing itself, through reasoned discussion, rather than on the mere name without any account. Now the tribe we're proposing to hunt is not the easiest thing in the world to grasp — the sophist. And in all great undertakings that have to be worked through properly, everyone has long agreed on the rule: practice first on small and easier cases before tackling the biggest ones. So here is my advice for the two of us, Theaetetus: since we've judged the sophist's kind a hard quarry to catch, let's first rehearse the method of hunting him on something easier — unless you can suggest some smoother road from somewhere. THEAETETUS: I can't. VISITOR: Then shall we go after some trivial thing and try to set it up as a model for the greater one? THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: What might we put forward that's easy to know and small, yet allows an account no less than the bigger subjects do? Say — an angler. Isn't he familiar to everyone, and hardly worth any great seriousness?
THEAETETUS: Just so. VISITOR: And yet I expect he offers us a method and an account not unsuited to our purpose. THEAETETUS: That would be good. VISITOR: Come on then, let's start with him from this end. Tell me: shall we set him down as a man with an art, or as someone without an art but having some other capacity? THEAETETUS: Without an art — certainly not. VISITOR: Well, of arts taken all together there are pretty much two kinds. THEAETETUS: How so? VISITOR: Farming, and all tending of any mortal body; then everything to do with what is compounded and fashioned — what we call an implement; and the art of imitation. All of these together would most justly be called by a single name. THEAETETUS: How, and by what name? VISITOR: Whenever someone brings into being something that did not exist before, we say the one who brings it is making, and the thing brought is being made. THEAETETUS: Right. VISITOR: And all the things we just went through had their capacity directed to exactly that. THEAETETUS: They did indeed. VISITOR: Then let's sum them up and call them the productive art. THEAETETUS: Agreed. VISITOR: Next after this, the whole class of learning and of getting to know things, and money-making, contest, and hunting: since none of these creates anything, but they take things that are or have come to be — capturing some of them by words and deeds, and refusing to let others be captured — for all these reasons every one of these parts would most fittingly be called a certain art of acquisition. THEAETETUS: Yes, that would fit. VISITOR: So, with all arts falling under acquisition or production, in which shall we place angling, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Under acquisition, obviously. VISITOR: And aren't there two kinds of acquisitive art? One is exchange between willing parties, through gifts and hire and purchase; the rest, which captures things either by deeds or by words, would be the art of capture? THEAETETUS: So it appears from what we've said. VISITOR: Well then — shouldn't capture be cut in two? THEAETETUS: Where? VISITOR: Setting down all the open kind as contest, and all the secret kind as hunting. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: And it would be unreasonable not to cut hunting in two as well. THEAETETUS: Say how. VISITOR: Dividing off one part for the lifeless class and one for the living. THEAETETUS: Of course — if both exist.
VISITOR: How could they not exist? And we should let the hunting of lifeless things go — it has no name, apart from some parts of diving and a few other trifles like that — and call the other, since it is the hunting of living creatures, animal-hunting. THEAETETUS: So be it. VISITOR: And of animal-hunting mightn't we fairly say there's a double form: one for the walking kind, divided into many forms and names — land-hunting; and the other for the swimming animal, all of it water-hunting? THEAETETUS: Certainly. VISITOR: And of the swimming kind we see one tribe is winged and one lives in the water? THEAETETUS: Naturally. VISITOR: And all hunting of the winged class is called, I suppose, fowling. THEAETETUS: So it is. VISITOR: While that of the water class, taken pretty much as a whole, is fishing. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: Well now — mightn't we divide this hunting in turn into two main parts? THEAETETUS: Which ones? VISITOR: According as one does its hunting with enclosures on the spot, and the other with a strike. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? How are you dividing each? VISITOR: The first: whatever surrounds a thing and hems it in so as to block its escape, it's natural to call an enclosure. THEAETETUS: Quite so. VISITOR: Then weels and nets and nooses and traps and things like that — should they be called anything but enclosures? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. VISITOR: So we'll call this part of the chase enclosure-hunting, or something like that. THEAETETUS: Yes. VISITOR: But the part done with hooks and tridents, by striking, is different from that, and we should now call it in one word strike-hunting — unless someone can say it better, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: Let's not worry about the name; that one will do. VISITOR: Of strike-hunting, then, the nighttime sort, done by firelight, has come to be called — by the hunters themselves, as it happens — fire-hunting. THEAETETUS: Certainly. VISITOR: While the daytime sort, since tridents too have hooks on their points, is all hook-hunting. THEAETETUS: So it's called. VISITOR: Then of the strike-hunting that uses hooks, the kind that goes from above downward — since that's chiefly how tridents are used — has been named, I believe, tridentry. THEAETETUS: Some people do say so, at any rate. VISITOR: And then there remains, one might say, only one form left. THEAETETUS: What's that?
STRANGER: And the opposite kind of stroke -- the one done with a hook, and not catching the fish wherever on the body it happens to, the way the three-pronged spear does, but always around the head and mouth of the creature being hunted, and hauled up from below, upward and against the pull, with rods and reeds -- what shall we say this ought to be called, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: I think what we just now set out to find has now, this very thing, been completed. STRANGER: So now you and I have agreed about angling -- not only its name, but we have grasped an adequate account of the practice itself. Of the whole of art, half was acquisitive; of the acquisitive, the part that overpowers by force; of that, the part that hunts; of hunting, the part that hunts living things; of that, the part that hunts things in water; of that, the whole lower division was fishing; of fishing, the part that strikes; and of striking, the part that uses a hook. The part of this that involves the upward stroke drawing up from below has, from the very practice itself, taken on a name resembling it, and this is what has come to be called, in our search, angling. THEAETETUS: That much, at any rate, has been shown sufficiently. STRANGER: Come then, let us try, following this same model, to find out what on earth the sophist is. THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: And indeed that was the very first question -- whether we should take the angler to be a layman or someone possessing an art. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And now, Theaetetus, shall we set this one down as a layman, or as, in every sense, truly a sophist? THEAETETUS: By no means a layman -- I understand what you mean, that whoever bears this name must be everything such a name implies. STRANGER: Then we must set him down as possessing some art, it seems. THEAETETUS: What art, then, could this be? STRANGER: Good heavens -- have we failed to notice that the two men are kin to each other? THEAETETUS: Kin of whom, to whom? STRANGER: The angler, to the sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Both appear to me to be a kind of hunter. THEAETETUS: A hunter of what, the second one? We have already named the first. STRANGER: We divided all hunting just now into two, cutting off a swimming part and a part on land. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we went through the one, as much as concerns swimming water creatures; but the land part we left uncut, saying only that it was of many kinds.
THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Up to this point, then, the sophist and the angler travel together from the art of acquisition. THEAETETUS: They do seem to. STRANGER: But they part ways from the hunting of living things -- the one turning toward the sea, rivers, and lakes, to hunt the creatures in these. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: The other turns toward the land, and toward other rivers, so to speak -- boundless meadows of wealth and youth -- meaning to master the creatures that graze there. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Land-hunting turns out to have two very large divisions. THEAETETUS: What are they, each of them? STRANGER: One is of tame creatures, the other of wild. THEAETETUS: Is there, then, a hunting of tame creatures? STRANGER: Yes, if man is a tame animal. But set it down however you please -- whether you say no creature is tame, or that some other is tame but man is wild, or again that man is tame but deny there is any hunting of men. Whichever of these you find agreeable, define it for us. THEAETETUS: Well, I take us to be a tame animal, Stranger, and I say there is indeed a hunting of men. STRANGER: Then let us say that the hunting of tame creatures, too, is twofold. THEAETETUS: On what grounds? STRANGER: Let us define piracy, slave-trading, tyranny, and the whole art of war, all as one thing -- hunting by force. THEAETETUS: Well put. STRANGER: And courtroom pleading, public speaking, and persuasive conversation, let us call, taken all together, a single art -- some art of persuasion. THEAETETUS: Correct. STRANGER: Now, of persuasion, let us say there are two kinds. THEAETETUS: What kinds? STRANGER: One happening in private, the other in public. THEAETETUS: Yes, each is indeed a distinct kind. STRANGER: And of private hunting, is not one part paid for hire, the other given as a gift? THEAETETUS: I don't follow. STRANGER: You haven't yet turned your mind, it seems, to the hunting done by lovers. THEAETETUS: Concerning what? STRANGER: That they give gifts in addition to those they hunt. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Well then, let this be a kind of the erotic art. THEAETETUS: Quite so.
STRANGER: But of the part paid for hire, the part that keeps company through charm, making its bait entirely out of pleasure, and exacts as its wage only its own upkeep -- this, I think, we would all call flattery, or some art of pleasing. THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: But the part that professes to keep company for the sake of virtue, and exacts money as its wage -- doesn't this kind deserve to be called by another name? THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: What name, then? Try to say. THEAETETUS: It's obvious -- I think we've found the sophist. So having said this, I think it is the fitting name to call him. STRANGER: Then, following our present account, Theaetetus, it seems the art that is appropriative, overpowering, acquisitive, hunting, hunting of living things, hunting on land, hunting on dry land, hunting of tame creatures, hunting of men, hunting by persuasion, hunting in private, hired, paid in coin, offering education as its lure, hunting the young and rich and prominent -- this, as our present account turns out, must be called the sophistic art. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: But let us also look at it this way -- for what we are now investigating is not a share of some paltry art, but of a very intricate one. And indeed, in what has been said already, it presents an appearance of being not this thing we now claim it to be, but some other kind. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: The art of acquisition was, we said, double in form -- one part having to do with hunting, the other with exchange. THEAETETUS: Yes, it was. STRANGER: Then let us say there are two kinds of exchange, one by gift, the other by purchase. THEAETETUS: Let it be said. STRANGER: And further, let us say that purchase-and-sale is cut in two. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Dividing off the selling of one's own products as direct-selling, and the trading of others' products as trade. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then -- of trade, isn't the exchange within a single city, roughly half of it, called retailing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the part that exchanges by buying and selling from one city to another, commerce? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And of commerce, haven't we noticed that one part deals in goods by which the body is fed and served, the other in goods by which the soul is -- selling these too, in exchange for coin? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by this? STRANGER: The part concerning the soul we perhaps do not yet understand, since the other part, at least, we do grasp. THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Let us, then, speak of the whole of music -- bought at one city each time and carried elsewhere to be sold; and painting, and puppetry, and many other things pertaining to the soul, some brought and sold for the sake of amusement, others for the sake of earnest matters -- and let us say that the one who brings and sells these could rightly be called a merchant, no less than the seller of food and drink. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Then won't you apply the same name to the one who buys up items of learning, going from city to city, exchanging them for money? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Of this soul-trading business, wouldn't one part most justly be called a display-art, while the other -- no less absurd than the first, yet still, since it is a selling of learning, must be called by some name akin to the practice? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Then of this learning-selling art, one part concerning the learning of the other arts must be given one name, and the part concerning virtue, another. THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: 'Art-selling' would surely fit the part concerning the other arts; but as for the name for the part concerning these matters -- virtue -- please make an effort to state it yourself. THEAETETUS: And what other name could one give, without erring, besides saying that this very thing being sought is the sophistic kind itself? STRANGER: None other. Come, then, let us now gather it together, saying: the sophistic art has appeared, a second time, as that part of the art of acquisition, exchange, purchase-and-sale, commerce, and soul-trading, which deals in words and lessons concerning virtue. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And a third time, I think, you would also call by this same name any man settled within a single city, who partly buys and partly himself fabricates lessons on these same subjects, and sells them, making his living from this -- you would call him nothing other than what we just now said. THEAETETUS: Of course I would. STRANGER: So the part of acquisition that is exchange -- whether purchase, or retail, or direct-selling, in either case, whatever learning-selling business concerns such matters -- you will always call, it seems, sophistic. THEAETETUS: Necessarily -- for one must follow along with the argument. STRANGER: Let us look further still, to see whether the kind we are now pursuing resembles something of the following sort.
THEAETETUS: What sort? STRANGER: Of the art of acquisition, there was for us a part called competitive. THEAETETUS: Yes, there was. STRANGER: Then it isn't out of place to cut this in two as well. THEAETETUS: Say along which lines. STRANGER: Setting one part of it as contest, the other as combat. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Now for the combat that occurs body against body, it's likely fitting to give it some name such as violence. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: But for the one that pits words against words, Theaetetus, what else could one call it but disputation? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And the matter of disputation must be set down as twofold. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Insofar as it occurs in long speeches opposed to long speeches, and concerns just and unjust things, in public, it is forensic. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the kind that occurs in private, broken up into questions against answers -- surely we're accustomed to call this nothing but eristic? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And of eristic, the part that concerns contracts, in which people dispute, but do so haphazardly and without art -- this must be set down as a distinct kind, since the argument has recognized it as being something separate, but it has not received a name from earlier thinkers, nor does it deserve one from us now. THEAETETUS: True -- for it is divided up into pieces too small and too various. STRANGER: But the part that is done with art, and disputes about just and unjust things themselves, and about other matters generally -- don't we usually call this, in turn, contentious argument? THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: And of contentious argument, one part wastes money, the other makes money. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Then let us try to state the name that each of these two ought to be called. THEAETETUS: We certainly must. STRANGER: Well, I think that the part which, out of the sheer pleasure of spending time on such things, neglects one's own household affairs, while its manner of speaking gives most of its listeners no pleasure at all -- this, in my judgment, is called nothing other than idle chatter. THEAETETUS: Yes, it's called something like that. STRANGER: Then try to state, in your turn, the opposite of this -- the one that makes money from private quarrels. THEAETETUS: And what else could one say, without error, except that this in turn is, once again, that same astonishing figure, now appearing for a fourth time -- the sophist we've been pursuing?
STRANGER: Nothing else, it seems, than that the moneymaking kind belonging to the art of disputation — the art of contradiction, of controversy, of combat, of contest, of acquisition — is, as our argument has now revealed once more, the sophist. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So you see how truly it's said that this creature is many-colored and, as the saying goes, not to be caught with one hand? THEAETETUS: Then we must use both. STRANGER: Yes, we must, and as far as we're able we should do just that, tracking some further trace of him like this. Tell me — we have certain names for household tasks, don't we? THEAETETUS: Many of them. But which of the many are you asking about? STRANGER: Things like this: we speak of straining, sifting, winnowing, and separating. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And besides these, also carding, combing, weaving with the shuttle, and countless other such things present in the crafts. We know these, don't we? THEAETETUS: What point were you trying to illustrate by setting out these examples and asking about all of them together? STRANGER: All the things mentioned are, I think, cases of division. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So, following my argument, since this is one single art running through all of them, we should think it worthy of one name. THEAETETUS: What shall we call it? STRANGER: Discriminative. THEAETETUS: Let it be so. STRANGER: Now look and see whether we can make out two forms of it in turn. THEAETETUS: That's a quick inquiry you're setting me. STRANGER: Well, among the divisions we mentioned, one kind separated worse from better, the other like from like. THEAETETUS: Put that way, it does seem to be so. STRANGER: Now for the second kind I have no established name; but for the division that keeps the better and throws away the worse, I do have one. THEAETETUS: Tell me. STRANGER: Every division of that sort, as I understand it, is called by everyone a kind of purification. THEAETETUS: Yes, it is. STRANGER: And wouldn't everyone see that this purifying kind is itself twofold? THEAETETUS: Yes — given time to think, perhaps; but I don't see it right now. STRANGER: Well, the many kinds of purification concerning bodies deserve to be gathered under one name. THEAETETUS: Which ones, and what name?
STRANGER: Those belonging to living creatures — whatever is purified, rightly, from within the body by gymnastic and medicine — and, concerning the outside, trivial to mention, whatever bathing provides; and those of lifeless bodies, which fulling and the whole art of adornment attend to, acquiring in their small particulars many names that seem laughable. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Quite so indeed, Theaetetus. But for the method of argument it makes no more and no less difference whether sponge-cleaning or medicine-drinking benefits us by purifying small things or great. For in order to acquire understanding, it tries to grasp what is akin and what is not akin among all the arts, and for this purpose it honors them all equally, and considers none of the like arts more laughable than another by reason of their similarity; nor does it think someone who displays hunting through generalship more dignified than one who does so through lice-catching — rather, for the most part, more pompous. And so now too, as to what you asked — what single name we shall give to all the powers, whatever they may be, that are allotted the task of purifying a body, whether ensouled or soulless — it will make no difference to our method which term seems the most fitting. Only let it hold together, apart from the purifications of the soul, everything else that purifies anything at all. For it has now been trying to mark off the purification concerning thought from the others — if indeed we understand what it wants. THEAETETUS: Well, I have understood, and I agree there are two kinds of purification, one being the kind concerning the soul, separate from the kind concerning the body. STRANGER: Excellent in every way. Now listen to what comes next, trying again to cut what's been said in two. THEAETETUS: Whatever direction you lead, I'll try to help you cut it. STRANGER: Do we speak of some vice in the soul as distinct from virtue? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And purification was, we said, to keep the one and cast out whatever is bad. THEAETETUS: Yes, it was. STRANGER: So too with the soul — insofar as we find some removal of badness in it, we'll be speaking in tune if we call this a purification. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: We must speak of two kinds of badness concerning the soul. THEAETETUS: Which two?
STRANGER: One like a disease in the body, the other like an ugliness that arises in it. THEAETETUS: I didn't follow that. STRANGER: Perhaps you haven't thought of disease and civil strife as the same thing? THEAETETUS: Here too I don't know what I should answer. STRANGER: Do you take strife to be anything other than the falling-out, from some corruption, of things naturally akin? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: And is ugliness anything but the presence everywhere of the disproportionate, unshapely kind? THEAETETUS: Nothing else at all. STRANGER: Well then — haven't we noticed that in the soul, opinions are at odds with desires, spirit with pleasures, reason with pains, and all these with one another, whenever things go badly? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And yet all these are necessarily akin to one another. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So we'll be right to call vice a strife and disease of the soul. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: And what about this — whatever partakes of motion, and sets itself some target, and in trying to reach it on each impulse veers off course and misses — shall we say these things suffer this from a proportion among themselves, or on the contrary from a disproportion? THEAETETUS: Clearly from disproportion. STRANGER: But surely we know that every soul, whenever it's ignorant of anything, is ignorant against its will. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And to be ignorant is nothing other than this: when a soul reaching for truth has its understanding go astray — that is nothing but derangement. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So we must posit an unintelligent soul as ugly and disproportionate. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: There are, then, as it appears, these two kinds of evils in the soul — the one called by most people vice, which is quite clearly a disease of it. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the other they call ignorance, but they're unwilling to admit that, occurring only in the soul, it too is a badness. THEAETETUS: I must fully grant now what I was puzzled about when you said it a moment ago — that there are two kinds of badness in the soul, and that cowardice, intemperance, and injustice must all be counted as a disease within us, while the affliction of extensive and manifold ignorance must be set down as ugliness. STRANGER: So concerning the body, for these two afflictions there arose two arts? THEAETETUS: Which two?
STRANGER: For ugliness, gymnastic; for disease, medicine. THEAETETUS: So it appears. STRANGER: And for insolence, injustice, and cowardice, isn't the art of chastisement by nature the one most fitting of all the arts, most closely related to Justice? THEAETETUS: That's likely, at least by human reckoning. STRANGER: And what about this — for ignorance in general, could one more rightly name any other art than the art of teaching? THEAETETUS: None. STRANGER: Come then — must we say teaching is a single kind, or several, with two of them the greatest? Consider. THEAETETUS: I'm considering. STRANGER: And I think we could find out most quickly this way. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: By seeing whether ignorance admits of some cut down its middle. For if it turns out to be double, that clearly forces teaching too to have two parts, one for each of its kinds. THEAETETUS: Well then, is what we're now seeking clear to you at all? STRANGER: I think I see one form of ignorance that is great and hard, set apart, outweighing all its other parts together. THEAETETUS: Which one is that? STRANGER: Thinking one knows something one doesn't know at all. Through this, it seems, all the errors of thought come about for everyone. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And indeed I think this alone, among the kinds of ignorance, has been given the name stupidity. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And what should we call the part of teaching that removes this? THEAETETUS: Well, Stranger, I think the rest should be called instruction in crafts, but this one, here among us, we call education. STRANGER: Yes, and pretty much among all the Greeks. But we still have this further to examine — whether it is now already indivisible, or admits some division worthy of a name. THEAETETUS: We should look into it. STRANGER: Well, I think this too still splits somehow. THEAETETUS: In what way? STRANGER: Of teaching by argument, one path seems rougher, the other part of it smoother. THEAETETUS: What shall we call each of these?
STRANGER: The one is the venerable, ancestral method, which people used most of all toward their sons, and many still use today, whenever their children go wrong in some way — sometimes scolding them harshly, sometimes coaxing more gently. The whole of it, one would most rightly call admonition. THEAETETUS: That's how it is. STRANGER: But others, it seems, have reasoned it out for themselves and come to hold that all ignorance is involuntary, and that no one who thinks himself wise in matters he considers himself clever in would ever be willing to learn anything about them, and that this admonitory kind of education, for all its trouble, accomplishes little. THEAETETUS: And they're right to think so. STRANGER: For this reason they set out to expel that very opinion by another method. THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: They question someone about the things he thinks he's saying something about when he's really saying nothing; then, since such people's opinions wander, they easily test them, and gathering these opinions together in argument, they set them side by side, and in setting them side by side they show that they contradict each other, about the same things, in relation to the same things, in the same respect. And those who see this grow angry at themselves, but grow gentle toward others, and in this way they are freed from their great, rigid opinions about themselves — a freedom that, of all releases, is the most pleasant to hear and proves the most lasting for the one who undergoes it. For those who purify them, dear boy, hold the same view as doctors who deal with the body: just as those doctors have held that the body cannot benefit from food offered to it until someone expels the obstructions within it, so too these thinkers judged concerning the soul — that it will not gain benefit from the learning offered to it until someone, by refuting a person, brings him to a sense of shame, removing the opinions that obstruct his learning, and shows him purified, believing he knows only what he does know, and no more. THEAETETUS: That is certainly the best and most sound-minded of the states one can be in. STRANGER: For all these reasons, then, Theaetetus, we must say that refutation is the greatest and most authoritative of purifications, and conversely we must consider anyone unrefuted — even if he happens to be the Great King himself — as, in the greatest matters, unpurified, and as having become uneducated and ugly in just those respects in which the one who is truly going to be happy ought to be most pure and most beautiful. THEAETETUS: Quite so indeed.
STRANGER: Well then — what shall we call those who practice this art? I'm afraid to say sophists. THEAETETUS: Why so? STRANGER: For fear we grant them too great an honor. THEAETETUS: But surely what has just been said does resemble something of that sort. STRANGER: Yes, just as a wolf resembles a dog, the wildest thing resembling the tamest. But the cautious man must above all keep watch concerning resemblances, always — for that class of thing is most slippery. Still, let it stand; for I don't think the dispute will be over small boundary lines, once people keep watch carefully enough. THEAETETUS: No, that's not likely. STRANGER: Then let there be a purifying part of the discriminative art, and within purification let the part concerning the soul be marked off, and within this, teaching, and within teaching, education; and let the refutation of empty conceit of wisdom, which has appeared to us in our present argument concerning education, be called, for us, nothing other than the noble sophistry — noble in its kind. THEAETETUS: Let it be called so. But I myself am now at a loss, since so many things have come to light, as to what one should say — speaking truly and firmly — the sophist really is. STRANGER: It's reasonable that you're at a loss. But we should think that by now he too must be quite at a loss as to how he'll still slip out of the argument. For the proverb is right that says it isn't easy to escape every kind of net. So now especially we must press the attack on him. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: First, then, let's stand still and catch our breath, so to speak, and while resting let's reckon up among ourselves how many things the sophist has turned out to be for us. For I think, first, he was found to be a paid hunter of the young and wealthy. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And second, a kind of merchant in learning concerning the soul. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And third, didn't he turn up as a retailer of these same things? THEAETETUS: Yes, and fourth he was, for us, one who sells his own wares directly concerning learning. STRANGER: You remembered rightly. And I'll try to remember the fifth: he was a kind of athlete in the contest of arguments, having marked off for himself the art of disputation. THEAETETUS: Yes, he was. STRANGER: The sixth is disputable, but even so we set it down, granting him to be a purifier of the soul from opinions that obstruct learning. THEAETETUS: Quite so indeed.
STRANGER: Do you notice this — when someone appears knowledgeable about many things but is called by the name of a single skill, there's something unsound about that impression? It's clear that the person forming this impression can't make out the one thing in that skill toward which all these various branches of learning point — which is why he addresses the person who has them by many names instead of one. THEAETETUS: That does seem to be roughly how it works. STRANGER: Then let's not let laziness produce the same effect on us in our own inquiry. Let's pick up again one of the things we said about the sophist. There was one point in particular that struck me as revealing him. THEAETETUS: Which point? STRANGER: We said he was a controversialist, a man skilled in arguing both sides. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And also that he makes others into the same sort of arguer? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Let's look, then, at what exactly such men claim to make people skilled at arguing about. Let our inquiry proceed from the beginning along these lines: take divine matters, the things hidden from most people — do they make people capable of arguing both sides about those? THEAETETUS: Well, that's certainly what's said about them. STRANGER: And what about visible things — the earth, the sky, and everything connected with them? THEAETETUS: Of course, that too. STRANGER: And in private conversations, whenever something is said about coming-to-be and being in a general way, we know that they themselves are formidable at arguing the opposite view, and that they make others just as capable? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: And what about laws and political matters generally — don't they promise to produce men able to dispute any position? THEAETETUS: No one would even talk to them, so to speak, if they didn't promise that. STRANGER: And as for the arguments to be raised against every craftsman, in every single craft and in all of them together — these have surely been written down and published for anyone who wants to learn them. THEAETETUS: You seem to be referring to the Protagorean writings on wrestling and the other crafts. STRANGER: Yes, my friend, and many others besides. But isn't the whole point of this art of argument-both-ways, in sum, some single capacity sufficient for disputing about everything? THEAETETUS: Well, it certainly looks as though it leaves nothing out. STRANGER: But by the gods, my boy, do you really think that's possible? Perhaps you young people see this more sharply than we do, and we see it more dimly.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean, and what exactly are you asking? I don't quite follow the question just now. STRANGER: Whether it's possible for any human being to know everything. THEAETETUS: If it were, Stranger, our race would be a blessed one indeed. STRANGER: Then how could anyone, being himself ignorant, manage to say anything sound in opposition to someone who actually knows? THEAETETUS: There's no way. STRANGER: So what could be so wonderful about the sophist's supposed power? THEAETETUS: What are you asking about? STRANGER: The way they manage to give young people the impression that they themselves are the wisest of all men on all subjects. Clearly, if they didn't argue correctly, or if they did but didn't appear to their listeners to be doing so, or if — even appearing to — they still weren't thought any wiser on account of their disputing, then, as you say, hardly anyone would ever be willing to pay them money to become their students. THEAETETUS: Hardly, indeed. STRANGER: But as it stands, people are willing? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Because they're thought, I imagine, to have real knowledge of the very things they argue about. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And they do this about everything, we're saying? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So they appear to their students as wise about everything. THEAETETUS: Naturally. STRANGER: Though not actually being so — for that turned out to be impossible. THEAETETUS: How could it be otherwise? STRANGER: So the sophist has turned out for us to possess some sort of opinion-based knowledge about everything, but not the truth. THEAETETUS: Absolutely — and it looks like what's just been said is exactly right about them. STRANGER: Let's take a clearer example to illustrate this. THEAETETUS: What sort? STRANGER: This one. And try to pay close attention and answer well. THEAETETUS: About what? STRANGER: Suppose someone claimed that he could, not by speaking or arguing, but by making and doing, know how to produce all things by a single craft— THEAETETUS: What do you mean by 'all things'? STRANGER: You're already missing the start of what I said — it seems you don't grasp 'all things' as a whole. THEAETETUS: No, I don't. STRANGER: I mean you and me among all things, and along with us the other animals and the trees. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Suppose someone claimed he would make me and you and all the other living things as well—
THEAETETUS: What sort of making are you talking about? You surely can't mean some kind of farmer — you also said he'd be a maker of animals. STRANGER: I do mean that, and more — a maker of sea and earth and sky and gods and everything else besides; and what's more, he makes each of these quickly and sells them all for a very small price. THEAETETUS: You're describing some kind of joke. STRANGER: And what about the man who says he knows everything and could teach it to someone else for a small fee and in a short time — shouldn't that too be considered a joke? THEAETETUS: Absolutely, I'd think. STRANGER: And do you know of any form of playful trickery more skillful or more charming than the art of imitation? THEAETETUS: Not at all — you've named a form that gathers an enormous range of things into one, and about the most versatile kind there is. STRANGER: Then we recognize that the man who promises to be able to make everything by one craft — by producing likenesses and namesakes of the things that exist through the art of drawing — will be able, by showing his drawings from a distance, to deceive foolish young children into thinking that whatever he wishes to do, he's fully capable of actually accomplishing. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And what about this — shouldn't we expect there to be some other craft concerning speeches, by which it's likewise possible to bewitch the young through their ears with words, while they're still standing far off from the truth of things — by presenting spoken images of everything, so as to make what's said seem true, and the speaker himself seem the wisest of all men on every subject? THEAETETUS: Why shouldn't there be some such craft? STRANGER: Then isn't it necessary, Theaetetus, that most of those who listened to such things back then, once enough time has passed and they've grown older, and they come up against realities close at hand, and are forced through direct experience to grasp clearly what actually exists — that they change the opinions they held back then, so that great things now appear small, and easy things difficult, and all the images conjured up in speeches are utterly overturned by the things that actually happen in practice? THEAETETUS: Yes, as far as I, at my age, can judge. I suppose I too am still among those standing far off from it.
STRANGER: That's exactly why all of us here will try — and are trying right now — to bring you as close as possible without the actual experience. So tell me this about the sophist: is it already clear that he's one of these enchanters, an imitator of real things, or are we still uncertain whether he actually possesses true knowledge of all the subjects he seems capable of arguing about? THEAETETUS: How could that be, Stranger? It's already fairly clear from what's been said that he's one of the participants in this playful trickery. STRANGER: Then we must set him down as some kind of enchanter and imitator. THEAETETUS: How could we not? STRANGER: Come then — our job now is not to let the quarry loose any longer. We've pretty much surrounded him in a kind of net woven from arguments about such matters, so that he won't escape this much at least. THEAETETUS: Escape what? STRANGER: The conclusion that he's one of the tribe of wonder-workers. THEAETETUS: I agree with that much about him too. STRANGER: It's decided, then, that we should as quickly as possible divide the art of image-making, and once we've descended into it — if the sophist waits for us right away, we'll seize him according to the instructions of the royal argument, and hand him over, displaying our catch; but if he slips down into some subdivision of the art of imitation, we'll follow along, always dividing the part that receives him, until he's caught. In no case will he or any other kind ever be able to boast that it escaped a method capable of pursuing things both one by one and all together. THEAETETUS: Well said — that's exactly what we should do. STRANGER: Following the method of division we've used so far, I think I can now make out two forms of the art of imitation — but which of the two contains the form we're hunting for, I don't yet think I can determine. THEAETETUS: Well, tell us first and distinguish the two you mean. STRANGER: One I see in it is the art of likeness-making. This occurs above all whenever someone produces a copy by following the proportions of the model in length, breadth, and depth, and further assigns to each part the colors that properly belong to it. THEAETETUS: But don't all imitators try to do this?
STRANGER: Not those who model or draw any of the large works. If they were to reproduce the true proportions of beautiful things, you know that the upper parts would appear too small and the lower parts too large, because we see the one from a distance and the other from close up. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: So don't craftsmen, letting the truth go, actually work into their images not the real proportions but those that will seem beautiful? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Then isn't it fair to call the one thing, since it's like its model, a likeness? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And shouldn't the part of imitation concerned with this be called, as we said before, the art of likeness-making? THEAETETUS: It should. STRANGER: And what about the thing that appears, because of the way it's viewed rather than from a good vantage point, to resemble the beautiful — but which, if someone gained the power to see such large things properly, wouldn't even resemble the thing it claims to resemble — what do we call that? Since it appears but doesn't resemble, isn't it an apparition? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And isn't this a very large part, both in painting and throughout the whole of imitation? THEAETETUS: How could it not be? STRANGER: Then wouldn't we most correctly call the art that produces an apparition rather than a likeness the art of appearance-making? THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: These, then, were the two forms I meant of the image-making art — likeness-making and appearance-making. THEAETETUS: Correctly put. STRANGER: But the thing I was unsure of before — in which of the two we should place the sophist — I still can't see clearly even now. The man really is astonishing, and extremely hard to pin down, since even now he's escaped very neatly and cleverly into a form that's hard to investigate. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: Do you agree because you actually understand this, or has some momentum of the argument, from sheer habit, swept you along into agreeing quickly? THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that, and what's it about? STRANGER: We really are, my friend, in an altogether difficult inquiry. This business of appearing and seeming without being, and of saying things that aren't true — all of this has always been full of perplexity, both in the past and now. How one is to say that falsehood really exists, either in speech or in belief, and in saying so avoid being caught in a self-contradiction — that, Theaetetus, is thoroughly difficult.
THEAETETUS: How is that? STRANGER: This argument has dared to assume that what-is-not is — for otherwise falsehood could never have come to be. But great Parmenides, my boy, when we were children testified against this from beginning to end, saying it again and again, both in plain speech and in verse — 'for never shall this be forced through, that things that are not, are; but you, in your inquiry, hold your thought back from this path.' So it is testified to by him, and the argument itself, if we press it a little, would show this most clearly of all. Let us look at this very point first, if it makes no difference to you. THEAETETUS: Do with me whatever you like — just look for whatever path the argument runs best along, and lead me by that same road. STRANGER: Then that is what we must do. Tell me — do we dare to utter the phrase 'what in no way is'? THEAETETUS: Of course we do. STRANGER: Well then, not for the sake of dispute or play, but suppose one of our listeners had to stop and think seriously and answer: to what should this name, 'what is not,' be applied? What do we suppose we ourselves would use it for, and what would we point to in showing it to someone who asked? THEAETETUS: That's a hard question you've asked, and pretty much impossible for someone like me altogether. STRANGER: Well, this much at least is clear: 'what is not' cannot be attached to any of the things that are. THEAETETUS: How could it be? STRANGER: So then, since it cannot be attached to what is, no one could rightly attach it to 'something' either. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: This too is plain to us, surely: that whenever we say 'something,' we always say it of something that is; for to say it all alone, bare and stripped away from all the things that are, is impossible — isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Impossible. STRANGER: Do you agree, looking at it this way, that whoever says 'something' must be saying some one thing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: For you will say that 'something' is a sign of one thing, and 'some two' of two, and 'some several' of many. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And whoever says nothing at all as 'something' must, it seems, necessarily be saying nothing whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Quite necessarily. STRANGER: So must we not even grant this much — that such a person says something, yet says nothing — but rather say he isn't even speaking at all, if he attempts to utter the words 'what is not'? THEAETETUS: Well then, the argument would have reached the very end of its perplexity.
STRANGER: Don't say anything so grand yet, my blessed friend — for there is still more, and this is in fact the greatest and the very first of the difficulties. It happens to concern the very starting point of the matter. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Speak, and don't hold back at all. STRANGER: To what is, presumably, something else that is could be added. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But to what is not, shall we ever say that any of the things that are could be added? THEAETETUS: How could it? STRANGER: We reckon number as a whole among the things that are, don't we? THEAETETUS: Yes, if indeed anything else is to be reckoned as being. STRANGER: Then let us not even attempt to bring either a plurality of number or a single unit up against what is not. THEAETETUS: We would not, it seems, be attempting that rightly, according to what the argument says. STRANGER: Then how could anyone either utter with his mouth, or even grasp in thought at all, the things that are not, or what is not apart from number? THEAETETUS: Tell me how you mean. STRANGER: When we speak of 'things that are not,' plural, aren't we attempting to add a plurality of number? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And when we say 'what is not,' singular, aren't we adding the unit instead? THEAETETUS: Quite clearly so. STRANGER: And yet we say it is neither just nor right to attempt to fit what is onto what is not. THEAETETUS: What you say is very true. STRANGER: Do you see, then, that it is not possible to utter correctly, nor to speak, nor to think, what is not, all by itself — but that it is unthinkable, unspeakable, unutterable, and without account? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Was I wrong, then, just now in saying I would state the greatest difficulty about it — do we have some other one still greater to mention? THEAETETUS: What one is that? STRANGER: My wonderful friend, don't you see, from the very things that have been said, that what-is-not throws even the man refuting it into such difficulty that whenever anyone tries to refute it, he is forced to contradict himself about it? THEAETETUS: What do you mean? Say it more clearly still. STRANGER: There's no need to look for anything clearer in me. For I myself, having laid it down that what-is-not must have no share in either one or the many, just now and even now spoke of it as one — for I said 'what is not.' You follow, I take it? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And again, only a moment ago, I said it was unutterable, unspeakable, and without account. Do you follow?
STRANGER: So then, wasn't I saying things contrary to what I said before, when I tried to attach 'being' to it? THEAETETUS: You appear to be. STRANGER: And what's more, in attaching that, wasn't I speaking of it as if it were one thing? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And indeed, when I called it without account, unspeakable, and unutterable, I was treating my discourse as directed at one single thing. THEAETETUS: Of course you were. STRANGER: But we say that, if one is to speak correctly, one must mark it off neither as one nor as many, nor even call it 'it' at all — for by that very designation it would be addressed under the form of the one. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then, what could anyone say about me? For he would find me defeated, both long ago and now, on the subject of refuting what-is-not. So don't let us look, as I said, to my own speech for correct usage concerning what-is-not — come, let us instead examine the matter in you. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Come, make a fine and noble attempt for us — since you're young — and strain every nerve you can, and try, without attaching either being, or the one, or a plurality of number, to what-is-not, to say something correct about it. THEAETETUS: A great and strange eagerness would have to seize me for the attempt, if, seeing you suffering as you do, I should try it myself. STRANGER: Well, if you like, let's leave you and me out of it. But until we meet someone able to do this, let us say that the sophist has, more than anything, cunningly sunk himself down into a place with no way out. THEAETETUS: It certainly does appear so. STRANGER: And so, if we say he possesses some art of image-making, he will easily seize on that very use of words against us and turn our arguments back the other way, whenever we call him an image-maker, by asking us just what in the world we mean at all by 'image.' So we must consider, Theaetetus, what one is to answer the young man in response to his question. THEAETETUS: Clearly we shall say the images in water and in mirrors, and further the painted and molded ones, and all the other such things there are of that kind. STRANGER: It's plain, Theaetetus, that you haven't seen a sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: He'll seem to you to be shutting his eyes, or to have no eyes at all. THEAETETUS: How do you mean?
STRANGER: When you give him that answer, if you speak of things in mirrors or in sculpted works, he will laugh at your words, since you speak to him as if he could see, pretending he knows nothing of mirrors or water or sight at all — and he will question you only on the basis of your own words. THEAETETUS: What sort of question? STRANGER: The one running through all these things which, though you named many, you thought fit to call by one name, speaking of 'image' as applying to them all as though it were one thing. So speak, and defend yourself, giving no ground to the man. THEAETETUS: Then what, Stranger, should we say an image is, except another thing of the same sort, made to resemble the true one? STRANGER: Do you mean another true thing of that sort, or what do you mean by 'of that sort'? THEAETETUS: Not true at all, but merely like it. STRANGER: Do you mean by 'the true' what really is? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And is the not-true, then, the opposite of the true? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So you're saying that the likeness really is not, if indeed you're going to say it is not true. THEAETETUS: But it does exist, in some way. STRANGER: Not truly, though, you say. THEAETETUS: No, not that — except that it really is a likeness. STRANGER: So it is not, yet really is — this thing we call a likeness? THEAETETUS: It looks as if what-is-not has gotten woven together with what-is in some such tangle — and a very strange one at that. STRANGER: Of course it's strange. You can see, at any rate, that even now, through this interweaving, the many-headed sophist has forced us, against our will, to admit that what-is-not somehow is. THEAETETUS: I see it very clearly. STRANGER: Well then — how are we going to mark off his art in such a way that we can agree with ourselves? THEAETETUS: In what way, and what are you afraid of, that you speak like this? STRANGER: When we say he deceives people about appearance, and that his art is a kind of deceiving art, shall we say that our soul holds false beliefs because of his art, or what shall we say? THEAETETUS: That — what else could we say? STRANGER: And false belief, in turn, will be believing the opposite of the things that are, won't it? THEAETETUS: Yes, the opposite. STRANGER: So you're saying that false belief believes things that are not? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. STRANGER: Does it believe that the things that are not, are not, or in some way that the things that in no way are, are? THEAETETUS: The things that are not must in some way be, if anyone is ever going to be false about anything, even a little. STRANGER: What then — isn't it also believed that the things that altogether are, are not? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And is this too falsehood? THEAETETUS: This too.
STRANGER: And a false statement, I think, will be judged false in just the same way — one that says the things that are, are not, and the things that are not, are. THEAETETUS: How else could it become such a thing? STRANGER: Hardly any other way. But the sophist will not admit this. Or what device is there for any sensible man to agree, once it has already been agreed beforehand that these things are unutterable, unspeakable, without account, and unthinkable? Do we understand, Theaetetus, what he means? THEAETETUS: Of course we understand that he'll say we're saying the opposite of what we just said, when we dare to assert that falsehood exists among beliefs and in statements — since we're forced, over and over, to attach being to what-is-not, though we just now agreed together that this was the most impossible thing of all. STRANGER: You've remembered rightly. But now consider what we ought to do about the sophist — for you see how ready to hand and how numerous are the objections and difficulties, if we go hunting for him by placing him in the art of those who work falsehood and deceive by tricks. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: And yet we've only gone through a small portion of them, when they are, so to speak, endless. THEAETETUS: It would be impossible, then, it seems, to catch the sophist, if this is how things stand. STRANGER: What then? Shall we now grow soft and back off? THEAETETUS: No, I say we must not, if we're still able to get some grip on the man, even a small one. STRANGER: Then will you forgive me, and be content, as you just said, if we manage somehow to pull ourselves free, even a little, from so strong an argument? THEAETETUS: Of course I will. STRANGER: Then I beg one more thing of you, even more. THEAETETUS: What is that? STRANGER: Don't take me for some kind of father-killer. THEAETETUS: Why do you say that? STRANGER: In defending ourselves, we shall be forced to test father Parmenides' argument, and to force through the claim both that what-is-not, in some way, is, and that what-is, in turn, in some way is not. THEAETETUS: It's clear that this is a point we must fight for in the argument. STRANGER: Of course it's clear, even to a blind man, as the saying goes. For until these things are either refuted or agreed to, hardly anyone will ever be able to speak about false statements or false belief — whether of images, or likenesses, or imitations, or appearances themselves, or of the arts concerned with these — without being forced to contradict himself and become an object of ridicule. THEAETETUS: Very true.
STRANGER: For these reasons, then, we must dare to lay hands on our father's teaching now, or else abandon the attempt altogether, if some scruple is holding us back from doing it. THEAETETUS: No, let nothing hold us back from that, not in the least. STRANGER: Then there's a third small favor I'll ask of you. THEAETETUS: Just say it. STRANGER: I said a moment ago that when it comes to examining this question I've always been at a loss, and I still am now. THEAETETUS: You did say that. STRANGER: Well, I'm afraid that after saying this you'll think me a madman, suddenly turning myself upside down and inside out for no reason. For it's for your sake that we're going to take on the examination of this claim, if we're going to examine it at all. THEAETETUS: As far as that goes, you won't seem to me to be doing anything out of line if you proceed to this examination and demonstration—so go ahead with confidence. STRANGER: Well then, where should one begin such a risky argument? I think, my boy, this is the path we're most bound to take. THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: To look first at the things that now seem obvious to us, in case we've actually gotten muddled about them, and are too readily agreeing with each other that we see them clearly. THEAETETUS: Say more plainly what you mean. STRANGER: It seems to me that Parmenides—and everyone else who's ever set out to determine by argument how many things there are, and of what sort—has talked to us rather too casually. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Each of them seems to me to be telling us some story, as if we were children. One says the things that are are three, and that certain of them sometimes make war on each other, and sometimes become friends and produce marriages and births and the rearing of offspring. Another says there are two, wet and dry or hot and cold, and marries them off and gives them away. And our own Eleatic tribe, starting from Xenophanes and even earlier, tells its tales on the assumption that what we call all things is really one. Then some later Ionian and Sicilian Muses realized that it was safest to weave the two together, and to say that being is both many and one, held together by hatred and love.
STRANGER: 'For it is drawn together in being drawn apart,' say the more strenuous of these Muses; while the gentler ones relax the claim that this is always so, and say instead that in turn the universe is at one time one and friendly, under Aphrodite's power, and at another time many and at war with itself, on account of some kind of strife. Now whether any of them has spoken truly or not in all this is a difficult and delicate question—it isn't right to find fault on such a scale with men so famous and so old—but there's one thing that can be said without giving offense. THEAETETUS: What's that? STRANGER: That they've looked down on the likes of us, the many, and paid us far too little regard. They give no thought at all to whether we follow what they're saying or get left behind, and each of them simply carries through to the end whatever he's set out to say. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Whenever one of them declares that things are, or have come to be, or are coming to be, many or one or two, and then again speaks of hot mixed together with cold, positing separations and combinations elsewhere—tell me, Theaetetus, in the name of the gods, do you actually understand each time what they mean by these things? As for me, when I was younger I thought I understood exactly what was meant by 'what is not,' which is actually the very question we're now stuck on. But now you see what a difficulty we're in about it. THEAETETUS: I see. STRANGER: So perhaps we're in just as much the same condition, in our souls, regarding 'that which is'—thinking we're comfortable with it and understand it whenever someone utters the word, while with 'that which is not' we don't, when in fact we're in exactly the same state with both. THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: And let's say the same holds for the other terms we mentioned earlier. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: We'll look into the rest of them later, if it seems good to do so, but for now we must examine the greatest and most fundamental one first. THEAETETUS: Which one do you mean? Or is it obvious—that you think we should investigate first what people mean when they say 'that which is'? STRANGER: You've followed right on my heels, Theaetetus. What I mean is that we should proceed in this way: as though they themselves were present, we should question them like this. Come now, all of you who say that everything is hot and cold, or some other such pair—what is it you mean when you speak of both of them, saying that each of the two is, and both of them are? What are we to understand by this 'being' of yours? Is it a third thing alongside those two, so that we should count the universe as three things according to you, and no longer two? Surely, in calling one of the two 'being,' you don't mean that both of them equally are—for in either case there'd be one thing, not two. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: But then, do you want to call the pair of them, together, 'being'? THEAETETUS: Perhaps.
STRANGER: But then, my friends, we shall say, even on this view the two would most clearly be spoken of as one. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then, since we're at a loss, you must make it clear enough to us what you mean to signify when you utter the word 'being.' For clearly you've understood this all along, while we used to think we did, but now find ourselves at a loss. So first teach us this very point, so that we don't imagine we understand what you're saying when the truth is quite the opposite. Now, in saying this and demanding it of them and of everyone else who says that the universe is more than one thing—are we, my boy, going to be doing anything out of line? THEAETETUS: Not in the least. STRANGER: Well then? Shouldn't we also ask those who say the universe is one, as far as we're able, what exactly they mean by 'that which is'? THEAETETUS: Of course we should. STRANGER: Then let them answer this. You say only one thing exists?—'Yes, we do say that,' they'll answer. Isn't that right? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well then? Do you call something 'being'? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Is it the very same thing as 'the one,' so that you're using two names for the same thing, or how is it? THEAETETUS: Well then, Stranger, what's their answer to that going to be? STRANGER: Clearly, Theaetetus, it isn't the easiest thing in the world for anyone who's adopted this hypothesis to answer that question, or indeed any other. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: To admit that there are two names when one has posited that nothing exists but the one is, I think, ridiculous. THEAETETUS: How could it not be? STRANGER: And to accept from anyone at all the claim that there is such a thing as a name would make no sense either. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: In positing that the name is different from the thing, he's speaking of two things. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And what's more, if he takes the name to be the same as the thing, he'll be forced either to say it's the name of nothing, or, if he says it's the name of something, the result will be that the name is merely the name of a name, and of nothing else at all. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And 'the one,' too, will turn out to be the name of one thing, and also the name of the name of that oneness. THEAETETUS: That's inevitable. STRANGER: Well then? Will they say that the whole is different from being, the one thing, or the same as it? THEAETETUS: Of course they'll say it's the same, and indeed they do say so. STRANGER: Well, if it's a whole—as Parmenides too says: 'like the mass of a well-rounded sphere on every side, evenly balanced from the center in every direction; for it must be neither at all greater nor at all smaller in this direction or that'—if being is of that sort, then it has a middle and extremities, and if it has these, then surely it must have parts. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: It is.
STRANGER: But surely nothing prevents a thing that's been divided into parts from having the property of oneness as applied to all its parts together, and in that way being both a whole and one, being entirely. THEAETETUS: Why not? STRANGER: But is it not impossible for the thing that has this property to be, itself, the one itself? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Surely what is truly one must, by the correct account, be said to be altogether without parts. THEAETETUS: Yes, it must. STRANGER: But a thing of the sort we described, being made up of many parts, won't agree with that whole account. THEAETETUS: I follow. STRANGER: Well then, is being to have this property of the one, and so be both one and a whole—or are we to say that being is not a whole at all? THEAETETUS: You've set before me a hard choice. STRANGER: What you say is perfectly true. For if being has this property of somehow being one, it will turn out not to be the same as the one, and so the sum of all things will turn out to be more than one. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And further, if being is not a whole, because it has this property imposed on it, while the whole itself exists in its own right, then it follows that being falls short of itself. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And by this account, being, deprived of itself, will turn out not to be being at all. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And again, on this view the sum of things becomes more than one, since being and the whole have each taken on a distinct nature of their own. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: But if the whole doesn't exist at all, then the very same consequences follow for being: not only does it not exist, it could never even come to be an existing thing. THEAETETUS: Why is that? STRANGER: Whatever has come to be has always come to be as a whole; so that if one doesn't count the one or the whole among the things that are, one mustn't speak of either being or coming-to-be as really existing. THEAETETUS: That certainly seems to be so. STRANGER: And what's more, nothing that isn't a whole can have any quantity at all; for whatever quantity a thing has, that same quantity it must be, as a whole. THEAETETUS: Precisely so. STRANGER: And so countless other difficulties without end will clearly turn up, one after another, for anyone who says that being is either some two things or one thing only. THEAETETUS: What's coming into view even now shows that pretty well; each difficulty links up to another, bringing a greater and harder confusion about whatever was said before.
STRANGER: Now, we haven't gone through all those who argue with precision about being and not-being, but let what we've covered be enough. We must now look at those who speak of it differently, so that from all of them together we may see that saying what being is turns out to be no easier than saying what not-being is. THEAETETUS: Then we must go after these others too. STRANGER: And indeed, among them there seems to be a kind of battle of gods and giants going on, since they're at odds with each other over the question of what really exists. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Some of them drag everything down from the heavens and the unseen realm to earth, actually grabbing hold of rocks and oak trees with their bare hands. Laying hold of all things of this sort, they insist that only what offers resistance and can be touched really exists, since they define being and body as the very same thing, and if anyone says that something without a body exists, they despise the notion utterly and refuse to hear another word about it. THEAETETUS: You're describing some formidable men—I myself have run into plenty of that sort already. STRANGER: That's exactly why the people arguing against them defend themselves very cautiously, from somewhere up above, out of the unseen, insisting forcefully that true being consists of certain intelligible and bodiless forms; and as for the bodies of the other side, and what they call the truth, they smash it to bits in their arguments, calling it, instead of real being, some kind of shifting process of coming-to-be. And in between these two camps, Theaetetus, an endless battle is always being waged over this very question. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Well then, let's take an account from each of the two schools in turn, of the being they posit. THEAETETUS: How shall we go about getting it? STRANGER: From those who locate it in the forms it will be easier, since they're more civilized; but from those who drag everything by force into body, it will be harder, and perhaps nearly impossible. Still, this is how I think we ought to deal with them. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: Best of all, if it were somehow possible, would be to actually make them better in fact; but if that can't be managed, let's do it in speech, supposing them willing to answer in a more law-abiding way than they're actually willing to now. For an agreement reached among better people carries more weight than one reached among worse ones; and in any case it isn't these people we're concerned with, but the truth we're after. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Then ask them to imagine themselves made better, and answer for them yourself, interpreting what they'd say. THEAETETUS: I'll do that. STRANGER: Well then, let them say whether they claim there is such a thing as a mortal living creature. THEAETETUS: Of course they do. STRANGER: And don't they agree that this is an ensouled body? THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: Thereby counting soul as one of the things that are?
THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well then — don't they say one soul is just and another unjust, one wise and another foolish? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And won't each of these come to be what it is through the possession and presence of justice, and its opposite through the presence of the opposite? THEAETETUS: Yes, they'd agree to that too. STRANGER: But surely they'll say that whatever is capable of coming to be present in something, or absent from it, is in every case something real. THEAETETUS: They will say that. STRANGER: So given that justice and wisdom and virtue generally exist, along with their opposites, and the soul in which they come to be — do they say any of these is visible and tangible, or that they're all invisible? THEAETETUS: Pretty much none of them is visible. STRANGER: And what about things of that sort — do they say they possess any body? THEAETETUS: Here they no longer answer all in the same way. They think the soul itself does possess some kind of body, but as for wisdom and each of the other things you asked about, they're ashamed either to venture that none of these things are real, or to insist that everything is a body. STRANGER: Clearly, Theaetetus, our men have grown more civilized — the ones actually sprung from the earth, born of dragon's teeth, wouldn't have been ashamed of a single one of those claims; they'd have stood their ground that whatever they can't squeeze in their fists is simply nothing at all. THEAETETUS: That's more or less what they think, yes. STRANGER: Then let's question them again. If they're willing to concede that even some small part of reality is bodiless, that's enough. For then they must say what it is that both these bodiless things and the bodily ones have in common, the thing they have in view when they call both of them 'being.' Perhaps they'll be at a loss. If that's the sort of trouble they're in, see whether, if we offer it, they'd be willing to accept and agree that reality is something like this. THEAETETUS: Like what? Tell me and we'll soon know. STRANGER: I mean this: whatever possesses any power at all, either to affect anything else, of whatever nature, or to be affected, even to the smallest degree, by the most trivial thing, and even on a single occasion — all that truly is. My proposal is that this marks the boundary defining what is real: nothing other than power. THEAETETUS: Well, since they have nothing better to offer at the moment, they accept that.
STRANGER: Good. Perhaps later something else will appear to us and to them. For now, then, let this stand as agreed between us and these people. THEAETETUS: It stands. STRANGER: Now let's go to the others, the friends of the forms. You must interpret their side of things for us as well. THEAETETUS: I'll do that. STRANGER: You people distinguish becoming from being, and treat them separately — is that right? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And you say that through the body, by means of perception, we have contact with becoming, while through reasoning, by means of the soul, we have contact with true being, which you say always remains the same in the same way, while becoming is now this way, now that. THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what we say. STRANGER: But this 'contact,' best of men — what shall we say you mean by it in both cases? Isn't it just what we said a moment ago? THEAETETUS: Which was? STRANGER: Some affecting or being affected, arising from a power exercised between things that come together with one another. Perhaps, Theaetetus, you don't catch their answer to this, but I do, from long familiarity with it. THEAETETUS: Then what argument do they give? STRANGER: They don't grant us what we just said to the earthborn men about reality. THEAETETUS: Which was? STRANGER: We set it down as a sufficient boundary of things that are, that a power be present in something, whether to be affected or to act, even to the slightest degree. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Well, against this they say that becoming does have a share in the power to act and be affected, but that neither of these powers fits with being. THEAETETUS: Isn't there something in that? STRANGER: To which we must reply that we still need to learn from them more clearly whether they agree that the soul knows, and that being is known. THEAETETUS: Yes, they do say that. STRANGER: Well then — do you say that knowing or being known is an acting, or an undergoing, or both? Or is one of them an undergoing and the other something else? Or does neither of them share in either at all? THEAETETUS: Clearly neither shares in either — otherwise they'd be contradicting what they said before. STRANGER: I follow. This much is clear: if knowing is a kind of acting, then what is known must, in turn, be undergoing something. So on this account, being, insofar as it is known by knowledge, is to that same extent being moved, through undergoing something — which we say could never happen to what is at rest. THEAETETUS: Right.
STRANGER: But good heavens — shall we really so easily be persuaded that motion, life, soul, and thought have no place in that which fully is, that it neither lives nor thinks, but stands there solemn and holy, without mind, fixed and unmoving? THEAETETUS: That would be a strange thing to concede, Stranger. STRANGER: But shall we say it has thought, yet not life? THEAETETUS: How could that be? STRANGER: Or shall we say both these are in it, yet deny that it has them in a soul? THEAETETUS: How else could it possibly have them? STRANGER: Or that it has mind and life and soul, yet stands there utterly unmoved, for all its being alive? THEAETETUS: All of that seems senseless to me. STRANGER: Then what moves, and motion itself, must also be granted to be, as things that are. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And so it follows, Theaetetus, that if things were unmoving, mind would belong to no one about anything, anywhere. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And yet again, if we grant that everything is in motion and flux, by this same argument we'll be removing this very thing from the realm of what is. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Does it seem to you that sameness, being in the same state and about the same thing, could ever come about apart from rest? THEAETETUS: Not at all. STRANGER: And again, without these, do you see how mind could exist, or come to exist, anywhere at all? THEAETETUS: Hardly. STRANGER: And yet we must fight with every argument we have against anyone who, by doing away with knowledge or thought or mind, insists on anything whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: So it seems the philosopher, who honors these things above all, is bound, for this very reason, neither to accept from those who speak of the one, or of many forms, that the whole stands still, nor to listen at all to those who set what is in motion in every way — but, like a child praying for both at once, must say that being and the whole together are both what is unmoved and what is in motion. THEAETETUS: Very true. STRANGER: Well then — don't we now seem to have made a fair circuit of what is, in our argument? THEAETETUS: We certainly do. STRANGER: Ah, but Theaetetus — I think we're now about to discover just how baffling the inquiry into it really is. THEAETETUS: How so? What do you mean by that? STRANGER: My good man, don't you see that at this very moment we're in the deepest ignorance about it, even though we seem to ourselves to be saying something? THEAETETUS: To me, at least. But just how we've fallen into this state without noticing, I don't quite understand.
STRANGER: Then let's look more closely and see whether, agreeing to what we now agree to, we wouldn't fairly be asked the very questions we ourselves once put to those who said the whole was hot and cold. THEAETETUS: What questions? Remind me. STRANGER: By all means — and I'll try to do it by questioning you, just as we questioned them then, so that we make some progress at the same time. THEAETETUS: Good. STRANGER: Well then: don't you say motion and rest are the most complete opposites of one another? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And yet you say both of them equally are, and each of them is? THEAETETUS: Yes, I do say that. STRANGER: Do you mean, when you grant that they are, that both of them, and each of them, are in motion? THEAETETUS: Certainly not. STRANGER: Or do you mean, in saying both of them are, that they're at rest? THEAETETUS: How could I mean that? STRANGER: So you're positing being as some third thing over and above these, on the understanding that rest and motion are both embraced by it, and grasping them together, looking to their communion with being, you called both of them, in that sense, 'are'? THEAETETUS: It really does look as though we're divining being to be some third thing, when we say motion and rest are. STRANGER: Then being is not motion and rest taken together, but something else, distinct from both. THEAETETUS: So it seems. STRANGER: Then, by its own nature, being neither rests nor moves. THEAETETUS: More or less. STRANGER: Where, then, must someone turn his thought who wants to establish something clear and certain about it in his own mind? THEAETETUS: Where indeed? STRANGER: I don't think there's any easy place left. For if a thing doesn't move, how is it not at rest? And what isn't at rest at all — how, again, is it not in motion? Yet being has now shown itself to us to be outside both of these. Is that even possible? THEAETETUS: Nothing could be more impossible. STRANGER: Then it's fair to recall this point as well. THEAETETUS: What point? STRANGER: That when we were asked to what we should apply the name 'not-being,' we were caught in utter perplexity. Do you remember? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Well, are we now in any less perplexity about being? THEAETETUS: To me, Stranger, if it's even possible to say so, we seem to be in even more.
STRANGER: Let this, then, stand here as thoroughly perplexed. But since being and not-being have come in for an equal share of difficulty, there's now some hope that as one of them comes to light more dimly or more clearly, the other will come to light in just the same way; and if we're able to see neither, then at least we'll push our account through between the two of them, in whatever way we can manage most gracefully. THEAETETUS: Good. STRANGER: Let's say, then, in what way it is that we call this same thing by many names on each occasion. THEAETETUS: Like what? Give an example. STRANGER: We speak of 'man,' surely, while applying to him many further names — we attach colors to him, and shapes, and sizes, and vices and virtues, and in all these, and countless others besides, we say not only that he is a man, but also that he is good, and countless other things; and in just the same way, on this same principle, having posited each thing as one, we turn around and speak of it as many, and by many names. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And that, I think, is how we've prepared quite a feast for the young, and for those old men who take up learning late in life. For anyone can immediately seize on the objection that it's impossible for the many to be one and the one many, and they take delight, of course, in refusing to let us say a man is good, but insisting the good is good and the man is man. You run into people like this often enough, I think, Theaetetus — sometimes fairly old men, who through the poverty of their own understanding marvel at such things, and even imagine they've discovered in this some great piece of wisdom. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Well then, so that our argument may apply to everyone who has ever discussed being in any way at all, let what we're about to say now be addressed, in the form of a question, both to these people and to all the others we've conversed with before. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: Should we refuse to attach motion and rest to being, or anything else to anything else, and instead treat them in our arguments as unmixable, incapable of sharing in one another? Or should we bring everything together into one, as capable of association with each other? Or some things yes, others no? Which of these, Theaetetus, shall we say they would choose? THEAETETUS: I have no answer to give on their behalf. STRANGER: Then why not answer point by point yourself, and examine what follows in each case? THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: And let's have them say, if you like, first, that nothing has any power of association with anything else, for any purpose. In that case, won't motion and rest have no share in being at all?
THEAETETUS: No, indeed. STRANGER: Well then—will either of them exist without partaking of being? THEAETETUS: It will not. STRANGER: Then by this agreement everything has quickly been turned upside down, it seems—both those who set the whole universe in motion, and those who hold it fixed as one, and all who say that the things that are exist forever, always the same, in the same state, according to their forms. For all of them attach being to their view—some saying things really are in motion, others that they really stand still. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And further, those who at one time compose all things and at another divide them—whether into one and out of one into infinitely many, or dividing into elements that are finite in number and composing out of those, whether they suppose this happens by turns or that it happens always—in all these cases they would be saying nothing at all, if there is no mixture whatsoever. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: And beyond that, the people who allow nothing to be addressed as other by association with a different affection would pursue their argument in the most laughable way of all. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Because they're forced to use, in speaking of everything, the words 'is,' and 'apart,' and 'of the others,' and 'in itself,' and countless other such terms—unable to keep away from them and refrain from linking them in their arguments, they need no one else to refute them; they carry their own enemy inside, as the saying goes, an opponent muttering within them wherever they go, like that absurd fellow Eurycles. THEAETETUS: That's exactly right, and true too. STRANGER: But what if we allow that all things have the power of association with one another? THEAETETUS: That I can refute myself. STRANGER: How? THEAETETUS: Because motion itself would come to a complete stop, and rest in turn would itself be in motion, if each came to be present in the other. STRANGER: But surely that, by the strongest necessity, is impossible—that motion should come to rest and rest be in motion? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So only the third possibility remains. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And indeed one of these must be so: either all things mix, or none, or some are willing to combine and others not. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And the first two have been found impossible. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So anyone who wants to answer correctly will adopt the remaining one of the three. THEAETETUS: Quite so.
STRANGER: Since some things, then, are willing to do this and others not, they're presumably in much the same condition as letters. Some of these don't fit together with each other, while others do. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But the vowels, unlike the rest, run through all of them like a bond, so that without one of them it's impossible for the others to fit together with each other either. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: Now does everyone know which letters can combine with which, or does the person who means to do this properly need a skill? THEAETETUS: A skill. STRANGER: What skill? THEAETETUS: The skill of grammar. STRANGER: And what about high and low sounds—isn't it the same there? The person who has the skill to recognize which sounds blend and which don't is a musician, while the one who doesn't understand this is unmusical. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And we'll find similar things in the case of the other skills and non-skills. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Well then—since we've also agreed that the kinds stand toward one another in the same way as regards mixing, isn't it necessary for anyone who means to show correctly which kinds harmonize with which, and which will not admit each other, to proceed through his arguments with some kind of knowledge? And also to know whether there are certain kinds that run through all of them, holding them together, so that they're capable of mixing, and again, in cases of division, whether there are other causes running through wholes responsible for the dividing? THEAETETUS: Of course knowledge is needed—and probably the greatest kind of knowledge. STRANGER: Then what shall we call this now, Theaetetus? Or, good heavens, have we stumbled unawares into the knowledge of free people, and are we in danger, in our search for the sophist, of having found the philosopher first? THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: Won't we say that dividing things by kind, and neither taking the same form to be different, nor a different one to be the same, belongs to the science of dialectic? THEAETETUS: Yes, we'll say that. STRANGER: So whoever is capable of doing this discerns adequately one single form spread out through many things, each one lying apart from the others, and many forms differing from one another but embraced from outside by one form, and again one form connected as a unity throughout many wholes, and many forms marked off from one another, entirely separate. This is knowing how to distinguish, kind by kind, in what way each thing can associate and in what way it cannot. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: And surely you won't grant the power of dialectic to anyone, I imagine, except the one who philosophizes purely and justly. THEAETETUS: How could one grant it to anyone else?
STRANGER: We'll find the philosopher, then, both now and later, if we look for him, in some such place as this—though he too is hard to see clearly; yet the difficulty in his case is of a different kind from that of the sophist. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: The sophist escapes into the darkness of what-is-not, feeling his way about there by practice, and because the place is dark, he's hard to make out. Isn't that right? THEAETETUS: It seems so. STRANGER: But the philosopher, always attached through reasoning to the form of what is, is anything but easy to see, because of the brightness of the region; for the eyes of the soul of the many cannot bear to keep gazing steadily at what is divine. THEAETETUS: That's likely to be no less true of him than of the other. STRANGER: Well, we'll look into that more clearly later, perhaps, if we still care to; but as for the sophist, it's clear we mustn't let up until we've gotten a good enough look at him. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: Since we've agreed, then, that some of the kinds are willing to associate with one another and some not, and some to a small extent, others to a great extent, while still others run through all and there's nothing to prevent their associating with everything—let's follow up on the argument next by considering, not all the forms, so we don't get confused among a great many, but by picking out some of the ones called the greatest, first what sort of thing each of them is, and then how their power of association with one another stands, so that even if we can't grasp being and not-being with complete clarity, at least we won't come away lacking any account of them, so far as the method of our present inquiry allows—if indeed it should turn out that we're permitted somehow to get off unpunished for saying that what-is-not really and truly is not-being. THEAETETUS: Well, we must. STRANGER: Now the greatest of the kinds we've just gone through are being itself, and rest, and motion. THEAETETUS: By far. STRANGER: And we say that two of these are unmixable with each other. THEAETETUS: Very much so. STRANGER: But being is mixed with both, since presumably both of them are. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: So these become three. THEAETETUS: Certainly. STRANGER: And each of them is different from the other two, but the same as itself. THEAETETUS: Just so.
STRANGER: Now what exactly do we mean this time by 'the same' and 'the different'? Are these two kinds distinct from the three, yet necessarily mixed with them always, so that we must consider five things rather than three as existing—or, without noticing it, are we calling one of those three by the names 'the same' and 'the different'? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But surely motion and rest are neither the different nor the same. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Whatever we call by a term common to both motion and rest, that cannot be either one of them. THEAETETUS: Why not? STRANGER: Because then motion would come to rest, and rest in turn would be in motion; for whichever of the two the other became, it would force it to change over to the opposite of its own nature, since it would have come to share in the opposite. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Yet both of them do share in the same and the different. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Then let's not say that motion is the same, or the different, nor rest either. THEAETETUS: No, let's not. STRANGER: But then must we think of being and the same as one single thing? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But if being and the same signify nothing different, then when we say that both motion and rest are, we'll thereby be calling them both the same, on the grounds that they exist. THEAETETUS: But that's surely impossible. STRANGER: Then it's impossible for the same and being to be one thing. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: Shall we then posit the same as a fourth form alongside the three? THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: And what about the different—must we call it a fifth? Or should we think of this and being as two names applying to one kind? THEAETETUS: Perhaps. STRANGER: But I think you'll agree that among the things that are, some are said to be just what they are in themselves, while others are always spoken of in relation to other things. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And the different is always relative to something different, isn't it? THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: That wouldn't be so if being and the different weren't very far apart; but if the different partook of both forms the way being does, then there would at some point be something different that was different not in relation to anything different—yet as it stands, it turns out for us that whatever is different, is necessarily just what it is by being different from something. THEAETETUS: You put it exactly as it stands. STRANGER: Then we must say that the nature of the different is a fifth among the forms we're choosing to consider. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we'll say that it runs through all of them; for each one is different from the rest, not because of its own nature, but because it partakes of the character of the different. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Let's put it this way, then, taking the five one by one. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: First, motion—that it's entirely different from rest. Or how else should we put it? THEAETETUS: That's how. STRANGER: So it is not rest. THEAETETUS: Not at all.
STRANGER: Yet it is, because it partakes of being. THEAETETUS: It is. STRANGER: And again, motion is different from the same. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: So it is not the same. THEAETETUS: No, indeed. STRANGER: And yet it was the same, because everything partakes of that too. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: We must agree, then, that motion is both the same and not the same, and not be troubled by that. For when we call it the same and not the same, we're not speaking in the same sense; rather, when we call it the same, we say so because of its participation in the same in relation to itself, but when we call it not the same, that's due, in turn, to its association with the different, by which it's separated off from the same and has become not that, but something different—so that it's correctly called, once again, not the same. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And so, even if motion itself somehow partook of rest, there would be nothing strange in calling it stationary? THEAETETUS: Perfectly right—provided we're going to grant that some of the kinds are willing to mix with one another, and others not. STRANGER: And indeed we arrived at the proof of that point earlier, before the present ones, showing that this is how things stand by nature. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Let's say it again, then: motion is different from the different, just as it was other than the same and other than rest? THEAETETUS: Necessarily. STRANGER: So it is, in a sense, both not different and different, by the argument just given. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: Well, what follows from this? Shall we say it's different from three of the kinds, but not say so of the fourth, once we've agreed there are five that we set out to examine? THEAETETUS: How could we? It's impossible to grant a smaller number than the one that's just come to light. STRANGER: Shall we then contend fearlessly that motion is different from being? THEAETETUS: Yes, quite fearlessly. STRANGER: So it's clear, then, that motion really is both not-being and being, since it partakes of being? THEAETETUS: Perfectly clear. STRANGER: So it's necessary that what-is-not exists, in the case of motion and throughout all the kinds; for in every case the nature of the different, making each thing different from being, makes it not-being, and we'll be right to say that in this same way all of them, collectively, are not-being, and again, because they partake of being, that they are and have being. THEAETETUS: That does seem to be the case. STRANGER: So concerning each of the forms, there is much that is being, and an unlimited amount, in number, that is not-being. THEAETETUS: So it seems.
STRANGER: Then we must also say that being itself is different from everything else. THEAETETUS: It must be. STRANGER: And so being, for us, is not — in just as many ways as there are other things. For those other things, not being it, are each one thing, being itself, while the rest, unlimited in number, are in turn not that one thing. THEAETETUS: Something like that, yes. STRANGER: Well then, we shouldn't be troubled by this either, since the nature of the kinds does admit of association with one another. If someone won't grant this, let him first win over our earlier arguments, and only then try to win over what comes after. THEAETETUS: That's perfectly fair. STRANGER: Let's look at this too. THEAETETUS: At what? STRANGER: Whenever we speak of what is not, it seems we're not naming something opposite to what is, but only something different. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: For instance, when we say something is not large — does it seem to you that we're pointing more toward the small than toward the equal, by that phrase? THEAETETUS: Of course not. STRANGER: So we won't agree that when a negation is spoken it signifies an opposite — only this much, that the 'not' and the 'non-' placed in front of the words that follow point to something different from the things — or rather, different among the things — that the names spoken after the negation refer to. THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Let's think about this too, if you agree. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: The nature of the different seems to me to be parceled out, just like knowledge. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: Knowledge too is, I suppose, one thing, yet each part of it that applies to some particular subject gets marked off and acquires a name of its own; that's why there are said to be many arts and many branches of knowledge. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And the parts of the nature of the different, though it too is one, undergo this same thing. THEAETETUS: Perhaps — but where are we going with this? STRANGER: Is there some part of the different set over against the beautiful? THEAETETUS: There is. STRANGER: Shall we call it nameless, or does it have some name of its own? THEAETETUS: It has one — whatever we call not-beautiful on any occasion is nothing but something different from the nature of the beautiful. STRANGER: Now tell me this. THEAETETUS: What? STRANGER: Isn't it the case that the not-beautiful turns out to be just this — something marked off from one particular kind among the things that are, and set over against some other one of the things that are? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So the not-beautiful turns out to be, it seems, a kind of opposition of one being to another being. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then? By this reasoning, is the beautiful any more one of the things that are, and the not-beautiful any less? THEAETETUS: Not at all.
STRANGER: So we must say that the not-large and the large itself are, in the same way, both things that are? THEAETETUS: In the same way. STRANGER: And mustn't we set down the not-just alongside the just on the very same footing, so that neither is any more a thing that is than the other? THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And we'll say the same of everything else, since the nature of the different has shown itself to be one of the things that are; and since it is, its parts too must be set down as being, no less than anything else. THEAETETUS: How could it be otherwise? STRANGER: So it seems that the opposition between the nature of a part of the different and the nature of being — when they're set over against each other — is, if we may put it this way, no less a form of being than being itself is; it doesn't signify the opposite of being, but only this much: something different from it. THEAETETUS: That's perfectly clear. STRANGER: Then what shall we call it? THEAETETUS: Clearly this is just what is not, which we were hunting for on account of the sophist. STRANGER: So is it, as you said, lacking in being no less than any of the others, and should we now boldly say that what is not firmly has its own nature, just as the large was large and the beautiful was beautiful, the not-large was not-large and the not-beautiful was not-beautiful — and in just the same way, what is not, was and is, not being — one form counted among the many things that are? Or do we still have some doubt about this, Theaetetus? THEAETETUS: None at all. STRANGER: Do you realize, then, that we've disobeyed Parmenides rather more thoroughly than his prohibition allowed? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: He forbade us to investigate further than he did, and we've pressed on and shown him something beyond that. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: He says somewhere — 'for never shall this be forced through, that things that are not, are; hold back your thought from this path of inquiry' — THEAETETUS: Yes, that's what he says. STRANGER: But we haven't merely shown that the things that are not, are — we've gone further and revealed just what form it is that what is not happens to be. For having shown that the nature of the different is a being, parceled out over all the things that are in relation to one another, we've dared to say that each part of it, set over against being, just is — really and truly — what is not. THEAETETUS: And I think, Stranger, what we've said is absolutely true.
STRANGER: So let no one accuse us of daring to say that what is not, is, by declaring it the opposite of being. We long ago gave up talk of anything opposite to being — whether or not such a thing exists, and whether or not it's even a coherent notion. But as for what we've now called not-being, either someone must refute us and persuade us that we're wrong, or, so long as he can't, he must say what we say: that the kinds mingle with one another, and that being and the different, having passed through all things and through one another, mean that the different, by partaking of being, is — through that participation — but is not that very thing it partakes of, only something different from it; and being different from being, it clearly must, of necessity, be what is not. And being in turn, having a share of the different, would be different from all the other kinds, and being different from every one of them, it is not any one of them, nor all of them together except itself — so that being, beyond all dispute, in countless ways is not, and likewise everything else, each taken separately and all taken together, in many ways is, and in many ways is not. THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And if anyone doubts these very oppositions, let him look into it himself and come up with something better than what's been said now; but if he thinks he's found something difficult and enjoys dragging the argument now this way, now that, he's been laboring over something not worth much effort, as our present discussion shows. For that's neither clever nor hard to find; the other thing is what's both hard and fine. THEAETETUS: What thing? STRANGER: What was said before — to be able to let all this stand as granted, and then follow along, testing point by point, whenever someone claims that the different is somehow the same, or the same is different, in the very respect and manner in which he claims it undergoes this. But to show that the same is, in some loose way, different, and the different is the same, and the large is small, and the like is unlike, and to take delight in always producing such contraries in argument — that's no genuine refutation, but plainly a newborn attempt by someone who has only just now laid hold of some one of the things that are. THEAETETUS: Exactly so. STRANGER: For indeed, my friend, to try to separate everything from everything else is, apart from anything else, tasteless, and altogether the mark of someone uncultured and unphilosophical. THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: To dissolve each thing away from everything else is the most complete abolition of all discourse whatsoever; for it's through the interweaving of the forms with one another that discourse has come to exist for us. THEAETETUS: True.
STRANGER: So consider how timely it was, just now, that we fought against people who say such things, and forced them to allow that one thing may mingle with another. THEAETETUS: Toward what end, though? STRANGER: Toward the end that discourse should be, for us, one of the kinds among the things that are. For if we were deprived of this, we'd be deprived of the greatest thing — philosophy itself. And besides, right now we need to come to an agreement about what discourse actually is; if it had been taken from us entirely, we wouldn't be able to say anything at all any more. And it would have been taken from us, if we'd conceded that there's no mixing whatsoever, of anything with anything. THEAETETUS: That's right — but I haven't understood why we need to settle the question of discourse just now. STRANGER: Well, perhaps you'll grasp it most easily if you follow along this way. THEAETETUS: Which way? STRANGER: What is not has turned out, for us, to be one particular kind among the others, scattered throughout all the things that are. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: So the next thing to examine is whether it mingles with belief and with discourse. THEAETETUS: Why is that? STRANGER: Because if it doesn't mingle with these, then everything must be true; but if it does mingle, then false belief comes to be, and false discourse — for to believe or say things that are not, that, I take it, is falsehood arising in thought and in speech. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And where falsehood is, there is deception. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And where deception is, everything must at once be full of images and likenesses and appearance. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: And we said the sophist had taken refuge in just this territory, but then flatly denied that falsehood exists at all — on the grounds that no one can even think or say what is not, since what is not has no share whatsoever in being. THEAETETUS: That's what we said. STRANGER: But now this has been shown to have a share in being, so that on that score he presumably won't fight us any longer. But he might well say instead that some of the forms partake of what is not, and others don't, and that discourse and belief are among those that don't partake of it — so that he'd fight all over again for the image-making and appearance-making art, which we say he belongs to, claiming it doesn't exist at all, on the grounds that belief and discourse have no communion with what is not; since if that communion isn't established, falsehood is altogether nonexistent.
STRANGER: For this reason, then, we must first track down what discourse, belief, and appearance actually are, so that once they come into view, we may see their communion with what is not — and having seen it, prove that falsehood exists — and having proved that, bind the sophist up in it, if indeed he's guilty of it, or else release him and go hunting in some other kind. THEAETETUS: It really does seem true, Stranger, what was said at the start about the sophist — that his kind is hard to hunt down. He seems positively stuffed with problems, and whenever he throws one out, we first have to fight our way through it before we can even get to the man himself. Just now we barely managed to force our way through the claim that what is not, is not; and now another problem has been thrown down, and we have to prove that falsehood exists, both in discourse and in belief — and after that perhaps another, and after that one still another. There seems to be no end in sight, ever. STRANGER: One should take heart, Theaetetus, if one is able to make even a little headway. What could a man who loses heart in matters like these do in others, if he either makes no progress in them or is even pushed back? Such a man, as the saying goes, will hardly ever take a city. But now, my friend, since we've gotten through what you mentioned, the biggest wall of all has, in effect, been taken; the rest from here on is easier and smaller. THEAETETUS: Well said. STRANGER: Let's first take up discourse and belief, as I just said, so that we can reckon more clearly whether what is not touches them, or whether both are altogether true and neither is ever false. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Come then — just as we spoke about the forms and the letters, let's examine names in the same way again. That seems to be the direction in which our present inquiry points. THEAETETUS: Then what exactly must we look into concerning names? STRANGER: Whether all of them fit together with one another, or none do, or some are willing to while others aren't. THEAETETUS: That much is clear — some are willing, some aren't. STRANGER: Perhaps you mean something like this: that words spoken in sequence and expressing something fit together, while those that signify nothing by their continuity don't fit. THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: What I thought you'd already grasped and agreed to. For we have, I think, two kinds among the vocal expressions that concern being. THEAETETUS: How so?
STRANGER: One kind is called names, the other verbs. THEAETETUS: Explain each. STRANGER: The sign that applies to actions we call, I think, a verb. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And the vocal sign set upon the very things that perform those actions is a name. THEAETETUS: Exactly so. STRANGER: So a statement can never be made out of names alone strung together, nor again out of verbs spoken without names. THEAETETUS: I don't follow that. STRANGER: Clearly you agreed just now with something else in mind, since what I meant to say was just this: that a string of words spoken this way is not a statement. THEAETETUS: How do you mean? STRANGER: Take 'walks,' 'runs,' 'sleeps,' and all the other verbs that signify actions — even if you say every one of them in a row, no statement results. THEAETETUS: No, of course not. STRANGER: And again when someone says 'lion,' 'deer,' 'horse,' and all the names given to those who perform such actions, no statement is put together by that kind of string either. In neither case do the sounds spoken indicate any action or inaction, or the being of what is or of what is not, until someone mixes verbs in with the names. Then they fit together, and the very first combination becomes a statement at once — pretty much the first and shortest of statements. THEAETETUS: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: When someone says 'man learns,' do you say this is a statement, the shortest and first one? THEAETETUS: I do. STRANGER: Because at that point it indicates something about things that are, or are coming to be, or have come to be, or are going to be — it doesn't just name something, but achieves something, by weaving verbs together with names. That's why we say he 'speaks' rather than merely 'names,' and it's to this weaving that we gave the name 'statement.' THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: So then, just as some things fit together with each other and some don't, likewise with the signs of speech: some don't fit, but those that do fit produce a statement. THEAETETUS: Exactly. STRANGER: Now one more small point. THEAETETUS: What is it? STRANGER: A statement, whenever it occurs, must necessarily be a statement of something; it can't fail to be of something. THEAETETUS: Just so. STRANGER: And mustn't it also be of some particular quality? THEAETETUS: How could it not? STRANGER: Let's pay close attention to ourselves now. THEAETETUS: We must. STRANGER: I'll speak a statement to you, combining a thing with an action by means of a name and a verb — and you tell me what it's about.
THEAETETUS: I'll do that as best I can. STRANGER: 'Theaetetus sits.' Surely that's not a long statement? THEAETETUS: No, a modest one. STRANGER: It's your job now to say what it's about, and whose it is. THEAETETUS: Clearly it's about me, and it's mine. STRANGER: And what about this one? THEAETETUS: Which one? STRANGER: 'Theaetetus, with whom I am now conversing, flies.' THEAETETUS: That one too — no one could say it's about anything or anyone but me. STRANGER: We say each statement must be of some particular quality. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So what quality must we assign to each of these two? THEAETETUS: One false, I suppose, and the other true. STRANGER: And the true one states the things that are, as they are, about you. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: While the false one states things other than the things that are. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: So it states things that are not as though they are. THEAETETUS: Pretty much. STRANGER: But it states them as being different things that are, about you. For we said that many things that are, are true of each thing, and many that are not. THEAETETUS: Exactly right. STRANGER: Now the second statement I made about you — first of all, from what we determined a statement to be, it's necessarily one of the shortest possible. THEAETETUS: We just agreed to that. STRANGER: And second, it's of something. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And if it isn't of you, it's of nothing else at all. THEAETETUS: Of course not. STRANGER: And if it were of nothing, it wouldn't be a statement at all — we showed that a statement being of nothing was impossible. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: So, being said about you, but saying different things as though they were the same, and things that are not as though they are — a combination of this kind, made up of verbs and names, really and truly turns out to be a false statement. THEAETETUS: Most true. STRANGER: Now then — thought, judgment, and appearance: isn't it already clear that these all arise in our souls, both false and true alike? THEAETETUS: How so? STRANGER: You'll see it more easily this way, if you first grasp what each of them is, and how they differ from one another. THEAETETUS: Just give me the account. STRANGER: Thought and statement are the same thing, except that the inner dialogue of the soul with itself, occurring without sound — that very thing is what we've named thought. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And the stream from that which goes out through the mouth with sound is called statement? THEAETETUS: True. STRANGER: And further, we know that statements contain — STRANGER: What? STRANGER: Affirmation and denial. THEAETETUS: We know that.
STRANGER: So when this occurs in the soul, silently, according to thought, is there anything you could call it besides judgment? THEAETETUS: How could there be? STRANGER: And when it's present in someone not on its own but through perception, could that condition rightly be called anything other than appearance? THEAETETUS: Nothing else. STRANGER: So then, since statement was shown to be true and false, and among these, thought turned out to be the soul's own dialogue with itself, judgment the conclusion of thought, and what we call appearance a blend of perception and judgment — it follows necessarily that, being akin to statement, some of these too are, at times, false. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: Do you see, then, that false judgment and false statement were found earlier than we expected, when we were afraid just now that we might be undertaking an utterly hopeless task in searching for it? THEAETETUS: I see. STRANGER: Let's not lose heart, then, about what remains either. Now that these things have come to light, let's recall the divisions we made earlier by kind. THEAETETUS: Which ones? STRANGER: We divided image-making into two kinds, the likeness-making kind and the appearance-making kind. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And we said we were at a loss which of the two to place the sophist in. THEAETETUS: That's right. STRANGER: And while we were at a loss over that, an even greater dizziness poured over us, when the argument appeared that disputes against everyone, saying that no likeness or image or appearance exists at all, because falsehood never in any way, at any time, anywhere exists. THEAETETUS: What you say is true. STRANGER: But now, since statement has been shown to exist, and judgment has been shown to be capable of falsehood, there's room for there to be imitations of things that are, and for an art of deception to arise from this condition. THEAETETUS: There is room. STRANGER: And that the sophist was one or the other of these two, we had already agreed earlier. THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Let's try again, then, splitting the proposed kind in two, and proceeding always along the right-hand part of what's been cut, keeping hold of the sophist's company, until, having stripped away everything he shares with others and left behind his own proper nature, we display it — first to ourselves, and then to those most naturally suited to this kind of method. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Well then, didn't we start by dividing productive art and acquisitive art? THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And under acquisitive art he appeared to us in hunting, in contests, in trade, and in certain kinds like these? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: But now that the imitative art has closed around him, clearly productive art itself must first be divided in two. For imitation is surely a kind of production — of images, though, we say, not of the things themselves in each case. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: Absolutely. STRANGER: Let productive art, then, first have two parts. THEAETETUS: Which two? STRANGER: The divine and the human. THEAETETUS: I haven't yet understood. STRANGER: Productive art, if we remember what was said at the start, we called every power that is responsible for things not previously existing coming to be afterward. THEAETETUS: We remember. STRANGER: All mortal living things, then, and plants too, whatever grows on earth from seeds and roots, and whatever soulless bodies form in the earth, meltable and unmeltable — shall we say these come to be afterward, not having existed before, through the craftsmanship of anyone but a god? Or, using the belief and language of the majority — THEAETETUS: Which is that? STRANGER: That nature generates them from some spontaneous cause, growing without thought — or that they come to be through reason and divine knowledge, proceeding from a god? THEAETETUS: Perhaps because of my age I often shift back and forth between the two opinions; but right now, looking at you and supposing that you believe they come to be by a god's doing, I've come to believe that too, myself. STRANGER: Well said, Theaetetus. And if we thought you were one of those who in time to come would judge otherwise, we would now try, through argument backed by necessary persuasion, to make you agree. But since I can see your nature — that even without arguments from us it will move on its own toward the very position you now say you're drawn to — I'll let it be; time would be wasted for nothing. Instead I'll take it that the things said to be by nature are made by divine craft, and the things composed out of these by human beings are made by human craft, and according to this account there are two kinds of production, the one human, the other divine. THEAETETUS: Right. STRANGER: Now cut each of the two in half again. THEAETETUS: How?
STRANGER: As if you were cutting the whole of productive art before along its breadth, and now again along its length. THEAETETUS: Consider it cut. STRANGER: So then there come to be four parts of it in all — two on our side, human, and two again on the gods' side, divine. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: And divided the other way, one part from each of the two divisions is a making of the things themselves, while the remaining two might best be called image-making; and so productive art is again divided in two along these lines. THEAETETUS: Tell me how each divides again. STRANGER: We ourselves, I take it, and the other living things, and the things out of which natural things are made — fire and water and their kin — we know that all of these are, each of them, brought about as products of a god. Isn't that so? THEAETETUS: So it is. STRANGER: And attending upon each of these are images, not the things themselves, and these too have come about by a kind of divine contrivance. THEAETETUS: Such as what? STRANGER: The images in dreams, and all the apparitions said to arise naturally in the daytime — a shadow, whenever darkness arises within fire-light, and the doubled image, whenever a thing's own light and a foreign light come together as one around bright, smooth surfaces and produce an appearance that gives a sense contrary to our ordinary way of seeing. THEAETETUS: Yes, for these are two works of divine production, the thing itself and the image that accompanies each thing. STRANGER: And what of our own art? Shall we not say that it makes a house itself by house-building, but by painting makes another sort of thing, a kind of man-made dream produced for people who are awake? THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: And likewise all the rest, in pairs, are twofold products of our productive activity — the thing itself, we say, by an art of direct production, and the image, by an art of image-making. THEAETETUS: Now I understand better, and I'll set down two kinds of production, each divided in two: divine and human, by the one cut; and by the other, one part of each being the thing itself, the other the offspring of certain likenesses. STRANGER: Let's recall, then, that of the image-making art one kind was to be the likeness-making, the other the appearance-making — if falsehood, being truly falsehood, should turn out to be one of the things that are, by its very nature. THEAETETUS: So it was. STRANGER: And it did turn out so, and because of this we can now count these as two kinds, beyond dispute. THEAETETUS: Yes.
STRANGER: Now let's divide image-making itself into two again. THEAETETUS: How? STRANGER: One kind happens through instruments, the other by the maker offering his own body as the instrument for producing the likeness. THEAETETUS: What do you mean? STRANGER: When someone uses his own body to make it resemble your shape, or his voice to make it sound like your voice, that particular sort of image-making is generally called imitation. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Let's mark this off and call it the imitative branch of image-making, and let the rest go — we'll be lazy about it and leave it to someone else to gather into one and give a fitting name. THEAETETUS: Let's divide off the one and drop the other. STRANGER: But this too, Theaetetus, deserves to be thought of as double. See why. THEAETETUS: Go on. STRANGER: Of those who imitate, some know what they're imitating, others don't. And what division could we set up bigger than the one between knowing and not knowing? THEAETETUS: None. STRANGER: Now the case just mentioned was imitation by people who know — someone could only imitate your shape and you yourself by recognizing you. THEAETETUS: Of course. STRANGER: But what about the shape of justice, and of virtue as a whole? Don't a great many people, without knowing it but with some opinion about it, throw themselves eagerly into making it appear that they possess what they merely believe they have, imitating it as hard as they can in both deed and word? THEAETETUS: Yes, a great many indeed. STRANGER: And do all of them fail to seem just when they aren't just at all? Or is it quite the opposite? THEAETETUS: Quite the opposite. STRANGER: So we should call this one a different kind of imitator from the other — the ignorant one as distinct from the knowing one. THEAETETUS: Yes. STRANGER: Then where will each of them get a fitting name? Or is it obviously hard, because, it seems, some ancient laziness and lack of reflection kept earlier thinkers from even attempting to divide kinds into their forms — which is exactly why names aren't readily available for us either. Still, even if it's a bold thing to say, for the sake of distinguishing them let's call imitation joined with opinion 'opinion-imitation,' and the kind joined with knowledge some sort of 'knowledge-based imitation.' THEAETETUS: Agreed. STRANGER: Well, it's the first one we need — the sophist wasn't among those who know, but precisely among those who imitate. THEAETETUS: Quite so. STRANGER: Let's examine this opinion-imitator, then, the way you'd examine a piece of iron, to see whether he's sound or still has some flaw running through him. THEAETETUS: Let's examine him.
STRANGER: Well, he has a considerable flaw. One kind of him is simple-minded, thinking he knows the very things he only has opinions about. The other kind, because of all his tumbling about in arguments, is full of suspicion and fear that he's ignorant of the very things he has postured before others as knowing. THEAETETUS: There certainly is a kind of each that you've described. STRANGER: So shall we call the one a simple imitator, and the other an ironic imitator? THEAETETUS: That seems reasonable. STRANGER: And of this second one, shall we say his kind is one, or two? THEAETETUS: You look and see. STRANGER: I'm looking, and two distinct types appear to me. I can make out one who is capable of playing the ironist in public, before crowds, in long speeches, and another who does it privately, in short speeches, forcing the person he's talking with to contradict himself. THEAETETUS: Quite right. STRANGER: Then what shall we declare the one who talks at length to be? A statesman, or a popular speaker? THEAETETUS: A popular speaker. STRANGER: And what shall we call the other one? Wise, or a sophist? THEAETETUS: Well, wise is impossible, since we've established that he doesn't actually know; but since he's an imitator of the wise man, clearly he'll get some name derived from that one — and I think I've now more or less learned that we must truly call him that very person, the sophist through and through. STRANGER: So shall we bind his name together, as before, weaving it from end to beginning? THEAETETUS: By all means. STRANGER: The imitative part of the contradiction-making branch of the ironic side of the opinion-based part of the image-making kind — that portion of human, not divine, production which is marked off within speeches as the wonder-working branch — whoever says that this lineage and blood is where the true sophist comes from will, it seems, be saying the truest thing. THEAETETUS: Absolutely.
SOCRATES: I owe you a great debt, Theodorus, for introducing me to Theaetetus — and to our visitor as well. THEODORUS: Yet soon, Socrates, you'll owe three times that debt, once they've finished working out the statesman and the philosopher for you. SOCRATES: Well now — is that really how we ought to report what we've heard from the master of calculation and geometry, my dear Theodorus? THEODORUS: What do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: I mean that you've set an equal value on each of these men, when in fact they're farther apart in worth than your own art's proportions would allow. THEODORUS: Well said, by our god Ammon, Socrates, and justly too — you've called out my arithmetical blunder with quite a memory for it. I'll settle accounts with you another time. But you, stranger, don't tire of your kindness to us — go on and give us, in whichever order you prefer, the statesman first or the philosopher first, just choose one and take us through it. VISITOR: That's what we must do, Theodorus, since we've once put our hand to it there's no backing out before we've brought the business to its end. But what am I to do about our young friend Theaetetus here? THEODORUS: What about him? VISITOR: Should we let him rest and take on his fellow-athlete here, Socrates, instead? What do you advise? THEODORUS: Yes, take him on as you say — they're both young, and resting will make it easier for them to bear the whole exertion. SOCRATES: And indeed, stranger, the two of them seem to share some kinship with me, from somewhere or other.
SOCRATES: The one of them, you all say, resembles me in the look of his face; the other shares my name and my title, which gives us a kind of kinship too. We ought always to be eager to get to know our kin through conversation. Now with Theaetetus I myself talked yesterday, and I've just heard him answering questions, but I've done neither with Socrates here — we need to look into him too. Let him answer you now, and me another time. VISITOR: So it shall be. Socrates, are you listening to Socrates? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: Do you agree with what he says? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. VISITOR: Nothing on your side seems to stand in the way, and I daresay I should get in my own way even less. But after the sophist, it seems to me, we two must now hunt down the statesman. Tell me — should we count him too as one of those who possess knowledge, or how? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that way. VISITOR: Then we must divide up the branches of knowledge, just as we did when we were examining the sophist earlier? YOUNG SOCRATES: Perhaps. VISITOR: Yet the cut doesn't seem to me to fall in the same place, Socrates. YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not? VISITOR: It falls somewhere else. YOUNG SOCRATES: It does seem so. VISITOR: Then by what path will we track down statesmanship? For we must find it, and set it apart from the rest, stamping it with one single form of its own, while marking all the other branch-paths with one other form, so that our mind comes to think of the whole of knowledge as two kinds. YOUNG SOCRATES: That job is yours now, stranger, I think, not mine. VISITOR: All the same, Socrates, it must become yours too, once it's plain to us both. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well said. VISITOR: Now then — isn't arithmetic, and certain other arts akin to it, bare of action, offering only knowledge? YOUNG SOCRATES: That's so. VISITOR: Whereas the arts of carpentry and manual craft generally possess a knowledge bound up organically with action, and together with that action they complete bodies that didn't exist before? YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so. VISITOR: On this basis, then, divide all the branches of knowledge, calling one the practical, the other purely cognitive. YOUNG SOCRATES: Take it, then, that the whole single body of knowledge has these two kinds. VISITOR: Now should we set down the statesman, king, master, and household manager as all one and the same, calling them by a single name, or should we say there are as many distinct arts as names we've listed? Better — follow me this way. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which way?
VISITOR: Like this. If a private citizen is capable of advising one of the public physicians, isn't it necessary that he be called by the same name as the art he's advising in? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: And what of this — if a private man is skilled at giving advice to a ruling king, shall we not say he possesses the very knowledge the ruler himself ought to have? YOUNG SOCRATES: We shall say so. VISITOR: But surely that is the knowledge belonging to a true king — kingly knowledge? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: And whoever possesses this, whether he happens to be a ruler or a private citizen, will rightly be called kingly, purely in virtue of the art itself? YOUNG SOCRATES: That's only fair. VISITOR: And household manager and master of a house are the same thing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: And further — will the scale of a great household or the bulk of a small city make any difference at all in respect of rule? YOUNG SOCRATES: None. VISITOR: So then, as we've just been examining, it's clear that there is one single knowledge concerned with all these things — and whether one calls it kingly, statesmanly, or the art of household management, let's not quarrel with him over it. YOUNG SOCRATES: Why should we? VISITOR: But this much is plain, that any king can do very little with his hands and his body as a whole toward holding onto his rule, compared to what his mind's understanding and strength can do. YOUNG SOCRATES: Plain enough. VISITOR: So would you have us say the king is more akin to the cognitive kind of knowledge than to the manual and generally practical kind? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: Then shall we put statesmanship and the statesman, kingship and the king, together as one and the same? YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly. VISITOR: So we'd be moving forward in due order if we next divided up cognitive knowledge? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. VISITOR: Pay attention, then, in case we notice some natural split within it. YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me what kind you mean. VISITOR: This kind. We had, I think, an art called calculation. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: Wholly among the cognitive arts, I'd say. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it not be? VISITOR: Once calculation has grasped the differences among numbers, do we assign it any further task beyond judging what has been grasped? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course not. VISITOR: And likewise every master-builder is not himself a laborer but a ruler of laborers. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: Supplying knowledge, that is, not manual work. YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so.
VISITOR: So he could fairly be said to share in cognitive knowledge. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. VISITOR: But it belongs to him, I think, not to be finished and done once he's rendered judgment, the way the calculator was done — rather, he must go on giving each of the laborers the proper instruction, until they've completed what was assigned. YOUNG SOCRATES: Rightly said. VISITOR: So all such arts, and every art that goes along with calculation, are cognitive; but these two kinds differ from each other in judging versus commanding? YOUNG SOCRATES: They appear to. VISITOR: So if we divided the whole of cognitive knowledge, calling one part the commanding part and the other the judging part, would we say we'd divided it well? YOUNG SOCRATES: In my opinion, yes. VISITOR: And indeed, for people acting jointly on some task, agreement among themselves is a thing to be glad of. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: So as far as this goes, so long as we ourselves share the same view, we can let everyone else's opinions be — never mind them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: Come then — in which of these two arts should we place the kingly art? In the judging one, as if the king were some kind of spectator, or rather should we set him down as belonging to the commanding art, since he is indeed one who rules? YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it be anything but the latter? VISITOR: Then we must look again at the commanding art, to see whether it too splits somewhere. And it seems to me it does, in something like this way: just as the trade of the retailer is marked off from that of the producer who sells his own goods, so too the kingly class seems to be marked off from the class of heralds. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? VISITOR: Retailers, I take it, take over goods already sold once by others, and sell them again a second time. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. VISITOR: And in the same way the tribe of heralds, once given the thoughts of others to carry out, take them over and issue them again, a second time, as commands to others. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. VISITOR: Well then — shall we lump the kingly art together with the arts of interpreting, of giving the boatswain's call, of prophecy, of heralding, and many other arts akin to these, all of which have the giving of commands in common? Or would you rather, since we were making comparisons a moment ago, draw the comparison in name as well — since the class of those who command on their own account happens to be practically nameless — and divide things this way: setting the class of kings within the self-commanding art, and leaving all the rest aside, granting to others the task of finding some name for it? For it was for the sake of the ruler that we set out on this inquiry, not for the sake of his opposite.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. VISITOR: So then, since this class stands at a reasonable distance from those others, marked off from them by its distinctness, by belonging to itself, isn't it necessary to divide this very thing again, if we can still find some cut that yields within it? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. VISITOR: And indeed we do seem to have one — follow along and help me make the cut. YOUNG SOCRATES: Where? VISITOR: All those we might think of as ruling by way of giving commands — won't we find that they command for the sake of bringing something into being? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: And indeed it isn't at all hard to divide everything that comes into being into two. YOUNG SOCRATES: How? VISITOR: Of all such things, some are lifeless, and some are living. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: And it's by these very things that we'll cut the commanding part of cognitive knowledge, if we do want to cut it. YOUNG SOCRATES: On what basis? VISITOR: Assigning one part of it to oversee the coming-into-being of lifeless things, the other to oversee that of living things — and in this way the whole will already have been divided in two. YOUNG SOCRATES: Entirely so. VISITOR: Well then, let's set one of these two aside, and take up the other, and having taken it up let's divide the whole of it into two. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which of the two do you say we should take up? VISITOR: Surely the one concerned with commanding living creatures. For the kingly kind of knowledge is surely never one that oversees lifeless things — like the master-builder's art — but is nobler than that, always exercising its power among living creatures and concerning them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Rightly said. VISITOR: And as for the breeding and rearing of living creatures, one might observe that it comes in two forms: the rearing of a single creature, and the shared tending of creatures gathered in herds. YOUNG SOCRATES: Rightly said. VISITOR: But surely we won't find the statesman to be a rearer of a single creature, like a driver of a single ox or a groom of a single horse — he's more like one who tends a herd of horses or of cattle. YOUNG SOCRATES: That does appear to be so, now that it's been said. VISITOR: So shall we call this shared tending of many creatures together, within the rearing of living things, herd-rearing, or some sort of communal rearing? YOUNG SOCRATES: Whichever term happens to suit our discussion.
VISITOR: Well said, Socrates — and if you keep up this habit of not fussing over names, you'll turn out richer in wisdom by the time you're old. But for now — since you tell me to — that's what we must do. Do you see how one might show herd-rearing to be twofold, so that what is now sought within a double share will then be sought within a half? YOUNG SOCRATES: I'll try. It seems to me there's one kind of rearing for human beings, and another again for beasts. VISITOR: You've divided it with real eagerness and boldness — but let's not fall into the same trap again if we can help it. YOUNG SOCRATES: What trap? VISITOR: We shouldn't cut off one small part all by itself against many large parts, nor apart from its proper form — rather, the part should carry its form along with it. It's finest to separate what we're seeking straight off from everything else, provided the cut is a correct one — the way you, a little while ago, thought you had the right division and rushed the argument forward when you saw it heading toward human beings. But my friend, fine cutting isn't safe; it's safer to go through the middle when we cut, and that way one is more likely to hit upon real forms. This makes all the difference for our inquiries. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean by that, stranger? VISITOR: I must try to put it still more plainly, out of goodwill toward your nature, Socrates. It's impossible to make everything fully clear right where we now stand, but I should try to carry the point a little further forward, for the sake of clarity. YOUNG SOCRATES: Then what do you mean we just did wrongly in our division? VISITOR: Something like this — as if someone, trying to divide the human race in two, cut it the way most people here do, setting apart the Greek race as one, separate from all the rest, and then, lumping together all the other races — countless, unmixed with one another, and speaking no common tongue — under the single name 'barbarian,' expects that because of this one name it must also be a single race. Or again, as if someone thought he were dividing number into two kinds by cutting off a myriad from the rest of all numbers, setting it apart as one form, and then, giving one name to everything left over on account of that name, claims that this too becomes some other single race, distinct from the first. It would surely be a finer division, and truer to real forms, and more properly a division in two, if one cut number into odd and even, and the human race, in turn, into male and female — and only set apart Lydians or Phrygians or some others against everyone else, whenever one could no longer find a way to divide off both a genuine kind and a genuine part at the same time.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. But tell me this, stranger — how could one grasp more clearly that a kind and a part are not the same thing, but different? STRANGER: My excellent friend, that's no small assignment you're setting me, Socrates. We've already wandered further from our main argument than we should have, and now you're asking us to wander even further. So for now, as is only sensible, let's turn back; we can chase that particular trail at our leisure another time. But do be on guard against one thing: never suppose you've heard a clear, settled account of it from me. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of what? STRANGER: That a form and a part are different from each other. YOUNG SOCRATES: What of it? STRANGER: Just this — whenever something is a form of a thing, it must also be a part of that thing of which it's called a form; but a part need not be a form. Always take me to be saying that, Socrates, whichever way suits better. YOUNG SOCRATES: Understood. STRANGER: Now tell me what comes next. YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: The point where our wandering off led us here. I think it was mainly this — when asked how herd-rearing should be divided, you said, quite eagerly, that there are two kinds of living creature: the human kind, and one other made up of all the rest of the beasts together. YOUNG SOCRATES: True. STRANGER: And at the time you struck me as thinking that, by cutting off one part, you'd left the remainder as a single kind, because you had one name to give to all of them — you called them 'beasts.' YOUNG SOCRATES: That's how it was, yes. STRANGER: But consider, bravest of men — if somewhere there's some other intelligent creature, the crane for instance, or something of that sort, it might sort things the same way you did: setting up cranes as one kind, opposed to all other animals, and puffing itself up grandly, while lumping everything else together with humans and calling it nothing but 'beasts.' So let's try to guard against all mistakes of that kind. YOUNG SOCRATES: How? STRANGER: By not dividing the whole class of animals in two, so we're less likely to fall into that trap. YOUNG SOCRATES: No need to, indeed. STRANGER: And in fact that was exactly where we went wrong before. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: The part of the directive kind of knowledge that concerned us was, I take it, some portion of the art of rearing living things — rearing them in herds. Right? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: Well, even back then the whole animal kingdom had already been divided into tame and wild. Those with a nature that can be tamed are called domestic, those unwilling to be tamed, wild. YOUNG SOCRATES: Good. STRANGER: And the knowledge we're hunting for was, and still is, concerned with tame creatures — and must be sought among herd animals specifically. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: So let's not divide things the way we did before, looking at everything at once, and rushing to reach statesmanship quickly. That's exactly what got us into trouble just now. YOUNG SOCRATES: What trouble? STRANGER: The one the proverb describes — those who divide carefully but without haste get there faster. YOUNG SOCRATES: And a good thing it did, stranger. STRANGER: Let's leave that be, then. So, starting over from the beginning, let's try to divide the art of communal rearing. Perhaps the argument itself, once carried through to the point you're so eager for, will show it to you more clearly. Tell me this. YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: Whether you've often heard about — I know you can't have come across it yourself — the taming of fish in the Nile, and in the royal fishponds. In springs and pools you may perhaps have noticed it yourself. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, I've actually seen that, and I've heard plenty about the other cases too. STRANGER: And what about goose-rearing and crane-rearing — even if you haven't wandered through the plains of Thessaly, you've certainly heard of it and believe it exists. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: I asked you all this for one reason: rearing in herds includes creatures of water and creatures that walk on dry land. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it does. STRANGER: Do you agree, then, that we should split the art of communal rearing along this line, assigning each part of it to one of these two, calling one water-rearing and the other land-rearing? YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree. STRANGER: And as for kingship, we won't even need to ask which of the two arts it belongs to — that's obvious to anyone. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: Everyone would divide the land-rearing branch of herd-rearing further. YOUNG SOCRATES: How? STRANGER: By distinguishing winged from earthbound. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: Now then — should statesmanship be sought among the earthbound? Or don't you think even the least sensible person would assume as much? YOUNG SOCRATES: I do. STRANGER: And the art of managing earthbound creatures, like the number we just cut, must be shown split in two. YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly.
STRANGER: And indeed, toward the very part our argument has been heading, two roads seem to stretch out before us: one shorter, cutting a small piece against a large one; the other holding more closely to what we said earlier — that we should cut as near the middle as possible — though it's the longer road. We can go whichever way we prefer. YOUNG SOCRATES: What, can't we take both? STRANGER: Not at the same time, remarkable fellow — but clearly we can take them one after the other. YOUNG SOCRATES: Then I choose both, one after the other. STRANGER: Easy enough, since what's left is short. But at the start, or halfway through the journey, that request would have been hard on us. As it stands now, since you prefer it this way, let's take the longer road first — we're still fresh, so we'll manage it more easily. And look at the division. YOUNG SOCRATES: Go on. STRANGER: The earthbound tame animals that live in herds are naturally divided in two. YOUNG SOCRATES: By what? STRANGER: By this: some are born hornless, others horn-bearing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Evidently. STRANGER: Now divide the art of managing earthbound creatures and assign it, giving an account in words for each part. If you try to name them, the result will be more tangled than it needs to be. YOUNG SOCRATES: Then how should I put it? STRANGER: Like this — the science of managing earthbound creatures, once split in two, has one branch set over the horned portion of the herd, the other over the hornless. YOUNG SOCRATES: Let's leave it stated that way; it's been made clear enough regardless. STRANGER: And plainly, our king tends some herd that's docked of horns. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it be otherwise? STRANGER: Let's break this herd apart too, then, and try to render him his due. YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means. STRANGER: Do you want to divide it by cloven-footed versus what's called single-hoofed, or by cross-breeding versus breeding true to kind? You follow me, surely. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which? STRANGER: That horses and donkeys can naturally breed with one another. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Whereas the rest of the smooth-coated tame herd doesn't interbreed across kinds. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it? STRANGER: Well then — does the statesman appear to concern himself with a cross-breeding nature, or with one that breeds true? YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly the one that doesn't mix. STRANGER: This too, it seems, we must split in two, as we did before. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must.
STRANGER: And indeed, the tame, herding portion of the animal kingdom has now been chopped up entirely, except for two kinds. The dog family isn't worth counting among the herd animals. YOUNG SOCRATES: No indeed. But by what do we divide the remaining two? STRANGER: By the very standard it would be fitting for you and Theaetetus to use in dividing, since you both study geometry. YOUNG SOCRATES: By what? STRANGER: By the diagonal, of course, and again by the diagonal of the diagonal. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: The nature our human kind possesses — isn't it built for locomotion in just the way the diagonal is, whose square is two feet? YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly so. STRANGER: And the remaining kind, in turn, has for its power a diagonal relative to our own power, since its nature squares to twice two feet. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it be otherwise? And I think I follow pretty well what you mean to show. STRANGER: Besides this, Socrates, do we notice another thing that's happened in our divisions — the kind of thing that would win a good laugh? YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: That our human kind has ended up sharing a lot and running the same course as the noblest and, at the same time, laziest of all creatures. YOUNG SOCRATES: I do notice it, and it's a strange result indeed. STRANGER: Well, isn't it natural for the slowest to arrive last? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that much is so. STRANGER: And don't we realize this too — that the king looks even more ridiculous, running alongside the herd, keeping pace with the man best trained for a life of ease? YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely so. STRANGER: For now, Socrates, that point made earlier in our inquiry into the sophist becomes clearer still. YOUNG SOCRATES: What point? STRANGER: That in this method of reasoning, no more care is given to the dignified than the undignified, nor is the smaller ever slighted in favor of the greater — the method always works out the truest answer purely on its own terms. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems. STRANGER: Then, so you don't beat me to asking about the shorter road that once led to the definition of the king, let me go there myself first. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, please do. STRANGER: I say we should have, right at that point, divided the earthbound straightaway into two-footed and four-footed; and then, seeing that the human kind shares its lot only with the winged, cut the two-footed herd again into the featherless and the feathered. Once that was cut, and the art of managing humans thereby made plain, we could bring the statesman and king forward — install him in it like a charioteer — and hand him the reins of the city as his own, since this science belongs to him.
YOUNG SOCRATES: You've paid off the argument handsomely, as if it were a debt, adding the digression as if it were interest, and squaring the whole account. STRANGER: Come then, let's link it all together, going back over the argument for the name of the statesman's art from beginning to end. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, let's. STRANGER: At the start, we had the directive part of the science of knowing. From this, a portion likened to it was called self-directive. Rearing living things split off as no small part of the self-directive; and rearing-in-herds was a form of that; and, in turn, land-based herd-management was a form of herd-rearing. From land-management, the art of tending the hornless nature was cut off in its turn. And of this, the part is necessarily woven together out of no fewer than three strands, if one wants to gather it under a single name — calling it the art of tending non-interbreeding creatures. What remains from this — the part still left over, applying to the two-footed flock — is human-management, and that alone is precisely what we were looking for, called at once kingship and statesmanship. YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly so. STRANGER: But tell me, Socrates, is this really and truly accomplished the way you've just put it? YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: That what was proposed has been stated fully and adequately? Or is this exactly where the inquiry falls short — that the argument has been stated after a fashion, but hasn't been worked out completely, all the way through? YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: I'll try to show you, more clearly still, just what I have in mind. YOUNG SOCRATES: Go on, then. STRANGER: Now, among the many arts of herding that just appeared, statesmanship was one, and the care of one particular herd. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And the argument defined this not as a tender of horses, nor of any other beasts, but as the science of communally rearing humans. YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so. STRANGER: Let's look now at what sets all herdsmen apart from kings. YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it? STRANGER: Whether any of the others, going under the name of some other art, claims and professes to be a fellow-rearer of the herd in common with the king. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean?
STRANGER: Take merchants, farmers, millers, and besides them trainers and the whole tribe of doctors — you know they'd all fight us tooth and nail if we called the ones who tend to human affairs "statesmen," claiming that they themselves look after human nourishment, and not just the nourishment of the common herd but of the rulers too. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Wouldn't they have a point? YOUNG SOCRATES: Perhaps. STRANGER: We'll examine that. But here's something we do know: no one will dispute any of this with a cowherd. The herdsman himself is the nurse of his herd, its doctor, its matchmaker so to speak, and the sole expert in midwifery for the births and labors of his animals. And as far as play and music go — whatever share of that his creatures have by nature — no one is better at soothing and charming them into calm, working the music of his own flock, whether with instruments or with his voice alone. It's the same way with every other kind of herdsman, isn't it? YOUNG SOCRATES: Exactly right. STRANGER: Then how can our account of the king look sound and unbroken, when we set him up as the sole herdsman and nurse of a human flock, picking him out from ten thousand rival claimants? YOUNG SOCRATES: It can't. STRANGER: So weren't we right a little while ago to worry that we might be describing some royal shape without yet having worked out the statesman with real precision — not until we strip away the crowd pressing in around him, all claiming a share in his pasturing, and separate him from them, showing him alone and clear? YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: Then that's what we must do, Socrates, if we're not going to disgrace our argument at the very end. YOUNG SOCRATES: We certainly must not let that happen. STRANGER: So we need to start again from a different point and travel by another road. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which road? STRANGER: One that mixes in a bit of play. We'll need to draw on a large portion of a great myth, and then, as before, keep cutting off part after part until we arrive at the very peak of what we're after. Shouldn't we? YOUNG SOCRATES: We certainly should. STRANGER: Then pay close attention to my story, the way children do — after all, you're not so many years past being a child yourself. YOUNG SOCRATES: Go on, then. STRANGER: Among the many things told of old — and still to be told — is the sign that appeared, so they say, in the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes. You've heard it, and no doubt remember what they say happened then. YOUNG SOCRATES: You must mean the sign of the golden lamb.
STRANGER: Not at all — I mean the reversal of the sun's rising and setting, and of the other stars too: how the point from which the sun now rises was once the point where it set, and it used to rise from the opposite point — and how the god, bearing witness for Atreus, changed it to its present pattern. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that story is told too. STRANGER: And again, we've all heard a great deal about the reign of Cronus. YOUNG SOCRATES: A very great deal. STRANGER: And what of the story that people in the earliest times sprang from the earth, rather than being born from one another? YOUNG SOCRATES: That too is one of the old tales. STRANGER: Well, all of these stem from a single event, along with countless others even more remarkable than these — but because so much time has passed, some of them have died out while others survive scattered, each told separately from the rest. But no one has told the event that is the cause of all of them, and now it must be told; for once told, it will fit perfectly with our demonstration about the king. YOUNG SOCRATES: An excellent point — tell it, and leave nothing out. STRANGER: Listen, then. This whole universe: at times the god himself guides it along its way and helps it turn in its circuit, and at other times he lets it go, whenever its revolutions have completed the measure of time appointed to it — and then it turns back again of its own accord in the opposite direction, being a living creature endowed with intelligence by the one who fitted it together from the beginning. Now this reversal of its motion is built into it of necessity, for the following reason. YOUNG SOCRATES: What reason is that? STRANGER: To remain always in the same condition and the same state, and to be perpetually the same, belongs only to the most divine things of all; the nature of body does not belong to that order. Now what we have named heaven and cosmos has received many blessed things from the one who begot it, but it has also had a share in body — and for that reason it is impossible for it to be entirely free of change throughout all time. Still, so far as it is able, it moves as much as possible in the same place with a single motion; hence it has been allotted the revolving motion, since that involves the least deviation from its own movement. But to turn itself, always by itself, is scarcely possible for anything except the one who leads all moving things; and for that leader to move it now one way, now the contrary way, is not permitted.
STRANGER: From all this, then, we must not say that the cosmos turns itself always by itself, nor again that it is turned in its two opposite revolutions entirely by god, nor yet that two gods with opposing intentions turn it in contrary directions. Rather — as was just said, and it's the only option left — at one time it is guided along by another, divine cause, receiving life anew and gaining renewed immortality from the craftsman; and at another time, when it is released, it goes by itself, having been let go at just the right moment so that it travels backward through many tens of thousands of revolutions, because, being so vast and so perfectly balanced, it moves on the smallest possible pivot. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well, everything you've described certainly seems to have been said with good reason. STRANGER: Then, reasoning it out, let's grasp together the event we said was the cause of all those marvels, from what has just been said. For here it is. YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it? STRANGER: That the motion of the universe is at one time carried in the direction it now revolves, and at another time in the opposite direction. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: We must regard this reversal as the greatest and most complete of all the turnings that occur in the heavens. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems. STRANGER: Then we should also think that the greatest changes occur at that time for us who dwell within it. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's likely too. STRANGER: And don't we know that the nature of living things has a hard time enduring great, many, and manifold changes occurring all at once? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: So at that time, tremendous destruction of the other living things necessarily occurs, and the human race in particular is reduced to a small remnant. And around these survivors many other strange and unheard-of things happen, but the greatest is this, which follows directly from the reversal of the whole universe, whenever the turning opposite to the one now established occurs. YOUNG SOCRATES: What is that? STRANGER: Whatever age each living creature had reached, this first came to a stop for all of them, and everything mortal ceased advancing toward looking older; instead, reversing course, it grew younger and more tender again. The white hair of the old turned black; the cheeks of the bearded grew smooth again, restoring each man to his bygone prime; the bodies of the young men, growing smooth and smaller day by day and night by night, returned again to the nature of a newborn child, becoming like one in both soul and body; and from that point, withering away entirely, they vanished altogether. As for those who died violently in that time, the corpse underwent these same changes, but rapidly, and was destroyed unseen within a few days.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And what was the birth of living things at that time, Stranger? In what way did they beget one another? STRANGER: Clearly, Socrates, birth from one another did not occur in that order of nature — rather, the earthborn race, the one said once to have existed, was exactly this: those who, in that time, turned back again out of the earth. This was remembered by our earliest ancestors, who bordered on the end of the previous revolution and were born at the very start of this one; for they were the ones who became heralds of these accounts to us, accounts that are now wrongly disbelieved by many. For I think we must consider the sequel: it follows from the elders returning to the nature of a child that, in turn, those who had died and lay in the earth should be formed again there and come back to life, following the reversal, as generation itself is cycled back in the opposite direction — and that these, being born from the earth by necessity, according to this account, bear that name and description, all of them, except those whom a god carried off to some other lot. YOUNG SOCRATES: This certainly follows from what came before. But the life you say belonged to the power of Cronus — did it fall within that earlier turning or within this present one? For as for the change in the stars and the sun, it clearly happens, you say, in both turnings alike. STRANGER: You've followed the argument well. As for what you asked about everything coming to human beings of its own accord — that belongs least of all to the motion now established; it too belonged to the earlier one. For then, first, god himself took charge of the whole revolution, watching over it; and likewise, region by region, all the parts of the cosmos were divided up under the care of gods who ruled them. The animals too were divided by kind and by herd among divine spirits acting as herdsmen, each spirit sufficient in every respect for those under his own charge, so that there was no wildness among them, nor any preying of one on another, nor war, nor strife of any kind whatsoever. There would be countless other things to mention that follow from that kind of ordering. As for what was said about human beings living a life that came of its own accord, it was said for the following reason.
STRANGER: A god himself pastured them, taking charge in person, just as now human beings, being another kind of creature more divine than the rest, pasture other, lesser kinds. Under his tending there were no constitutions of states, nor possession of wives and children; for all rose up again out of the earth, with no memory of their former lives. Such institutions were entirely absent, but they had fruit in abundance from trees and much other timber, not raised by cultivation but produced by the earth of its own accord. Naked, and without bedding, they pastured for the most part in the open air, for the seasons were tempered for them so as to cause no distress, and they had soft beds in the abundant grass that sprang up for them from the earth. This, Socrates, is the life you hear of as belonging to the age of Cronus; the life said to belong to the age of Zeus — the present one — you know firsthand, since you are living in it. Could you, and would you, be willing to judge which of the two is the happier? YOUNG SOCRATES: I could not. STRANGER: Would you like me to sort it out for you in a way? YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means. STRANGER: Well then: if the nurslings of Cronus, having so much leisure and such power to converse not only with human beings but with animals as well, used all of this for philosophy — conversing with the animals and with one another, and inquiring of every nature whether any creature, having some power of its own, perceived anything different from the others for the gathering of wisdom — it's easy to judge that the people of that time were immeasurably better off than those of today. But if, stuffed full to bursting with food and drink, they simply told each other and the animals the sort of tales that are told about them even now, then that too, in my judgment at least, is easy to judge. Still, let's set this aside until some sufficient informant appears to tell us which way the desires of the people of that time ran, regarding knowledge and the use of speech. But we must say why we raised the myth in the first place, so that we can move the argument forward from here. For when the time of all these things was completed and change had to occur, and indeed the whole earthborn race was already used up — each soul having paid out all its births, as many as had been appointed to it, having fallen as seed into the earth the requisite number of times — then the pilot of the universe, letting go of the tiller as it were, withdrew to his own place of observation, and fate and innate desire turned the cosmos back again.
STRANGER: So all the gods who governed the different regions under the greatest god, once they recognized what was happening, released the parts of the universe from their care. And the universe itself reversed course, colliding start against end, driving itself in the opposite direction, and in shaking itself violently it brought about yet another destruction of living things of every kind. After that, once enough time had passed, the turmoil and disturbance settled down, the shaking gave way to calm, and the universe fell back into its accustomed orbit, ordering itself, taking charge and control of itself and its own contents, remembering as best it could the teaching of its craftsman and father. At first it carried this out quite precisely, but toward the end more sluggishly. The cause of this was the bodily element in its makeup, the element bred into it from its ancient nature long ago, since it had shared in a great deal of disorder before arriving at the present ordered state. From its composer it has acquired everything beautiful, but from its previous condition it retains, and produces in the creatures within it, all the harsh and unjust things that occur in the heavens. So long as it raised its creatures together with its helmsman, it produced little that was bad and much that was good; but once separated from him, in the time right after its release it manages everything most beautifully, but as time goes on and forgetfulness grows within it, the ancient condition of disharmony gains the upper hand more and more, and as time draws to its end this disharmony flowers fully, and mixing in only a little good with a great deal of its opposite, the universe comes to the brink of destroying itself and everything within it. That is why, at that point, the god who set it in order, seeing it in distress and caring for it so that it should not be tossed about by confusion, break apart, and sink into the boundless sea of dissimilarity, takes his place again at the helm, turns back what had fallen sick and come apart in its previous cycle under its own power, sets it right, and makes it deathless and ageless. That, then, is the end of the whole account. But for demonstrating what the king is, what has been said already is enough if we take hold of the argument from there. For when the universe turned back onto the path toward the present kind of generation, the aging process stopped again and reversed, and produced results opposite and new compared to what came before. Creatures that had almost vanished from smallness began to grow, while the bodies newly born from the earth, gray-haired at birth, died and returned again to the earth.
STRANGER: And everything else changed as well, imitating and following along with what the universe as a whole was undergoing—and in particular the pattern of conception, birth, and nurture had to follow suit in every creature, out of necessity. For it was no longer possible for a living thing to be formed in the earth through the combined action of others; rather, just as the universe had been ordered to be in full command of its own course, so in the same way its parts too were now ordered, so far as possible, to grow, beget, and nourish themselves through their own agency, under the same guiding principle. Now we have arrived at the very point toward which the whole account has been driving. As for the other animals, there would be a great deal to say about the various causes behind each one's transformation, but concerning human beings the story is shorter and more to the point. Once deprived of the care of the guardian spirit who had possessed and tended us, and with most of the wild animals—those of savage nature—turning fierce, while we ourselves, weak and unguarded, were being torn apart by them, and still helpless and unskilled in the earliest times, since the food that had once grown of itself had run out and we did not yet know how to provide for ourselves, having never before been forced by need to do so—for all these reasons we were in dire straits. That is why the gifts from the gods spoken of in the old stories were given to us, along with the instruction and training necessary to use them: fire from Prometheus, crafts from Hephaestus and his fellow craftswoman, seeds and plants from others still. And everything that has gone into equipping human life has come from these gifts, since, as I just said, the care that came from the gods failed us, and we had to take charge of directing and caring for ourselves, just like the universe as a whole—which we imitate and follow throughout all time, living and growing now in this way, now in that. Let that be the end of the story. We will put it to use in seeing just how far we went wrong in describing the king and statesman in our earlier discussion. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well then, how great a mistake do you say we made? STRANGER: In one respect a smaller one, but in another a very serious one indeed, and far greater and more extensive than before. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so?
STRANGER: In this respect: when asked about the king and statesman who belongs to the present cycle and generation, we instead described the shepherd of the human flock from the opposite cycle, a god rather than a mortal—there we went badly astray. But in showing him as ruler of the whole city, even though we did not specify the manner of his rule, what we said was true, though not complete or clear, so our error there was smaller than the other one. YOUNG SOCRATES: True. STRANGER: So it seems we must define the manner of ruling the city precisely, before we can expect the statesman to have been fully described for us. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put. STRANGER: And that is exactly why we brought in the myth—so that it might show, regarding the rearing of a herd, not merely that everyone now disputes this role with the one we are seeking, but so that we might see more clearly that one alone who deserves this title, on the model of shepherds and cowherds, as having charge of the nurture of human beings. YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct. STRANGER: But I think, Socrates, that this figure of the divine herdsman is too grand a thing to be called merely a king, while the statesmen who exist here now are much more like their subjects in nature, and share much more nearly in their upbringing and education. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: Yet they would have to be sought out no less and no more, whichever nature they happen to have. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: Let's go back to this point again. We said there was an art of self-directed command over living creatures, exercised not privately but in common, and we called it right then the art of herd-rearing—do you remember? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Well, it was somewhere in this that we went wrong. We never actually captured the statesman or gave him a name—he slipped past us unnoticed under that label. YOUNG SOCRATES: How? STRANGER: All the other herdsmen share in the rearing of their particular flocks, but we applied the name to the statesman as though it belonged to him alone, when we ought to have applied some term common to all of them together. YOUNG SOCRATES: True, if there really is such a common term. STRANGER: And isn't 'caring for' something common to all of them, regardless of whether we specify 'feeding' or some other particular activity? If we had called it something like 'herd-tending' or 'caretaking' or simply 'oversight,' we could have wrapped the statesman together with all the others under it, since that is what the argument called for.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Right. But then how would the next division have gone? STRANGER: Along the same lines by which we earlier divided herd-rearing into land-dwelling and winged, mixed-breeding and pure-breeding—dividing herd-tending by these same distinctions, we would have covered both the present kingship and the reign under Cronus alike within our account. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it appears. But now I'm wondering what would come next. STRANGER: Clearly, if we had used the term 'herd-tending' in this way, no one could ever have objected that there is no such thing as care at all—as was rightly objected before, that there was no art among us worthy of the name 'nurture,' and that if there were one, it would belong to many others before any king. YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct. STRANGER: But no other art would claim to be more entitled, or prior in claim, to care for the entire human community than the art of kingship, exercising rule over all human beings. YOUNG SOCRATES: You're right. STRANGER: Now after this, Socrates, do we notice that we made yet another serious error, right at the very conclusion? YOUNG SOCRATES: What was that? STRANGER: This: even granting that we had thought through, as clearly as possible, that there is some art of nurturing the two-footed herd, that alone gave us no more right to call it kingship or statesmanship straightaway, as though it were already complete. YOUNG SOCRATES: What then? STRANGER: First, as I said, we needed to rework the name, directing it more toward care than toward nurture, and then divide this art of care—for it would still admit of divisions that are not small. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of what sort? STRANGER: We would have separated, I think, the divine herdsman from the human caretaker. YOUNG SOCRATES: Correct. STRANGER: And again, the caretaking assigned to humans would need to be divided in two. YOUNG SOCRATES: By what? STRANGER: By force and by consent. YOUNG SOCRATES: Why so? STRANGER: Because it was right here that we made our earlier mistake, too naively lumping together king and tyrant, when they and their manner of ruling are utterly unlike one another. YOUNG SOCRATES: True. STRANGER: Now, correcting ourselves as I said, let's divide human caretaking in two, by force and by consent. YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely. STRANGER: And let's call the caretaking exercised by force tyranny, and the caretaking of willing two-footed creatures, exercised with their consent, statesmanship—and then declare that the one who possesses this art and this kind of care is truly king and statesman.
YOUNG SOCRATES: And it does seem, stranger, that our demonstration concerning the statesman would now be complete on this basis. STRANGER: That would be good for us, Socrates. But it shouldn't seem so to you alone—I need to share that conviction with you. As it stands, in my own judgment, the king still doesn't appear to have taken on his complete shape for us. Rather, like sculptors who sometimes, in their haste at an inopportune moment, pile on more and bigger details than necessary in each part of the work and so end up slowing themselves down—so too we, wanting to show quickly and impressively the mistake in our earlier account, thought it fitting to construct grand illustrations for the king, took up an amazing mass of myth, and were forced to use more of it than was necessary. That's why we've made our demonstration too long, and haven't brought the myth to a proper conclusion at all—our discussion is simply like a painted creature that seems to have an adequate outline, but hasn't yet received the vividness that comes from pigments and the blending of colors. Yet for those capable of following it, speech and reasoned account are a better way to display any living thing than painting or any craft using the hands; for everyone else, working with the hands is better. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's right. But show me where you say our account still hasn't been given adequately. STRANGER: It's difficult, my friend, to demonstrate anything of importance well without using illustrations. It seems each of us, in a way, knows everything as if in a dream, and then again is utterly ignorant of it all as if wide awake. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean by that? STRANGER: I really do seem to have stirred up, rather strangely, just now, our shared condition regarding knowledge. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: My good man, the illustration I used itself now stands in need of an illustration. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well then? Go on, don't hold back on my account. STRANGER: I must speak, since you're ready to follow along. We know that children, once they've just become familiar with their letters— YOUNG SOCRATES: What about them? STRANGER: That they can distinguish each letter well enough within the shortest and easiest syllables, and are able to state the truth about them.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: And when people are confused about these same letters in other combinations, they again fall into false judgment and false statement about them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. VISITOR: Then isn't this the easiest and finest way to lead people toward the things they don't yet know? YOUNG SOCRATES: What way? VISITOR: To bring them back first to the cases where they judged these same letters correctly, and having brought them back, to set that alongside the things not yet known, comparing the two and showing that the same likeness and nature is present in both combinations—until the things truly judged have been set beside all the things not yet known and shown to match them. And once shown in this way, becoming models of this kind, they make it so that every one of the elements, in every syllable, is called one thing insofar as it differs from the others, and the same thing insofar as it is always consistently itself. YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely. VISITOR: So we've grasped this well enough: a model comes into being whenever something that is the same, correctly judged in some other, separate case, is brought together with the first case, so that the two together produce a single true judgment. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it appears. VISITOR: Then should we be surprised if our soul, having this same natural experience with the elements of all things, sometimes settles into truth about each one in certain combinations, and sometimes again is carried astray about all of them in others—correctly judging some of the combinations in one way or another, but when they're shifted into the long and difficult syllables of actual things, failing to recognize these same elements all over again? YOUNG SOCRATES: Not surprising at all. VISITOR: For how, my friend, could someone who starts from a false judgment ever arrive at even a small portion of the truth and gain understanding? YOUNG SOCRATES: Hardly at all. VISITOR: So if this is how things naturally work, you and I would do nothing wrong by first attempting to see the nature of a whole pattern in some other small pattern, taken part by part, and then afterward, intending to carry that same form—now grown to its greatest size—over from the smaller cases, attempting through this model to recognize by art the proper care of a city, so that we might have waking knowledge instead of a dream. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right.
VISITOR: We must pick up the earlier argument again: since countless people dispute the kingly class's claim to the care of cities, we said we need to separate out all of them and leave only that one figure, and for this we said we needed some kind of model. YOUNG SOCRATES: Indeed. VISITOR: What model, then, having the same character as statesmanship, could someone set out—as small as possible—and thereby adequately discover what we're looking for? Would you like it, Socrates, in Zeus's name, if we have nothing else ready to hand, if we choose the art of weaving? And even that, if you agree, not the whole of it—perhaps the part concerned with woven woolen garments will be enough. For maybe even this portion of it, once chosen, will bear witness to what we want. YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not? VISITOR: Then why don't we do with weaving what we did before—dividing part from part each time—and now, going through everything as quickly and briefly as possible, come back around to what's useful right now? YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? VISITOR: I'll make the very walk-through my answer to you. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well said. VISITOR: Everything we make or acquire, then, falls into two kinds: things made for the sake of doing something, and defensive things made so as not to suffer something. And of the defensive things, some are remedies—both divine and human—and others are protections. And of protections, some are weapons for war, others are barriers. And of barriers, some are curtains, others are shelters against storms and heat. And of shelters, some are roofs, others are coverings. And of coverings, some are undercoverings, others are wraps. And of wraps, some are cut whole from a single piece, others are composite. And of composite ones, some are pierced and stitched, others bound together without piercing. And of the unpierced ones, some use plant fibers from the ground, others use hair. And of hair coverings, some are glued together with water and earth, others are bound to themselves alone. Now these defenses and coverings made from materials bound to themselves we've named 'garments.' And the art that cares most for garments—just as before we called the art of the city 'statesmanship'—let's now, from the thing itself, call this 'garment-making.' And let's say that weaving, insofar as it concerned the greatest part of garment production, differs from this garment-making art in name only—just as before, kingship differed from statesmanship only in name?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. VISITOR: The next thing to work out is this: someone might think that calling it 'garment-weaving' in this way has been said adequately, without being able to see that it hasn't yet been distinguished from its close collaborators, though it has been separated from many other related arts. YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me, related to what? VISITOR: You haven't followed what's been said, it seems—so we'd better go back and start from the end. If you keep in mind the kinship, you'll see we just now cut off from it the making of bedcoverings, separating it by the notions of wrapping-around and laying-under. YOUNG SOCRATES: I understand. VISITOR: And we also removed all the craft that works with flax and hemp and everything else we just called plant fibers. And we separated off felting, and the kind of composition that uses piercing and stitching, most of which is shoemaking. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. VISITOR: And we removed the care of coverings cut whole from a single piece—leatherworking—and all the arts concerned with roofs, whatever is involved in holding back the elements in building and carpentry as a whole and other arts; and all the arts of barriers that provide protection against theft and violence, involved in the making of lids and the fitting of doors, allotted as parts of the carpenter's craft; and we cut off armor-making, being a part of the great and varied power of making defenses; and indeed we distinguished the whole art of magic concerning remedies right at the start. And we've been left, it seems, with just what we were looking for: the art that works woolen protection against storms, called by the name weaving. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems.
VISITOR: But this hasn't yet been said completely, my boy. For whoever first sets to work on making garments appears to do the opposite of weaving. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? VISITOR: Weaving is, in a way, a kind of interlacing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: But the other is a separating of what's compacted and pressed together. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? VISITOR: The work of the carding art. Or shall we dare to call carding weaving, and the carder a weaver? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not. VISITOR: And again, if someone calls the making of warp and weft weaving, he's using a strange and false name. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: Well then—should we say that fulling and mending have no share in the care and tending of clothing, or should we call all these weaving too? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not. VISITOR: Yet all of these will dispute with the power of weaving over the tending and production of garments, granting the greatest part to weaving but also claiming a great deal for themselves. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. VISITOR: Besides these, we must also reckon that the arts making the tools by which the works of weaving are accomplished should be considered joint causes of every woven thing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. VISITOR: So will our account of weaving—of the part we chose—be adequately defined if we set it down as the finest and greatest of all the arts of caring for woolen clothing? Or would we be saying something true but not yet clear or complete, until we've stripped away all these other arts from it as well? YOUNG SOCRATES: Right. VISITOR: Then shouldn't we do next what we're describing, so our account proceeds in order? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: First, then, let's observe that there are two arts involved in everything that's done. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which two? VISITOR: One that is a joint cause of coming-into-being, and one that is the cause itself. YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean? VISITOR: Whatever arts don't produce the thing itself but supply tools to the arts that do—tools without which the task assigned to each art could never be carried out—these are joint causes; but the arts that produce the thing itself are the causes. YOUNG SOCRATES: That makes sense, anyway. VISITOR: After this, then, shall we call all the arts concerned with spindles, shuttles, and whatever other tools share in the production of clothing, joint causes, and the arts that actually tend and produce the clothing itself, causes? YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right.
VISITOR: Of the causes, then, washing and mending and all the care given to these matters—since there's a great deal of grooming involved—it's reasonable to gather up that whole portion under one name and call it the art of fulling. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put. VISITOR: And carding, and spinning, and all the parts concerned with the actual making of the clothing we're talking about, are one single art among all those commonly named: wool-working. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. VISITOR: Now wool-working has two divisions, and each of these two is at the same time a part of two other arts. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? VISITOR: Carding, and half of shuttle-work, and everything that separates things joined together—all of this, taken as one, belongs to wool-working, and there are two great arts running through everything: the art of combining and the art of separating. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: To separating, then, belong carding and everything just mentioned. For the separating done among wool and warp threads—done one way with the shuttle, another way by hand—has received all the names just given. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. VISITOR: Now let's again take up the part that is at once a part of combining and of wool-working; and let's set aside everything there that belonged to separating, dividing wool-working in two, into the separating part and the combining part. YOUNG SOCRATES: Let it be divided. VISITOR: Now you must divide again, Socrates, the combining part that is also a part of wool-working, if we're going to adequately grasp the weaving we set out to define. YOUNG SOCRATES: We must indeed. VISITOR: We must indeed—so let's say that one part of it is twisting, the other interlacing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Do I follow, then? You seem to me to mean by twisting the working of the warp thread. VISITOR: Not only that, but of the weft as well—or shall we find some way its production happens without twisting? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly not. VISITOR: Then define each of these two as well—the distinction may prove timely for you. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? VISITOR: Like this: of the works of carding, we call the part that has been drawn out lengthwise and given width a 'sliver,' don't we? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. VISITOR: And of this, the part twisted by the spindle and made into a solid thread—call this thread the warp, and call the art that straightens it out the art of warp-spinning. YOUNG SOCRATES: Right.
STRANGER: Now as for whatever fibers take on a loose twist, and by the interweaving of the warp acquire just the right softness relative to the pull of carding — let's call the spun result of this the weft, and the craft assigned to work it the weft-spinning art. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: And indeed the part of weaving we originally set out to find should now be clear to everyone. For when the combining branch of wool-working produces, by the straight interlacing of weft and warp, a woven fabric, we call the whole woven result a woolen garment, and the craft responsible for it we call weaving. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then — why on earth didn't we simply answer straightaway that weaving is the interlacing of weft and warp, instead of going round and round making countless distinctions for nothing? YOUNG SOCRATES: For my part, Stranger, none of what was said struck me as pointless. STRANGER: And no wonder — though it might well strike you that way before long, my good man. Against that kind of complaint, should it come over you again later — and it very well might — hear an argument that applies to all cases of this sort. YOUNG SOCRATES: Just tell me. STRANGER: First, then, let's look at excess and deficiency across the board, so that we can properly praise or blame, according to reason, whatever is said at greater length than it should be on any given occasion, and the opposite, in discussions of this kind. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we should. STRANGER: Well, I think the argument we need concerns exactly these things. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which things? STRANGER: Length and shortness, and excess and deficiency generally — since the art of measurement, I take it, covers all of these. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Let's divide it, then, into two parts — for that's what we need for our present purpose. YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me how you'd divide it. STRANGER: Like this: one part concerns the mutual relation of largeness and smallness to each other, the other concerns their necessary relation to the coming-into-being of things. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: Don't you think it's natural to say that the larger must be called larger than nothing except the smaller, and the smaller in turn smaller than the larger, and nothing else? YOUNG SOCRATES: I do. STRANGER: But what about this — won't we also say that whatever exceeds the nature of the moderate, or is exceeded by it, in words or in deeds, really does come about as such, and that it's precisely here that the bad among us differ most from the good? YOUNG SOCRATES: It appears so. STRANGER: So we must posit these as two distinct realities and two distinct standards of judging the great and the small, not — as we said just now — only in relation to each other, but rather, as has just been said, one relation to be spoken of as mutual, the other as relative to the moderate. And would you like to learn why? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course.
STRANGER: If one lets the nature of the greater be relative to nothing but the lesser, it will never be relative to the moderate — isn't that so? YOUNG SOCRATES: Just so. STRANGER: Then won't we destroy the arts themselves and all their works by this argument, and in particular make vanish both the statesmanship we're now seeking and the weaving we spoke of? For surely all such arts guard against more and less relative to the moderate, not as something that isn't but as something that is, and hard to manage in practice — and it's by preserving measure in this way that they produce everything good and beautiful. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: So if we make statesmanship vanish, won't our subsequent search for the kingly science become impossible? YOUNG SOCRATES: Very much so. STRANGER: So then, just as in the Sophist we forced not-being to exist, since our argument escaped us on that point, shouldn't we now likewise force the more and the less to become measurable, not only relative to each other but also relative to the coming-into-being of the moderate? For it's simply not possible for anyone to have become, beyond dispute, a statesman or any other expert in matters of action, without this being agreed upon. YOUNG SOCRATES: Then we should do exactly the same thing now, as much as possible. STRANGER: This task, Socrates, is even bigger than that one — and yet we remember how long that one was — but it's quite fair to posit something like this about them. YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of thing? STRANGER: That at some point we'll need what's just been said for a precise demonstration about the thing itself. But that it's nicely and adequately shown for our present purposes — that, I think, is a point this argument helps us with magnificently: namely, that we must hold all the arts alike to be such that greater and lesser are measured not only relative to each other but also relative to the coming-into-being of the moderate. For if this exists, those other things exist, and if those exist, this exists too — but if neither of the two existed, neither would ever come to be. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's right — but what comes after this? STRANGER: Clearly we should divide the art of measurement, as was said, cutting it in two this way: setting one part as covering all the arts that measure number, lengths, depths, breadths, and speeds relative to their opposites, and the other as covering those that measure relative to the moderate, the fitting, the timely, the needful, and everything else that has settled in the middle, away from the extremes. YOUNG SOCRATES: And you've named two big divisions, quite different from each other.
STRANGER: Because, Socrates, what many clever people sometimes say — thinking they're stating something wise — namely that the art of measurement covers everything that comes to be, is in fact exactly what's just been said. For in a sense everything that falls under any art does partake of measurement of some kind; but because people aren't in the habit of examining things by dividing them into kinds, they lump together things that differ this much, thinking them alike right away, and conversely do the opposite of this — failing to divide other things into their parts, when what's needed is: whenever one first perceives the community shared by many things, not to give up before seeing within it all the differences that lie in distinct kinds, and again, when all sorts of dissimilarities are seen among a multitude, not to be able to stop, put off by that, before one has fenced in all the related things within a single likeness and enclosed them in the being of some one kind. Let this suffice, then, on these matters and on deficiencies and excesses — let's just keep in mind that two kinds concerning them have been discovered within the art of measurement, and let's remember what we say they are. YOUNG SOCRATES: We'll remember. STRANGER: After this argument, let's take up another one, concerning both the very things we're investigating and the whole practice of discussions of this kind. YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of thing? STRANGER: Suppose someone asked us about the session where learners study their letters — whenever someone is asked what letters a given word consists of, should we say the question is being asked for the sake of that one word set before him, rather than for the sake of becoming more literate about all the words that might be proposed? YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly for the sake of all of them. STRANGER: Well then, what about our present inquiry concerning the statesman? Has it been proposed for its own sake, rather than for the sake of becoming more skilled in dialectic about everything? YOUNG SOCRATES: That too is clearly for the sake of everything. STRANGER: Surely no one with any sense would want to go hunting for the account of weaving itself for its own sake. But I think most people fail to notice that for some things that exist, there are perceptible likenesses readily grasped, which are easy to point out — whenever someone wants to show them easily, without trouble, to a person who asks for an account of something, apart from any laborious explanation. But for the things that are greatest and most precious, there exists no image wrought clearly for men to see, by pointing to which one could satisfy the soul of the questioner adequately, fitting it to one of the senses.
STRANGER: That's why one must practice being able to give and receive an account of each thing. For the things without body, which are the finest and greatest, are shown clearly by reason alone and by nothing else, and it's for the sake of these that everything now being said exists. And practice is easier, on every subject, when dealing with smaller things rather than with greater ones. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put. STRANGER: Let's recall, then, for whose sake all this was said. YOUNG SOCRATES: For whose sake? STRANGER: Not least for the sake of this very difficulty which we accepted, reluctantly, over the long-windedness we allowed regarding weaving, and over the unrolling of the universe, and over the sophist and the being of not-being — noticing how much length these took, and reproaching ourselves over all of it, afraid we might be saying things both superfluous and long. So that we may suffer nothing of the kind again in future, say that all this was said on our part for the sake of exactly this. YOUNG SOCRATES: So be it. Just go on with what comes next. STRANGER: I say, then, that you and I must keep in mind what's just been said, and on every occasion form our praise and blame of brevity and length in our discussions not by judging lengths against each other, but by that part of the art of measurement which we said we needed to remember — relative to what is fitting. YOUNG SOCRATES: Right.
STRANGER: Not even relative to that, in every respect. For we won't need any length that's fitted to pleasure — except perhaps as a side matter — and as for what's fitted to the search for the thing proposed, so that we might find it as easily and quickly as possible, the argument bids us hold that as secondary, not primary; but far more, and first of all, to honor the method itself of being able to divide by kinds. And indeed, if an account, however immensely long when spoken, makes the hearer better at discovery, we should take that account seriously and not be at all vexed by its length — and likewise if it's shorter. And further still, as for anyone who finds fault with such gatherings for the length of their discussions and doesn't approve of the circling round in their course, that person shouldn't be let off so quickly and readily, merely blaming what's been said as long, but should also be expected to show, in addition, that if it had been shorter it would have made those present more skilled in dialectic and better at discovering the disclosure of things through reason — and as for any other blame or praise on other, unrelated matters, we shouldn't care about them at all, nor even pretend to listen to such talk. And enough of this, if you agree with me on it too. Let's go back to the statesman, bringing to bear on him the example of weaving as previously described. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well said — let's do as you say. STRANGER: Well then, the king has been separated off from the many herding arts — or rather, from all the arts concerned with herds in general. What remains, we say, are the arts within the city itself, both the contributory causes and the actual causes, which we must first divide from one another. YOUNG SOCRATES: Right. STRANGER: Do you realize it's hard to cut them in two? The reason, I think, will become no less clear as we go on. YOUNG SOCRATES: Then we should proceed that way. STRANGER: Let's divide them limb by limb, then, like a sacrificial animal, since we can't cut them in two — for one should always cut into the nearest possible number. YOUNG SOCRATES: How should we proceed now? STRANGER: Just as before: all the things that supplied instruments for weaving, we set down then, surely, as contributory causes. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And now we must do this same thing, only even more so than then. For all the things that produce any instrument, small or great, within the city, must be set down as contributory causes. For without these there could never be a city, nor statesmanship — yet we surely won't assign any of them as a work of the kingly art. YOUNG SOCRATES: No, indeed. STRANGER: And yet we're attempting something hard, in separating off this class from the others. For whatever exists among beings, it's plausible enough, in saying it's the instrument of some one thing, to seem to have said something convincing. Still, let's state this other point about the possessions found in a city. YOUNG SOCRATES: What point? STRANGER: That it doesn't have this same capacity. For it isn't fashioned for the sake of causing something to come to be, as an instrument is, but for the sake of preserving what has been made. YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of thing do you mean?
STRANGER: Now this — the vessel, worked into every possible shape out of dry and wet materials, with fire or without it, which we address by a single name — that too is a very large class, and, I think, has nothing whatever to do with the knowledge we're after. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course not. STRANGER: There is a third class of possessions, quite vast, that we must examine: things that move on land and in water, some wandering about and some fixed in place, some honored and some not, all sharing one name because each exists to be a seat for something — a support that always becomes a resting-place for someone. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which class is that? STRANGER: We call it the vehicle — hardly the work of statesmanship, but rather very much the business of carpentry, pottery, and bronze-working. YOUNG SOCRATES: I follow. STRANGER: What of a fourth? Shouldn't we call it distinct from these — the class holding most of the things named long ago: all clothing, most weapons, walls, and every kind of earthen or stone covering, and countless other things besides? Since all of it is made for the sake of defense, it would most justly be called, as a whole, a defense-work, and would be considered rather more the product of the builder's and the weaver's arts than of statesmanship. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: And should we set down as a fifth class everything to do with ornament and painting, and all the imitations produced with the help of these and of music, made solely for our pleasure, which could rightly be gathered under a single name? YOUNG SOCRATES: What name? STRANGER: I think it's called plaything, in some sense. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: This one name, then, will suit them all when applied — for none of them is done for any serious purpose, but all for the sake of play. YOUNG SOCRATES: I follow that too, more or less. STRANGER: And what supplies bodies to all these things — the material out of which, and within which, all the crafts so far named do their work — being itself, in its many varieties, the offspring of many other crafts — shouldn't we set that down as a sixth class? YOUNG SOCRATES: What exactly do you mean? STRANGER: Gold and silver and everything that is mined, and everything that tree-felling and all manner of cutting supply to carpentry and basket-weaving; and further, the stripping of bark from plants, and the tanner's craft that strips the hides from living bodies, and all the crafts concerned with such things, and the makers of cork and papyrus and cordage, which supply the means for producing composite kinds out of things not themselves composite. All this together we call the primary possession of mankind — uncompounded, and in no way the work of the royal science. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put.
STRANGER: Now the acquiring of nourishment, and everything that mixes into the body, part with part, to serve some bodily function — we should call this, naming it as one whole, our nourisher, as a seventh class, unless we have something better to call it. And we will more correctly assign the whole of it to farming, hunting, gymnastics, medicine, and cookery than to statesmanship. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: So then, nearly everything that falls under possession, apart from tame animals, has, I think, been named within these seven kinds. Consider: the primary class was rightly placed first, and after that came instrument, vessel, vehicle, defense-work, plaything, and nourisher. Whatever we've left out, if it isn't some major omission, can be fitted into one of these — for instance the class of currency, and seals, and every kind of stamped mark. For these have no great kindred class of their own among themselves, but some are dragged, forcibly yet fittingly enough, into ornament, others into instruments, and they'll fall into place. As for the possession of tame animals apart from slaves, the herding-craft, once divided up, will turn out to have claimed all of that already. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. STRANGER: What remains, then, is the class of slaves and of all servants — and among these, I suspect, we'll find the very people who contest the royal art's weave with the king, just as, back with the weavers, we found those concerned with spinning and carding and all the rest we mentioned. All the others, called joint causes, have been used up along with the tasks just described, and have been separated off from royal and statesmanly activity. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems. STRANGER: Come, then, let's approach the remaining ones and examine them more closely, so we may know them more securely. YOUNG SOCRATES: We must. STRANGER: The greatest servants, as far as we can see from here, we find to have the opposite character from what we suspected as their occupation and condition. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which ones? STRANGER: Those bought and acquired in that manner — whom we can call slaves without dispute. They are the last people to lay claim to the royal art. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could they?
STRANGER: What then of the free men who willingly place themselves in service to the people just named — carrying and exchanging the products of farming and the other crafts between one another, some in the marketplaces, others trading from city to city by sea and by land, bartering currency for goods and currency for currency itself — the ones we've called money-changers, merchants, ship-owners, and retailers — will they lay any claim to statesmanship? YOUNG SOCRATES: Perhaps to a share of it, the trading kind at least. STRANGER: But surely we won't find hired hands and laborers, whom we see serving everyone most readily for pay, ever laying claim to the royal art. YOUNG SOCRATES: How could they? STRANGER: What about those who perform such services for us on each occasion? YOUNG SOCRATES: Which services, and which people, do you mean? STRANGER: The tribe of heralds, and those who become skilled in writing through frequent service, and various other people terribly clever at working through the business of the magistracies — what shall we call these in turn? YOUNG SOCRATES: Just what you said — servants, not rulers themselves in the cities. STRANGER: Well, I certainly wasn't dreaming when I said that those who most seriously contest statesmanship would turn up somewhere in this direction — though it would seem quite strange indeed to look for them in some servant's role. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. STRANGER: Let's press on closer still, toward those we haven't yet tested. There are those concerned with prophecy, who hold some part of a servant's knowledge — for they are regarded as interpreters from the gods to men. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And further, the priestly class as well, as custom has it, knows how to give gifts from us to the gods through sacrifices in a manner pleasing to them, and to ask from the gods, through prayers, the acquisition of good things for us — both of these being parts, I think, of a servant's art. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it appears. STRANGER: Now at last we seem to be laying hold of something like the track we've been pursuing. The bearing of priests and prophets is filled with great pride, and they win a solemn reputation because of the magnitude of their undertakings — so much so that in Egypt no king may rule without also holding priestly office, and if it happens that someone from another class seizes power by force first, he must afterward be initiated into that priestly class. And among the Greeks too, in many places, one would find the greatest offices assigned the duty of performing the greatest of such sacrifices. And indeed among you here it is especially clear what I mean — for they say that to the man chosen by lot as king here are assigned the most solemn and most ancestral of the old sacrifices. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so.
STRANGER: These kings chosen by lot, then, together with their priesthood, and their servants, and yet another very large crowd, which has now become clear to us once the earlier groups have been set aside, must be examined. YOUNG SOCRATES: Whom do you mean? STRANGER: A rather strange lot indeed. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: A thoroughly mixed breed, as it now appears on inspection. Many of these men resemble lions, and centaurs, and other such creatures; and a great many more resemble satyrs, and the weak, shifting kind of beasts. They quickly exchange their shapes and their powers with one another. And now, Socrates, I think I've just recognized who these men are. YOUNG SOCRATES: Tell me, then — you seem to have spotted something strange. STRANGER: Yes — strangeness always comes from ignorance, for everyone. And that's exactly what happened to me just now: I was suddenly at a loss when I caught sight of the chorus concerned with the affairs of cities. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which chorus? STRANGER: The greatest sorcerer of all the sophists, and the most experienced in this art — a man we must strip away from the true statesmen and kings, difficult as that is, if we are to see clearly what we're after. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well, that's certainly not something to let go of. STRANGER: No indeed, not as far as I'm concerned. Now tell me this. YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: Isn't rule by a single man one of our forms of political rule? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And after monarchy, I suppose one would name rule by the few. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: And isn't a third form of constitution the rule of the multitude, called by the name democracy? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: And though there are three, don't they in a sense become five, each of the first two giving birth to a further pair of names alongside its own? YOUNG SOCRATES: Which ones? STRANGER: Looking now to force and consent, and to poverty and wealth, and to law and lawlessness arising within them, people split each of the two into a pair and call monarchy, since it presents two forms under two names, tyranny in one case and kingship in the other. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: And the city mastered by the few at any time they call aristocracy and oligarchy. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so.
STRANGER: As for democracy, whether the multitude rules over those who hold property by force or by consent, and whether it guards the laws strictly or not, in every case no one is accustomed to change its name. YOUNG SOCRATES: True. STRANGER: Well then — do we suppose any of these constitutions could be correct, defined by these boundaries — by one man, by the few, or by the many; by wealth or poverty; by force or consent; with written laws or without them? YOUNG SOCRATES: What's to prevent it? STRANGER: Look more closely, following me this way. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which way? STRANGER: Shall we hold fast to what was said at the very start, or depart from it? YOUNG SOCRATES: What was that? STRANGER: We said, I believe, that the royal rule is one of the sciences. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And not just any of the sciences, but we selected out from the rest a certain judging and directing kind. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And from the directing kind, one part concerned with lifeless works, another with living creatures — and dividing things this way, we've kept advancing to this point, never losing sight of the science itself, though we still haven't been able to pin down exactly which one it is. YOUNG SOCRATES: You're right. STRANGER: Do we then grasp this very point — that the defining mark must not be the few or the many, nor the willing or the unwilling, nor poverty or wealth, but some form of knowledge, if we're to follow what's gone before? YOUNG SOCRATES: Well, that's certainly impossible to avoid. STRANGER: So now, of necessity, we must consider in which of these arrangements knowledge concerning the rule of men — the acquisition of what is perhaps the most difficult and greatest of all things — turns out actually to occur. For we must see it clearly, so we may observe which people must be stripped away from the wise king — people who pretend to be statesmen and persuade many, yet are nothing of the sort. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we must do that, as our argument has already told us. STRANGER: Does it seem possible, then, that the multitude in a city could acquire this science? YOUNG SOCRATES: How could they? STRANGER: But could it be possible in a city of a thousand men for some hundred, or even fifty, to acquire it adequately?
YOUNG SOCRATES: That would make it the easiest of all skills. We know that a thousand men who are top-notch at draughts would never measure up to the true experts found among the rest of the Greeks -- let alone kings. Anyone who possesses the kingly knowledge, whether he actually rules or not, must still be called kingly, by the argument we gave before. STRANGER: Well remembered. And I think it follows that we must look for correct rule in the case of one person, or two, or in general very few, whenever it really is correct. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: And these rulers -- whether they govern willing or unwilling subjects, whether by written law or without it, whether they are rich or poor -- we must reckon them, just as we do now, as ruling by virtue of some skill, whatever it may be. Take doctors: we don't hesitate to call them doctors whether they heal us willingly or against our will, whether by cutting, cauterizing, or inflicting some other pain, whether they follow written rules or not, whether they are poor or rich -- we call them doctors all the same, so long as they exercise authority through their skill, purging or otherwise reducing or building up the body, provided it is for the body's good, making it better instead of worse, and so long as those who treat their patients preserve them. This, I think, and no other standard, is the correct one for medicine and for any other form of rule. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. STRANGER: Then it must follow that among constitutions too, this one alone is correct and genuinely a constitution -- the one in which the rulers can be found to possess real knowledge, not merely the appearance of it -- whether they rule by law or without law, over willing or unwilling subjects, whether they are poor or rich; none of this should count for anything, on any correct reckoning. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put. STRANGER: And whether they purify the city for its good by killing some citizens or banishing them, or make it smaller by sending out colonies somewhere like swarms of bees, or make it larger by bringing in outsiders and turning them into citizens -- so long as they act with knowledge and justice, preserving it and making it better rather than worse to the extent they can, this and this alone, by such standards, must be called the one correct constitution. All the others we speak of must be said to be not genuine, not real constitutions at all, but imitations of this one -- the ones we call well-ordered are imitating it toward what is finer, the others toward what is more shameful. YOUNG SOCRATES: The rest of what you've said, Stranger, seems reasonable enough. But that rulers should govern even without laws -- that was harder to accept.
STRANGER: You've beaten me to the question by a hair, Socrates. I was about to ask you whether you accepted everything, or whether something in what was said troubled you. But now it's clear: we will want to work through this business of the correctness of rulers who govern without laws. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: In a way, obviously, lawmaking belongs to the kingly art. But the best thing is not for the laws to hold power, but for a man who is kingly and possesses practical wisdom to hold it. Do you see why? YOUNG SOCRATES: Why do you say that? STRANGER: Because law could never, by grasping accurately at once what is best and most just for everyone, prescribe the single best course; for the dissimilarities among people and their actions, and the fact that almost nothing in human affairs ever stays still, prevent any skill whatsoever from making any simple pronouncement that holds for everything, for all time. We agree on that, don't we? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: But we see that law aims at pretty much exactly this simplicity -- like some stubborn, ignorant person who lets nobody do anything contrary to his own ruling, and won't allow anyone even to ask a question, not even if something new turns out to be better for someone, contrary to the rule he himself laid down. YOUNG SOCRATES: True -- that's exactly how the law treats each of us, without exception. STRANGER: So isn't it impossible for something that is always simple to fit well with things that are never simple? YOUNG SOCRATES: It seems likely. STRANGER: Then why on earth is it necessary to make laws at all, since law is not the most correct thing? We must find the reason for this. YOUNG SOCRATES: Indeed. STRANGER: Now, don't you have, among you as in other cities, group training sessions -- for running or something else -- for the sake of competition? YOUNG SOCRATES: Plenty of them, yes. STRANGER: Come, let's recall again from memory the instructions given by skilled trainers in charge of such exercises. YOUNG SOCRATES: What sort of thing? STRANGER: That they don't think it feasible to work in fine detail with each individual, prescribing what suits each particular body; they think they must lay down a somewhat coarser regimen, one that fits the majority of bodies and applies to many people at once. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well put. STRANGER: That's exactly why, assigning equal exertions to them all together, they start them off together and stop them together, in running, wrestling, and every bodily exercise. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's so.
STRANGER: Then let's suppose that the lawgiver too, who must oversee the herds in matters of justice and their mutual dealings, will never be capable of giving, to everyone all together, an exact prescription of what is fitting for each individual. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's likely, at any rate. STRANGER: No -- I think he will lay down the law for the majority, in a rough and general way, for each case, whether he sets it down in writing or leaves it unwritten, legislating according to ancestral custom. YOUNG SOCRATES: Right. STRANGER: Right indeed. For how could anyone ever manage, Socrates, to sit beside each person for his whole life and prescribe with precision what is fitting for him? Since if any one of those who truly possess the kingly knowledge were capable of that, he would hardly go and burden himself, I think, by writing down these so-called laws. YOUNG SOCRATES: At least from what has just been said, Stranger, that follows. STRANGER: And even more so, my good fellow, from what is about to be said. YOUNG SOCRATES: Such as? STRANGER: Something like this. Let's put it to ourselves this way: suppose a doctor, or perhaps a trainer, is about to go abroad and expects to be away from his patients for a good long time. Thinking his instructions might be forgotten by those in training or under treatment, wouldn't he want to write down notes for them? YOUNG SOCRATES: He would. STRANGER: But what if he came back sooner than expected? Wouldn't he dare to prescribe something different from those written notes, if conditions changed for the better for the patients because of winds or some other factor sent by Zeus turning out differently from what was usual -- would he really insist on sticking rigidly to what was laid down long ago, refusing either to prescribe anything else himself or to let the patient dare anything else contrary to what was written, on the grounds that this alone is medically sound and healthy, and anything done otherwise is diseased and unskilled? Wouldn't such a thing, occurring within genuine knowledge and true skill applied to everything, become the biggest joke of all such legislating? YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely it would.
STRANGER: And take the man who has written down, in law both written and unwritten, what is just and unjust, noble and shameful, good and bad, for the human herds that graze city by city under the laws of those who wrote them -- if the very lawgiver who wrote with skill, or someone else just like him, should arrive, would he be forbidden from prescribing anything different from this? Wouldn't that prohibition, too, look every bit as ridiculous as the other one, in truth? YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: Do you know what most people say on this point? YOUNG SOCRATES: I can't think of it right now. STRANGER: And it sounds plausible enough. They say that if someone knows of laws better than those handed down by earlier generations, he ought to make law for his own city only after persuading it -- and not otherwise. YOUNG SOCRATES: Well, isn't that right? STRANGER: Perhaps. But suppose someone, instead of persuading, forces through the better course -- tell me, what will we call this kind of force? Not yet, though -- answer first about the earlier case. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which one do you mean? STRANGER: Suppose someone with correct medical skill, without persuading the patient, forces the better treatment on a child, a man, or a woman, contrary to what is written -- what will we call this kind of force? Anything sooner than calling it the diseased error contrary to skill? And isn't it right for the one forced to say anything about what happened to him except that he suffered something diseased and unskillful at the hands of the doctors who forced him? YOUNG SOCRATES: Perfectly true. STRANGER: And what do we call the error that goes against the political skill? Isn't it what's shameful, bad, and unjust? YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely. STRANGER: So take those who have been forced to do things contrary to the written and ancestral rules -- things that are actually more just, better, and finer than what came before. Tell me: if we're to avoid being the most laughable people of all, must we not say anything sooner than that those who were forced by the ones who forced them suffered something shameful, unjust, and bad? YOUNG SOCRATES: Perfectly true. STRANGER: But is it really the case that if the one applying force is rich, what was forced is just, while if he's poor, it's unjust? Or rather, whether he persuades or doesn't persuade, whether rich or poor, whether by written law or against it, whether he acts to our advantage or not -- shouldn't the truest standard for the correct management of a city be this: that the wise and good man will manage the affairs of those he rules?
STRANGER: Just as the ship's captain, always watching out for what benefits the vessel and the crew, saves his fellow sailors not by writing rules but by offering his skill as law -- in just this same way, wouldn't a correct constitution arise from those capable of ruling like this, since they offer the strength of their skill as something stronger than the laws? And is there any error at all in whatever these wise rulers do, so long as they safeguard one great thing: always distributing what is most just to the people in the city, using intelligence and skill, and are able thereby to preserve them and to make them better instead of worse, as far as possible? YOUNG SOCRATES: There's no arguing with what's just been said. STRANGER: And indeed there's no arguing with the other point either. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which point was that? STRANGER: That no multitude whatsoever, having acquired this kind of knowledge, could ever be capable of governing a city with intelligence -- rather, we must look for that one correct constitution around some small number, or few, or a single person, and we must treat all the others as imitations, as we said a little earlier -- some imitating it toward what is finer, others toward what is more shameful. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean by that? I didn't quite grasp the point about imitations just now either. STRANGER: And yet it's no small matter, if someone stirs up this line of thought and then drops it without following it through, without showing the error that now occurs concerning it. YOUNG SOCRATES: What error do you mean? STRANGER: We must look into something not altogether familiar or easy to see. Still, let's try to grasp it. Given that this constitution we've described is the only correct one, you understand that the others must survive by using its written codes -- doing what is now praised, even though it isn't the most correct thing? YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: That no one in the city should dare to act contrary to the laws, and whoever dares should be punished with death and every extreme penalty. And this is the most correct and finest arrangement, as a second-best, once someone has set aside the first option we just described. Let's work out how this thing we called second-best came to be. Shall we? YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means. STRANGER: Let's go back again to the images we must always use to compare kingly rulers to. YOUNG SOCRATES: What images? STRANGER: The noble ship's captain, and the doctor who is worth many others. Let's examine a certain figure by shaping it out of these very examples. YOUNG SOCRATES: What kind of figure?
STRANGER: Something like this. Suppose we all decided that doctors and sea captains treat us in the most terrible way. Whichever of us either of them wants to save, they save well enough — but whichever they want to injure, they injure, cutting and burning and ordering us to bring them payments as though they were taxes, of which they spend little or nothing on the actual patient, while they and their households enjoy the rest. And in the end, taking money from the patient's relatives or enemies as a fee, they kill him. As for the captains, they do countless other things of the same kind — deliberately abandoning people ashore when they put out to sea, engineering wrecks out on open water and throwing people overboard, and other villainies besides. Suppose, then, that having thought all this through, we resolved to take some action about them: no longer to let either art govern with unchecked authority, whether over slave or free, but to convene an assembly of ourselves — either the whole people or just the wealthy — and let it be open to laymen and to practitioners of other crafts as well to contribute their opinion about seafaring and about diseases, on how we ought to use drugs and medical instruments on patients, and likewise ships themselves and nautical gear for the use of ships, and about the dangers involved — both those from winds and sea that belong to the voyage itself, and those from encounters with pirates, and, should it come to it, sea battles fought with warships against other warships. And whatever the majority decides about these matters, whether on the advice of doctors and captains or of other laymen, let it be written up on tablets and pillars, and let some things be laid down as unwritten ancestral customs — and let all sailing be conducted according to these rules from now to the end of time, and all treatment of the sick as well. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: What you've described is thoroughly absurd. STRANGER: And then, year by year, let officers be appointed from the people, whether from the wealthy or from the whole populace, chosen by lot, whoever draws the lot; and let the officers so appointed govern by the written rules, piloting the ships and healing the sick. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: This is even harder to accept.
STRANGER: Then look at what follows from this. Once each officer's year is up, we'll need to convene courts — made up of men either preselected from the wealthy, or again chosen by lot from the whole populace — and bring the outgoing officers before them to be audited. And let anyone who wishes bring the charge that during his year an officer did not pilot the ships according to the writings, nor according to the ancient customs of our forefathers; and the same for those who treated the sick. And whoever is convicted, let the court assess what penalty they should suffer, or what fine they should pay. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Well, surely anyone who chooses of his own free will to hold office under such conditions deserves whatever penalty or fine he gets, most justly. STRANGER: And beyond all this, we'll still need to pass a law that if anyone is found investigating the truth of piloting and seafaring, or of health and medicine, concerning winds and hot and cold, apart from the written rules, and being clever about such things in any way — first, he must not be called a doctor or a pilot at all, but a stargazer, some babbling sophist. And then, on the ground that he is corrupting others, younger men, and persuading them to take up piloting or medicine unlawfully, setting themselves up as unchecked authorities over ships and the sick, anyone who is entitled to may indict him and bring him before some court; and if he's judged to be persuading people, young or old, contrary to the laws and the written rules, let him be punished with the harshest penalties. For nothing, they'll say, should be wiser than the laws; nobody is ignorant of medicine and health, or of piloting and seafaring, since it's open to anyone who wishes to learn the written rules and the established ancestral customs. Now, Socrates, if this were how things stood — for these sciences, and for generalship too, and for every kind of hunting whatever, and for painting, or any branch of imitative art, and for carpentry, and for the making of every sort of implement, and for farming and the whole art concerned with plants — or if we were to see some art of horse-breeding conducted this way, by the book, or the whole art of herding, or divination, or every part covered by the servant's arts, or board games, or the whole of arithmetic taken purely by itself, whether in plane figures or solids or rates of change — what would all this look like, if it were practiced according to writings and not according to skill? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Clearly all the arts would be utterly destroyed for us, and could never even come into being again afterward, because of this law forbidding inquiry — so that life, hard enough as it is now, would become entirely unlivable in that future time.
STRANGER: What about this, then? Suppose we forced each of the people mentioned to act according to the writings, and to have the man elected by show of hands, or chosen by lot's chance, oversee our writings — but he, caring nothing for the writings, tried, out of some profit or personal favor, to do something else against them, though he understood nothing — wouldn't this become an even greater evil than the one before? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Absolutely true. STRANGER: Because, I think, when someone dares to act against laws laid down out of long experience, with advisers who gave their counsel graciously on each point and persuaded the people to adopt them, the transgressor, in producing a mistake many times over the size of the original one, overturns every course of action still more than the writings themselves did. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Of course he does. STRANGER: For this reason, then, for those who lay down laws and writings about anything at all, the second-best course is never, ever to let one person or the multitude do anything at all contrary to these. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Right. STRANGER: So wouldn't these, in each case, be imitations of the truth — things written down, as far as possible, by those who know? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Of course. STRANGER: And yet we said that the one who knows, the true statesman, if we remember, will do many things by his art in the conduct of his own business, caring nothing for the writings, whenever something else seems to him better than what he himself wrote and prescribed to people who are absent. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Yes, we said that. STRANGER: So then, whatever single man or whatever multitude, bound by established laws, attempts to do anything contrary to them on the grounds that it is better, does the same thing, as far as it can, as that true statesman? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Quite so. STRANGER: Now if they do this without knowledge, they would be attempting to imitate the true thing, but they'd imitate it very badly; whereas if they have the skill, this is no longer imitation at all, but that truest thing itself? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Entirely so. STRANGER: And yet we have already agreed, earlier, that no multitude whatsoever is capable of acquiring any art. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Yes, we've agreed to that. STRANGER: So if there really is a kingly art, then the mass of the wealthy and the whole populace could never acquire this political science. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: How could they?
STRANGER: So it seems that such constitutions, if they mean to imitate as well as they can that true constitution — the one ruled by a single person with skill — must never, once their laws are established, do anything contrary to what is written and to ancestral custom. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Beautifully put. STRANGER: So whenever the wealthy imitate this, we call that kind of constitution aristocracy; but whenever they pay no heed to the laws, oligarchy. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: So it seems. STRANGER: And again, whenever one person rules according to laws, imitating the one who has knowledge, we call him king, not distinguishing by name between the one who reigns alone by law with knowledge and the one who reigns by mere opinion. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: It seems so. STRANGER: So then, if someone who truly has knowledge rules alone, he will certainly be given this very same name, king, and nothing else — which is why the five names now given to constitutions have become just one. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: So it appears. STRANGER: But what about when a single ruler acts neither according to laws nor according to customs, but pretends, like the one with knowledge, that the best course must be taken even against what's written, while in fact some desire and ignorance is what's really guiding this imitation — shouldn't we then call each such person a tyrant? SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Of course. STRANGER: This, then, is how tyrant and king have come about, and oligarchy and aristocracy and democracy — because people were disgusted with that single monarch, and refused to believe that anyone could ever become worthy of such rule, someone both willing and able to rule with virtue and knowledge, distributing what is just and holy correctly to everyone — and instead believed he would injure and kill and harm whichever of us he wished, at any moment. Since if such a ruler as we describe did come to be, he would be loved, and would govern happily, steering with precision the one and only correct constitution. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Of course. STRANGER: But as things actually stand, since no king of the sort that arises in beehives is born in our cities — one man distinguished at once in body and in soul — people have to come together and write laws, it seems, chasing after the footprints of the truest constitution. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: So it seems.
STRANGER: Should we be surprised, then, Socrates, at all the evils that occur and will occur in such constitutions, given that this is the foundation laid under them — acting according to writings and customs without knowledge? Anyone who used a different foundation would make it perfectly obvious that everything built on it would collapse. Or should we marvel instead at how strong a city is by nature? For cities have been enduring things like this for an endless span of time, and yet some of them remain stable and are not overturned — though many, to be sure, sink and perish like ships, have already perished, and will go on perishing, because of the wickedness of their captains and crews, people who have taken on the greatest ignorance about the greatest matters — who, understanding nothing whatsoever about politics, believe they have acquired the clearest knowledge of all sciences on every point. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Very true. STRANGER: So then, of these incorrect constitutions, which is least harsh to live under, given that all of them are harsh, and which is the most burdensome? Is this something we ought to examine, even though it's said in passing relative to our present subject? Still, perhaps everything we do is ultimately for the sake of just such a question. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: We must; of course. STRANGER: Then say that the same one, out of the three, turns out to be by far the harshest, and also the easiest. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: What do you mean? STRANGER: Nothing other than this: I mean that rule by one, rule by the few, and rule by the many are the three we named at the outset of the argument now flowing along. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Yes, they were. STRANGER: Then let's cut each of these in two, and make six out of the three, setting the correct one apart from them as a seventh. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: How so? STRANGER: Out of monarchy, kingship and tyranny; out of rule by the few, we said, the well-named one, aristocracy, and oligarchy; and out of rule by the many, what we then called by the single name democracy — but now we must treat this one too as double. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: How so? And on what basis do we divide it? STRANGER: On no different basis than the others, even if its name has always been single so far; still, ruling according to law and ruling contrary to law apply to this one too, as to the others. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: Yes, they do. STRANGER: Now, when we were looking for the correct constitution, this division was of no use, as we showed earlier. But once we set that one apart and laid down the others as necessary alternatives, then, within these, the lawful and the unlawful divide each of them in two. SOCRATES THE YOUNGER: So it appears, now that this argument has been stated. STRANGER: Well then, monarchy yoked to good writings, what we call laws, is the best of all six; but lawless monarchy is harsh, and the hardest of all to live under.
YOUNG SOCRATES: It looks that way. STRANGER: And the rule of the not-many, like the small number that stands midway between one and the multitude, let us set down as a mean between the two extremes in both directions; while the rule of the multitude is in every way weak and capable of nothing very great, whether good or bad, compared with the others, because in it the offices of power are parceled out in small shares among many people. That is why, of all these constitutions when they are lawful, it is the worst, but when all of them are lawless, it is the best; and if all are undisciplined, life in a democracy wins out, but if all are orderly, it is the least livable of the three, while under the first kind of rule life is by far the best and finest, except for the seventh; for that one must be set apart from all the others, like a god set apart from men. YOUNG SOCRATES: It certainly appears that things fall out this way, and we should proceed just as you say. STRANGER: Then must we not also strip away from all these constitutions, except the one grounded in knowledge, the people who share in them, on the ground that they are not statesmen at all but faction-mongers, and that being champions of the greatest phantom-images, they are themselves phantoms of the same kind, and being the greatest imitators and enchanters, they turn out to be the greatest sophists among sophists? YOUNG SOCRATES: It looks as though the term has, quite rightly, come round full circle onto the very people who are called statesmen. STRANGER: Well then. This part of our business, as we said just now, appears to be like a drama—a troupe of Centaurs and Satyrs, so to speak—which had to be separated out from the art of statesmanship, and now, with great difficulty, it has been separated. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it appears. STRANGER: But there remains another part, still more difficult, because it is more akin to and more closely bound up with the kingly kind, and harder to make out clearly; and it seems to me we are in much the same position as those who refine gold. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: Those craftsmen first separate out earth and stones and a good many other foreign things; and after that there remain, mixed in together, the precious things akin to gold, which can only be removed by fire—copper and silver, and sometimes even adamant—which, hardly separated out by testing in the smelting, at last let us see the so-called pure gold all by itself, alone. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, that is indeed said to be how it happens.
STRANGER: By the same reasoning, then, it seems that now too the other things—all that is foreign and unrelated to the science of statesmanship—have been separated off from it, and what remains are the precious and kindred things. Among these, I think, are generalship, the administration of justice, and whatever rhetoric shares in kingship by persuading toward justice and helps steer the business of cities. By what method could one most easily set these apart and show, naked and alone, that very thing we have been searching for? YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly we must try to do exactly that. STRANGER: For the sake of the attempt, then, it will come into view; but we must try to reveal it by way of music. Now tell me. YOUNG SOCRATES: What? STRANGER: There is, I take it, some branch of learning we call music, and in general among the sciences having to do with craftsmanship? YOUNG SOCRATES: There is. STRANGER: Well then—as to whether we ought to learn any one of these or not, shall we say this too is itself some science concerned with just that question, or how? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, we shall say it is. STRANGER: And shall we agree that this science is different from those others? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And is it right that none of them should rule any other, or that those others should rule this one, or that this one, exercising oversight, should rule all the rest? YOUNG SOCRATES: This one should rule those others. STRANGER: So you declare that the science which decides whether we ought to learn something or not must rule over the science that is learned and that teaches? YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely. STRANGER: And likewise the science that decides whether one ought to persuade or not must rule over the science capable of persuading? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: Well then—to which science shall we assign the power of persuasion over the mass and the crowd, exercised through storytelling rather than through teaching? YOUNG SOCRATES: That, I think, is clearly to be given to rhetoric. STRANGER: And whether one ought to act toward certain people through persuasion or through some kind of force, or to keep entirely still—to which science shall we assign this in turn? YOUNG SOCRATES: To the science that rules over the arts of persuasion and speech. STRANGER: And that would be none other, I think, than the power of the statesman. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very well put. STRANGER: And this too seems to have been quickly separated from statesmanship—rhetoric, as a distinct kind, though it serves statesmanship. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: And what are we to think about this other power in turn? YOUNG SOCRATES: Which one? STRANGER: The power that decides how one ought to wage war against whatever enemies we have chosen to fight—shall we call this itself an art or not? YOUNG SOCRATES: How could we think it lacks art, when generalship and the whole practice of war carry it out? STRANGER: And the science able to deliberate about whether one ought to go to war, or come to terms through friendship—shall we take this to be different from that one, or the same? YOUNG SOCRATES: Given what we have already accepted, it must be different.
STRANGER: Then shall we declare that this one rules over the other, if indeed we are to hold consistently to what we accepted before? YOUNG SOCRATES: I agree. STRANGER: Then whom shall we ever attempt to declare the master of this whole formidable and mighty art of war, except the one who is truly kingly? YOUNG SOCRATES: No one else. STRANGER: So we shall not set down the science of generals as statesmanship, since it is merely a servant. YOUNG SOCRATES: That seems unlikely. STRANGER: Come then, let us also examine the power of judges who judge rightly. YOUNG SOCRATES: By all means. STRANGER: Does it, then, have any greater power than this—taking over, with respect to contracts, all the lawful rules laid down by a lawgiver-king, and judging by looking to these what has been ordained as just and unjust, contributing its own particular virtue of never being swayed by bribes, fears, pity, or any other enmity or friendship, so as to be willing to decide people's mutual charges against each other contrary to the lawgiver's ordinance? YOUNG SOCRATES: No, pretty much what you have said is the whole work of this power. STRANGER: Then we find the strength of judges to be, not kingly rule, but the guardian and servant of the laws. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems. STRANGER: This much we must grasp, looking over all the sciences we have named together: none of them has turned out to be statesmanship. For the one that is truly kingly ought not to act itself, but to rule over those capable of acting, knowing the right beginning and impulse for the most important matters in cities as to timeliness and untimeliness, while the others carry out what is assigned to them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Rightly said. STRANGER: For this reason, then, the sciences we have just gone through, ruling neither one another nor themselves, but each concerned with some private business of its own, have rightly taken a name proper to the particular nature of its own business. YOUNG SOCRATES: So it seems, at any rate. STRANGER: But the science that rules over all of these, and over the laws, and cares for everything in the city, weaving all of it together most rightly—if we grasp its power under a name that comprehends the whole, we should most justly, it seems, call it statesmanship. YOUNG SOCRATES: Absolutely. STRANGER: Then, following the model of the art of weaving, shall we now wish to go through it in full, now that all the kinds within the city have become clear to us? YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, very much so.
STRANGER: We must, then, describe what the kingly weaving together is, and in what manner, by weaving, it renders us the fabric we are after. YOUNG SOCRATES: Clearly. STRANGER: It has, as it turns out, become a necessary business to demonstrate a difficult matter. YOUNG SOCRATES: Still, it must be said, at all costs. STRANGER: The reason is that a part of virtue is, in a certain way, different in kind from another part of virtue—a claim quite easy for verbal disputants to seize on and use against the opinions of the many. YOUNG SOCRATES: I don't follow. STRANGER: Let me try again, this way. You consider courage, I take it, to be one part of virtue for us. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly. STRANGER: And moderation, again, to be different from courage, yet also one part, just as courage is. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Now here is a strange claim about these two that we must dare to put forward. YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it? STRANGER: That in a certain way they stand toward each other in downright hostility and opposed factions in a great many existing things. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean? STRANGER: A claim quite out of the ordinary; for surely all the parts of virtue are said to be friendly to one another. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes. STRANGER: Then let us look carefully and attentively at whether this is really so simple, or whether, more than anything, there is some difference among them toward their own kin. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes, tell me how we should examine it. STRANGER: We must look among all the things we call beautiful generally, and that we place into two opposite kinds. YOUNG SOCRATES: Say it more clearly still. STRANGER: Sharpness and speed, whether in bodies or in souls or in the movement of the voice, whether in these things themselves or in images of them—all that music imitates and produces, and painting too—have you ever been a person to praise any of these, or been present when someone else praised them? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: And do you remember the manner in which people do this, in each of these cases? YOUNG SOCRATES: Not at all. STRANGER: Could I manage, then, as I intend, to show you this in words? YOUNG SOCRATES: Why not? STRANGER: You seem to think such a thing easy. Well, let us examine it among the opposite kinds. For in many actions, and often on each occasion, when we admire speed and vehemence and sharpness of thought and of body, and also of voice, we speak in praise of it using one single term, that of courage. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: We say first, I think, 'a sharp and courageous thing,' and 'a quick and manly thing,' and 'a vehement thing' likewise; and by applying everywhere the name I mean, common to all these natures, we praise them. YOUNG SOCRATES: Yes.
STRANGER: But what of this? Have we not often praised, in turn, the kind that comes from a calm nature, in many of our actions? YOUNG SOCRATES: Very much so. STRANGER: And in saying this about those calm things, are we not speaking the opposite of what we said about the others? YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: We say, I think, on each occasion, that such things are quiet and moderate, admiring what is done with respect to thought, and, again, that actions are slow and gentle, and further that things occurring with respect to the voice are smooth and deep, and that all rhythmic movement and the whole art of music that makes proper use of slowness at the right moment—to all these together we apply not the name of courage but that of orderliness. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. STRANGER: And yet whenever both of these turn out to be untimely for us, we change our judgment and blame each of them, assigning the names once again in the opposite direction. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: We call things that turn out sharper than the occasion requires, and quicker, and appear harder, insolent and mad; while things that are heavier and slower and softer we call cowardly and sluggish. And pretty much, as a rule, we find that these qualities—the moderate nature and courage—having been allotted, so to speak, a warring and opposed camp, are not mixed with each other in actions of this sort; and further, if we pursue the matter, we shall see that those who possess these traits in their own souls are at odds with one another. YOUNG SOCRATES: Where do you mean? STRANGER: In all the cases we have just mentioned, and probably in many others as well. For, I think, because of their own kinship with each type, people praise the one set of qualities as belonging to themselves, and blame the qualities of the opposite type as foreign, and so they fall into a great deal of hostility with one another over a great many things. YOUNG SOCRATES: That does seem likely. STRANGER: Now this difference between these two kinds is, in fact, a kind of game; but concerning the greatest matters, it turns out to be the most hateful disease of all for cities. YOUNG SOCRATES: What matters do you mean? STRANGER: The whole arrangement of life, as is likely. For those who are exceptionally orderly are always ready to live a quiet life, managing their own affairs by themselves alone, and dealing with everyone at home in this same way, and likewise ready, toward foreign cities, to keep the peace in every possible manner; and because of this desire of theirs, more untimely than it ought to be, whenever they get to do what they want, without noticing it they become unwarlike themselves, and raise the young in the same way, and are forever at the mercy of those who attack them, so that within not many years they themselves, and their children, and the whole city together, often become slaves instead of free people without even noticing it.
YOUNG SOCRATES: That's a harsh and terrible condition you're describing. STRANGER: And what about those who lean more toward courage? Don't they, because their desire for that kind of life burns hotter than it should, constantly drive their own cities into some war, and end up either destroying them outright or reducing them to slavery and subjection under stronger enemies? YOUNG SOCRATES: That happens too. STRANGER: So how can we avoid saying that both these types are always at the greatest odds and division with each other in these matters? YOUNG SOCRATES: There's no way we can avoid saying it. STRANGER: Then haven't we found exactly what we set out to investigate at the start -- that the parts of virtue are naturally at no small variance with one another, and that this same thing holds true of the people who possess them? YOUNG SOCRATES: It does seem so. STRANGER: Let's take up this point next. YOUNG SOCRATES: Which one? STRANGER: Whether any of the combinatory sciences would ever willingly put together any product of its own work, even the humblest, out of both worthless and good materials -- or whether every science everywhere throws out the worthless as much as it can and takes only the fit and useful materials, and from these -- whether alike or unlike -- gathers them all into one and produces a single power and form. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: Then neither will the true natural art of statesmanship ever willingly build any city out of good and bad people. It's obvious that it will first test them through play, and after the testing, hand them over to those capable of instructing and serving toward this very purpose, itself directing and overseeing -- just as weaving directs and oversees the carders and all the others who prepare whatever is needed for its weaving, indicating to each what work to produce as suitable for its own interlacing. YOUNG SOCRATES: Certainly.
STRANGER: This same thing, it seems to me, is done by the kingly art in relation to all the teachers and nurturers who work under law -- holding as it does the very power of oversight, it will not allow anyone to practice any training except what produces a character suited to its own blend, and it directs them to teach only these things. As for those unable to share in a courageous and disciplined character, and whatever else tends toward virtue, but who are instead thrust by a wicked nature's force into godlessness, arrogance, and injustice, it casts them out by death, exile, and the harshest penalties of disgrace. YOUNG SOCRATES: That is more or less how it's said to be. STRANGER: And those wallowing in great ignorance and abasement it yokes into the class of slaves. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: As for the rest -- those whose natures are capable, given the right education, of rising to nobility and of accepting a mixture with one another through art -- of these, the ones inclining more toward courage, regarding their firm character as, so to speak, the warp thread, and the ones inclining toward moderation, using -- to keep the image -- a rich, soft weft-thread, since these two incline in opposite directions to each other, it attempts to bind and interweave them in something like the following way. YOUNG SOCRATES: What way is that? STRANGER: First, by joining together, through a divine bond, that part of their souls which is akin to the eternal, and after the divine part, their animal nature in turn through human bonds. YOUNG SOCRATES: What do you mean by that now? STRANGER: I mean that true opinion about what is fine, just, and good, and their opposites, held with firm conviction, whenever it arises in souls, I call divine, arising as it does in a more-than-human kind. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's certainly fitting. STRANGER: Then we know that it belongs only to the statesman and the good lawgiver to be capable of instilling this very thing, through the kingly Muse, in those who have rightly received the education we were just discussing. YOUNG SOCRATES: That's likely enough. STRANGER: And whoever, Socrates, is unable to accomplish this, let us never call him by the names we are now seeking. YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite right. STRANGER: Well then -- doesn't a courageous soul, when it takes hold of this kind of truth, grow gentle and become most willing to share in just dealings, while without receiving it, it inclines instead toward a kind of savage nature? YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: And what of the disciplined nature? Doesn't it, once it partakes of these convictions, become truly moderate and wise, at least as far as fits within a community, while if it fails to share in what we're discussing, it most justly earns a reputation for a rather pitiable simplicity? YOUNG SOCRATES: Quite so. STRANGER: So shall we say that this interweaving and bond never becomes lasting between bad people toward each other, or between good people toward bad ones, and that no science would ever seriously apply itself to such people? YOUNG SOCRATES: How could it?
STRANGER: But among those who are well-born from the start and reared according to nature, this bond alone can be implanted through laws, and for these people this is indeed the art's remedy -- and, as we said, this bond of the parts of virtue, belonging to natures unlike each other and pulling in opposite directions, is the more divine one. YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true. STRANGER: As for the remaining bonds, being merely human ones, once this divine bond exists, it's not at all hard to conceive of them, or having conceived them, to carry them out. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so, and what are they? STRANGER: Those concerning intermarriages, the sharing of children, and private matters of betrothal and marriage. Most people bind themselves in these matters incorrectly when it comes to producing children. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: As for the pursuit of wealth and power in such matters -- who would take the trouble to find fault with that as if it were worth discussing? YOUNG SOCRATES: No one would. STRANGER: It's more fitting to speak instead about those who take care over lineage, and whether they're doing anything improper in this regard. YOUNG SOCRATES: That does seem reasonable. STRANGER: Well, they act on no sound principle at all, chasing after the ease of the moment, and by embracing those similar to themselves while disliking those unlike them, they give the greatest weight to mere distaste. YOUNG SOCRATES: How do you mean? STRANGER: The disciplined types seek out their own kind of character, and as far as they can, marry from among such people, and send out their own daughters in marriage to such people in return. The courageous class does exactly the same, pursuing its own nature -- when in fact both classes ought to do the complete opposite. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so, and why? STRANGER: Because courage, when bred across many generations unmixed with a moderate nature, is naturally vigorous with strength at first, but in the end blossoms out into sheer madness. YOUNG SOCRATES: Likely enough. STRANGER: And a soul, on the other hand, too full of restraint and unmixed with bold courage, bred this way across many generations, tends to grow more sluggish than is fitting, and in the end becomes entirely crippled. YOUNG SOCRATES: And that too is likely to turn out that way.
STRANGER: So I said it was no hard matter to bind these bonds together, once both classes come to hold one and the same opinion about what is fine and good. For this is the one whole task of the kingly weaving -- never to allow the moderate characters to be separated from the courageous ones, but to weave them together by shared opinions, honors, dishonors, reputations, and by the exchange of pledges between them, drawing from them a smooth and, as it's called, well-woven fabric, and always entrusting the offices of government in the cities jointly to these people together. YOUNG SOCRATES: How so? STRANGER: Wherever there is need for a single ruler, choosing as overseer someone who holds both qualities; and wherever there is need for several rulers, mixing together a portion of each type. For the characters of moderate rulers are exceedingly cautious, just, and safety-preserving, but they lack a certain sharpness and quick, effective boldness. YOUNG SOCRATES: That does seem to be the case. STRANGER: And the courageous characters, in turn, fall short of those others in justice and caution, but possess boldness in action to an outstanding degree. And it's impossible for everything concerning cities, in private and public life, to go well unless both these qualities are present together. YOUNG SOCRATES: Of course. STRANGER: This, then, let us say, is the very completion of the fabric of political action, woven straight through: the character of courageous and moderate people, whenever the kingly art draws their life together into a shared harmony and friendship, having produced the most magnificent and best of all fabrics, so that it clothes in common everyone else in the cities, slave and free alike, holds them together with this weave, and rules and oversees the city, leaving out nothing needed for it to become as happy as a city can possibly be. YOUNG SOCRATES: You have once again brought the kingly man and the statesman to a most beautiful completion for us, Stranger.
SOCRATES: Now look here, Protarchus — think about what position you're about to take up on Philebus's behalf, and what position of ours you mean to dispute, in case the way I state it doesn't suit you. Shall we sum up each side? PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Philebus, then, says that the good for every living creature is enjoyment, pleasure, delight, and whatever else belongs to that same family. Our counter-claim is not about these things at all, but that thinking, understanding, remembering, and their relatives — correct judgment and true reasoning — turn out to be better and more excellent than pleasure for every creature capable of sharing in them, and that for those capable of it, this sharing is the most beneficial thing there is, for everything that exists now or ever will. Isn't that roughly how each of us puts it, Philebus? PHILEBUS: Exactly so, Socrates, more than anything. SOCRATES: Do you accept this statement as it's now been given, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: I have no choice but to accept it — our fine friend Philebus has thrown in the towel. SOCRATES: Then we need to bring the truth about all this to some sort of conclusion, by every means available? PROTARCHUS: We certainly do. SOCRATES: Come then, let's also agree on this further point. PROTARCHUS: Which point? SOCRATES: That each of us will now try to show some state and disposition of soul capable of providing every human being with a happy life. Isn't that right? PROTARCHUS: That's right. SOCRATES: So you two point to the state of enjoyment, and we in turn point to the state of thinking? PROTARCHUS: That's how it stands. SOCRATES: But what if some other state turns out to be better than both? If it shows itself more akin to pleasure, don't we both lose to whoever holds firmly to that life, and the life of pleasure defeats the life of thought? PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if instead it's more akin to thinking, then thought defeats pleasure, and pleasure loses. Do you both agree these are the terms, or how do you put it? PROTARCHUS: That's how it seems to me, at least. SOCRATES: And what about you, Philebus? What do you say? PHILEBUS: To me it seems, now and always, that pleasure wins outright. You, Protarchus, will have to decide that for yourself. PROTARCHUS: Philebus, once you've handed the argument over to us, you no longer have authority over whether we agree with Socrates or not. PHILEBUS: True enough. But I hereby wash my hands of it, and I call the goddess herself to witness. PROTARCHUS: And we'll gladly serve as your fellow witnesses on that point — that these are indeed the things you said. But now, Socrates, let's try to carry the argument forward from here, whether Philebus joins in willingly or however he pleases. SOCRATES: We must try, starting from the goddess herself — the one our friend here says is called Aphrodite, though her truest name, he claims, is Pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: My own reverence, Protarchus, toward the names of the gods has always gone beyond anything human — beyond even the greatest fear. And so now I'll address Aphrodite by whatever name pleases her. But pleasure itself I know to be a many-sided thing, and as I said, we need to start from her and consider carefully what her nature really is. To hear the word spoken plainly, it sounds like some single thing, yet it has taken on all sorts of shapes, some of them, in a way, quite unlike one another. Look at it this way: we say the undisciplined man feels pleasure, but we also say the self-controlled man feels pleasure precisely in being self-controlled. Again, we say the fool feels pleasure, full of foolish opinions and hopes, and yet we also say the wise man feels pleasure precisely in being wise. Wouldn't anyone who called these two kinds of pleasure alike to each other rightly look like a fool? PROTARCHUS: Well, Socrates, they do arise from opposite conditions, but they aren't opposite to one another as pleasures themselves. How could pleasure fail to be, of all things, most like pleasure — itself like itself?
SOCRATES: Yes, my good man, and color is like color too — on that very point, no color differs from being color at all. And yet we all recognize that black, compared to white, is not only different but in fact the most opposite thing there could be. And the same holds for shape compared to shape: as a class it's all one thing, but its parts can be the most opposite to one another, while others show endless variety, and we'll find many other things behave the same way. So don't trust that argument — the one that turns all the most opposite things into one. I'm afraid we'll find some pleasures that are opposite to other pleasures. PROTARCHUS: Perhaps — but how does that damage our argument? SOCRATES: Because, we'll say, you're calling things by a shared name even though they're unlike one another. You claim all pleasant things are good. Now, no argument disputes that pleasant things are pleasant. But many of them are bad, as we maintain, while others are good — and yet you call all of them equally good, even though you'd admit, if someone pressed you logically, that they're unlike one another. So what is it, exactly, that's present alike in the bad ones and the good ones, that makes you call all pleasures good? PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, Socrates? Do you think anyone who has laid it down that pleasure is the good will put up with you saying that some pleasures are good and others among them are bad? SOCRATES: Well, at any rate you'll admit they're unlike one another, and some of them opposite. PROTARCHUS: Not insofar as they're pleasures. SOCRATES: Here we are again, back at the same point, Protarchus — so then pleasure doesn't differ at all from pleasure, but we'll say they're all alike, and the examples just given don't wound our position in the least, and we'll end up experiencing and saying exactly what the shallowest people say, the ones who are new to argument. PROTARCHUS: What sort of thing do you mean? SOCRATES: That if I imitate you and defend myself by daring to claim that the most unlike thing is, of all things, most like the most unlike thing, I'll end up saying the very same things you say, and we'll both look younger than we should, and our argument will fall apart and be lost. So let's row it back again, and perhaps, going by way of like cases, we might somehow come to agreement with each other. PROTARCHUS: Tell me how. SOCRATES: Suppose, Protarchus, that you're questioning me again. PROTARCHUS: About what? SOCRATES: About thought and knowledge and understanding and all the things I named as goods at the start — if you ask me what the good is, in each case, won't they suffer the very same fate as your own account? PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: The sciences taken all together will turn out to be many, and some of them unlike one another — and if some of them even turn out to be opposite in some way, would I deserve to go on discussing this at all, if out of fear of that very fact I refused to say that any science is unlike any other, and our argument then vanished and was lost like an old tale, while we ourselves survived by clinging to some piece of nonsense? PROTARCHUS: Well, that mustn't happen — except insofar as it's needed to survive. Still, I do like the idea of treating your case and mine on equal terms: let there be many unlike pleasures, and many different sciences. SOCRATES: Then, Protarchus, let's not hide the difference between your good and mine, but set it out in plain view and be bold — in case, being tested, they reveal to us whether we should call the good pleasure, or thought, or some third thing. For surely we're not competing right now just so that my position wins, or yours does — rather, we both need to fight on the side of whatever is truest. PROTARCHUS: We certainly must. SOCRATES: Then let's secure this principle even further by agreement. PROTARCHUS: Which principle? SOCRATES: The one that gives everyone trouble, willing or not, and at various times. PROTARCHUS: Speak more plainly. SOCRATES: I mean the one that just came up, a strange thing by its very nature: that the many are one and the one is many — a strange thing to say, and easy for anyone to dispute, whichever side of it one takes. PROTARCHUS: Do you mean, for instance, when someone says that I, Protarchus, though born one by nature, am also many — calling me both large and small, heavy and light, the same person, and countless other things besides? SOCRATES: You, Protarchus, have named the well-worn examples of these puzzles about the one and the many — things that pretty much everyone already agrees shouldn't even be touched anymore, since they're considered childish, easy, and a serious hindrance to real argument. And no better is it when someone, having divided each thing into its limbs and parts by argument, and having gotten everyone to agree that all these parts together are that one thing, then mockingly refutes them by forcing them to say monstrous things — that the one is many, indeed infinitely many, and the many are only one. PROTARCHUS: But what other kind of case do you mean, Socrates — ones not yet worn out and settled concerning this same puzzle of one and many?
SOCRATES: I mean, my boy, whenever someone posits a one that doesn't belong among things that come to be and perish, the way we just did a moment ago. In that case — the sort of oneness we were just discussing — everyone agrees there's no need to press the point. But when someone tries to posit one man, one ox, one instance of beauty, one instance of goodness, then, concerning these unities and things like them, there arises great and careful dispute, along with the business of dividing them up. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: First, whether we ought to suppose that such units truly exist at all; then, how each of them, always being one and the same thing, admitting neither coming-to-be nor perishing, can nonetheless remain, with utter stability, this single one; and after that, whether, among things that come to be and are unlimited in number, it should be posited as scattered and having become many, or as remaining whole and separate from itself — which would seem the most impossible thing of all, the same single thing existing at once in one thing and in many. These, Protarchus, are the real puzzles about the one and the many in cases like this — not those other ones — and if not properly agreed upon, they're the source of every difficulty, and if properly agreed upon, of every way forward. PROTARCHUS: Then shouldn't this, Socrates, be the first thing we work hard at now? SOCRATES: That's what I would say, at least. PROTARCHUS: And you can take it that all the rest of us here agree with you on such matters. As for Philebus, perhaps it's best not to stir him up right now while he's questioning us, and just let him lie quiet where he is. SOCRATES: Very well. Where, then, should one begin, given how vast and varied this battle is over the disputed points? Shall it be here? PROTARCHUS: Where? SOCRATES: We say, don't we, that this same thing, one and many, comes to be through our statements and runs riot everywhere, in connection with everything ever said, both long ago and now. And this will never stop happening, nor did it just start now — it is, as it seems to me, something deathless and ageless that belongs to our very arguments themselves, built into us. And whichever young person tastes it first, each time, is delighted, as if he'd discovered some treasure of wisdom, and in his pleasure he's practically carried away, and sets every argument in motion with glee — sometimes rolling things around and mashing them together into one, sometimes unrolling them again and pulling them apart — throwing first and foremost himself into confusion, and after that, whoever happens to be nearest, whether younger, older, or the same age, sparing neither father nor mother nor anyone else listening, and hardly even sparing the other animals, let alone human beings — since he wouldn't spare even a foreigner, if only he could get hold of an interpreter from somewhere.
PROTARCHUS: Socrates, don't you see how many of us there are, and that we're all young men? Aren't you afraid that Philebus and I might gang up on you if you abuse us? Still, since we understand what you're saying, if there's some way or device to see this kind of confusion pass gently out of our discussion, and to find some finer road than this one toward our argument, then go ahead and try, and we'll follow along as best we can — this discussion before us isn't a small one, Socrates. SOCRATES: No indeed, my boys — as Philebus calls you when he addresses you. There is no finer road, nor could there be, than the one I've always been a lover of, though it has often slipped away from me and left me stranded and at a loss. PROTARCHUS: What is it? Just tell us. SOCRATES: One that isn't very hard to point out, but extremely hard to use — for everything that has ever been discovered in any art has come to light through it. Look at what I mean. PROTARCHUS: Just say it. SOCRATES: A gift from the gods to men — or so it appears to me — was flung down from somewhere among the gods, through some Prometheus, together with a most brilliant fire. And the ancients, who were better than us and lived closer to the gods, handed down this account: that the things that are ever said to be come from one and many, and have limit and unlimitedness bound up in their very nature. Since things are arranged this way, they said, we must always assume one form for each and every thing we investigate and search for it — for it will be found present — and once we have grasped it, we should look, after the one, for two, if there happen to be two, and if not, for three or some other number, and treat each of those units again the same way, until one sees not merely that the original one is one and many and unlimited, but exactly how many it is. And we must not apply the character of the unlimited to plurality until we have seen the whole number of it that lies between the unlimited and the one; only then may we release each single one of all these into the unlimited and let it go.
SOCRATES: The gods, then, as I said, handed down to us this way of investigating, learning, and teaching one another. But the clever men of today make their one — and their many — however it happens to turn out, faster or slower than they should, and jump straight from the one to the unlimited, letting the intermediate steps escape them; and it's exactly these steps that mark the difference between our conducting arguments with each other dialectically and doing so eristically. PROTARCHUS: I think I follow some of what you're saying, Socrates, but there are parts I need to hear stated more clearly. SOCRATES: Well, Protarchus, what I mean is clear enough in the case of the letters — take it from that very training you yourself received. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: The sound that passes through our mouths is, in one sense, single, and yet again unlimited in multitude, both taken all together and each one by itself. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And we're not yet wise in virtue of either of those facts alone — neither in knowing that it is unlimited nor in knowing that it is one; rather, it's knowing how many sounds there are and of what kind that makes each of us literate. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And indeed what makes a person musical is the very same thing. PROTARCHUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Sound, considered in that art too, is one thing in itself. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: But let's posit two — high and low — and a third, the even pitch. Is that right? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But you still wouldn't be wise in music just by knowing these alone — without that knowledge you'd be worth nothing in the subject, so to speak. PROTARCHUS: No, indeed. SOCRATES: But, my friend, once you grasp how many intervals there are in sound with respect to high and low pitch, and of what kind, and the boundaries of the intervals, and all the systems that arise from them — which those before us discovered and handed down to us who follow them, calling them harmonies — and once you notice other affinities of the same sort present in the movements of the body, which they say must likewise be measured by numbers and called rhythms and measures — and once you grasp, too, that this is how one must investigate every case of one and many — then, when you have grasped these things in that way, you have become wise; and whenever you lay hold of any other single thing by examining it this way, you have become intelligent about that thing. But the unlimited multitude in each and every case, taken by itself, leaves you each time without understanding, without a reckoning, without a number, since you have never looked to any number at all in anything. PROTARCHUS: Philebus, what Socrates has just said seems to me excellently put.
PHILEBUS: I think so too. But why in the world has this speech been addressed to us now, and to what end? SOCRATES: Protarchus, Philebus has asked us exactly the right question. PROTARCHUS: He certainly has — so answer him. SOCRATES: I will, once I've gone through a bit more on this very topic. Just as, if someone should ever grasp some one thing, we say he ought not look straight to the unlimited nature of it, but to some number; so too, conversely, when someone is forced to take the unlimited first, he should not look straight to the one, but rather work out some number belonging to each plurality that has some multitude, and end by arriving at the one out of them all. Let's take up again what was just said, in the case of the letters. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: When someone — whether a god or a godlike man, as the story goes in Egypt about a certain Theuth — noticed that sound is unlimited, he was the first to notice that the vowels within that unlimited range are not one but several, and again that there are others that share not in sound but in a kind of noise, and that these too have some number, and he marked off a third class of letters, which we now call mute. After that he divided up the voiceless and the mute down to each single one, and did the same with the vowels and the intermediate sounds, until, having grasped their number, he gave the name 'element' to each one individually and to all of them together. And seeing that none of us could learn even a single one of them by itself apart from all the rest, he reckoned this bond as being itself one thing, running through them all and making them all in a sense one, and so he pronounced there to be a single art over them, and called it the art of letters. PHILEBUS: I've grasped these points, Protarchus, more clearly than the last ones, at least in how they relate to each other; but the very thing I want from the argument is still missing now, just as it was a little earlier. SOCRATES: Philebus, do you mean, what does all this have to do with the point at hand? PHILEBUS: Yes, that's exactly what Protarchus and I have long been searching for. SOCRATES: But surely you've already reached it, as you say you've long been searching. PHILEBUS: How so? SOCRATES: Wasn't our discussion from the start about wisdom and pleasure, and which of the two is to be chosen? PHILEBUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And we do say that each of the two is a single thing. PHILEBUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: That, then, is exactly what our earlier argument demands of us — how each of these two is one and many, and how neither becomes unlimited straightaway, but each possessed some number even before becoming unlimited in its instances. PROTARCHUS: Philebus, it's no small question that Socrates has, I don't know quite how, led us round in a circle and dropped on us. Consider which of us is to answer what's being asked now. Perhaps it would be ridiculous for me, having taken over the argument from you entirely, to hand it right back to you again just because I can't answer what's now asked; but it would be far more ridiculous, I think, if neither of us could answer. So consider what we should do. It seems to me Socrates is now asking us whether there are kinds of pleasure, and if so how many and of what sort; and likewise, in the same way, concerning wisdom. SOCRATES: Very true, son of Callias — for if we're unable to do this for every case of one, alike and the same, and its opposite too, as the argument just now made clear, none of us would ever be worth anything for anything at all. PROTARCHUS: That does seem pretty much to be the case, Socrates. But while it's a fine thing for the prudent man to know everything, the second-best course, it seems, is not to be ignorant of oneself. Why do I say this now? I'll tell you. You have granted this whole gathering of ours, Socrates, yourself included, to the task of determining what among human possessions is best. For when Philebus said it was pleasure, delight, enjoyment, and everything of that kind, you objected that it isn't these but rather those other things which we so often remind ourselves of, and rightly so, so that, laid up together in memory, each may be put to the test. You claim, it seems, that the thing that ought rightly to be called better than pleasure is mind, knowledge, understanding, skill, and everything akin to these — that these are what we should acquire, not those other things. Since these claims were made on both sides in dispute, we threatened you, half in jest, that we wouldn't let you go home until some sufficient conclusion had been reached settling these arguments; and you agreed and gave yourself over to us for this purpose. Now we say, as children do, that there's no taking back what has been rightly given. So stop meeting us in this manner regarding what's now being said. SOCRATES: What manner do you mean?
PROTARCHUS: Throwing us into perplexity and asking us questions we can't give you an adequate answer to at the moment. Let's not imagine that the goal of our present efforts is simply to leave all of us at a loss — rather, if we're unable to do this, then you must do it, since you promised. So make up your own mind about this: whether you must divide the kinds of pleasure and of knowledge, or whether you can let that be, in case you're able and willing to make clear, in some other way, the points now disputed among us. SOCRATES: Well then, there's nothing terrible left for me to expect, once you've put it that way — for the phrase 'if you're willing' removes all fear about anything. Besides, I think some god has just given me a kind of memory. PROTARCHUS: How so, and of what? SOCRATES: I recall now something I once heard long ago, in a dream perhaps, or perhaps while awake, concerning pleasure and wisdom — that neither of the two is the good, but something else, a third thing, different from both and better than either. Yet if this now becomes clear to us, pleasure is at once relieved of the claim to victory — for the good could no longer be identical with it. Is that right? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And in my opinion we'll no longer have any need at all for dividing pleasure into its kinds. The course ahead will make this still clearer. PROTARCHUS: An excellent point — now finish working it through that way. SOCRATES: Well then, let's first agree on a few small things. PROTARCHUS: Such as? SOCRATES: Must the portion belonging to the good be necessarily complete, or not complete? PROTARCHUS: The most complete of all things, surely, Socrates. SOCRATES: And is the good sufficient? PROTARCHUS: Of course — and indeed it surpasses all things that exist precisely in this respect. SOCRATES: And this too, I think, must most certainly be said of it: that everything that recognizes it hunts after it and longs for it, wanting to catch it and possess it for itself, and cares nothing for anything else except what comes along with good results. PROTARCHUS: There's no contradicting that. SOCRATES: Let's then examine and judge the life of pleasure and the life of wisdom by looking at each separately. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean?
SOCRATES: Let there be no wisdom in the life of pleasure, and no pleasure in the life of wisdom. For if either is really the good, it must need nothing else at all — and if it turns out to need something, then it is no longer, for us, the truly good thing. PROTARCHUS: How could it be? SOCRATES: Then shall we test this by trying it out on you? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Answer me, then. PROTARCHUS: Ask. SOCRATES: Would you choose, Protarchus, to live your whole life enjoying the greatest pleasures? PROTARCHUS: Of course I would. SOCRATES: And would you think you still needed anything else, if you had that completely? PROTARCHUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: But look — would you need any share of thinking, understanding, reasoning out what's needed, and all the kindred faculties? PROTARCHUS: Why would I? I'd have everything, I suppose, if I had enjoyment. SOCRATES: So living that way, you would enjoy the greatest pleasures throughout your whole life? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: But without possessing mind, memory, knowledge, or true judgment, you would first of all be forced not to know whether you were enjoying yourself or not, since you'd be empty of all wisdom — isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: It must be so. SOCRATES: And likewise, without memory, you couldn't even remember that you'd once enjoyed something, and no memory at all could survive of a pleasure that struck you a moment ago. And without true judgment you wouldn't judge that you were enjoying yourself even while enjoying it, and lacking reason you couldn't even calculate that you would enjoy things in time to come. You'd be living not a human life, but the life of some jellyfish or one of those shellfish creatures of the sea. Is that so, or can we think of it some other way? PROTARCHUS: How could we? SOCRATES: So is such a life something we'd choose? PROTARCHUS: This argument has struck me utterly speechless for the moment, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, let's not go soft yet — let's take up the life of mind in turn and look at that. PROTARCHUS: What sort of life do you mean? SOCRATES: Whether any of us would choose to live possessing wisdom, mind, knowledge, and complete memory of everything, but sharing in no pleasure, great or small, and no pain either — entirely unaffected by anything of that kind. PROTARCHUS: Neither of those two lives looks choiceworthy to me, Socrates, nor, I imagine, would it to anyone else.
SOCRATES: What about the combined life, Protarchus, the one blended and made common out of both? PROTARCHUS: You mean of pleasure and mind and wisdom? SOCRATES: Yes, that's what I mean, and things of that sort. PROTARCHUS: Everyone, surely, would choose this over either of those on its own — no question of some choosing it and others not. SOCRATES: Do we see, then, what follows for us from what we've said so far? PROTARCHUS: Certainly — that three lives were proposed, and of the two, neither is sufficient or choiceworthy for any human being or any animal. SOCRATES: Then isn't it already clear that neither of those two held the good? For if it did, it would be sufficient, complete, and choiceworthy for every plant and animal capable of living that way permanently. And if any of us chose something else, we would be taking it against the nature of what is truly choiceworthy, unwillingly, out of ignorance or some unhappy necessity. PROTARCHUS: That does seem to be the case. SOCRATES: I think enough has now been said to show that Philebus's goddess should not be identified with the good. PHILEBUS: Neither is your mind the good, Socrates — it will face the very same charges. SOCRATES: Perhaps my mind will, Philebus — but not, I think, the mind that is truly divine; that stands on some other footing. For the moment I'm not contesting the first prize for mind over the combined life, but we must look at and consider the matter of second prize. For each of us might attribute this combined life to a different cause — one of us to mind, the other to pleasure — so that though the good would be neither of these two, one might still suppose one of them to be its cause. On this point I would contend even more strongly against Philebus that whatever it is that, once present in this mixed life, makes it choiceworthy and good, it is mind, not pleasure, that is more akin and more similar to that thing — and by this reasoning pleasure could truly be said to have no claim on either first or second prize; it stands further off yet from even the third, if my own mind is at all to be trusted just now.
PROTARCHUS: Well, Socrates, it does seem to me now that pleasure has fallen, as if struck down by the arguments just made — for it lies there, still fighting for first prize. But mind, it seems, must be said to have been too sensible to claim first prize itself, for it would have suffered the same fate. But if pleasure is deprived of second prize too, it will suffer a real loss of honor among its own admirers — for it will no longer look so beautiful even to them. SOCRATES: Well then — isn't it better to let it rest now, rather than distress it by applying the most rigorous test and exposing it further? PROTARCHUS: That's nonsense, Socrates. SOCRATES: Because I said something impossible — distressing pleasure? PROTARCHUS: Not only that, but because you don't realize that none of us will let you go until you've carried this argument through to the end. SOCRATES: Good heavens, Protarchus — that means a long discussion still ahead, and not even an easy one at this point. It seems we need a different approach — that in going after second prize on mind's behalf, I'll need other weapons than the ones used before, though perhaps some will be the same. Must we, then? PROTARCHUS: How could we not? SOCRATES: Then let's try to secure the starting point carefully. PROTARCHUS: What sort of starting point do you mean? SOCRATES: Let's divide everything that now exists in the universe into two — or rather, if you like, three parts. PROTARCHUS: On what basis? Tell me. SOCRATES: Let's take up some things from what we said just now. PROTARCHUS: Such as? SOCRATES: We said, didn't we, that the god revealed one part of what exists as the unlimited, and another as limit? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Let's posit these as two of the forms, and a third as one thing mixed together out of both. But I seem to be a ridiculous fellow, dividing things into forms and counting them up this way. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my friend? SOCRATES: It seems I need yet a fourth kind as well. PROTARCHUS: Tell me which one. SOCRATES: Look at the cause of the mixing of these with one another, and set this down as a fourth alongside those three. PROTARCHUS: Won't you need a fifth as well, one capable of separating them? SOCRATES: Perhaps — though I don't think so just now. But if it turns out I do need one, you'll forgive me for chasing after a fifth life. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: First, then, having distinguished three of the four, let's try — seeing that each of two of them is split and scattered into many things — to gather each back together into one, so as to grasp how each of them was both one and many. PROTARCHUS: If you could put it to me still more clearly about them, I might be able to follow.
SOCRATES: I say, then, that the two I set out are the same as just now — the one the unlimited, the other having limit. That the unlimited is, in a certain way, many things — that I'll try to show. Let what has limit wait for us. PROTARCHUS: It waits. SOCRATES: Consider, then — what I'm asking you to examine is difficult and contested, but examine it anyway. Take hotter and colder first — see whether you could ever conceive any limit in them, or whether the more and the less, dwelling within these very kinds themselves, would not, for as long as they dwell there, allow any end to come about. For once an end came about, they themselves would be ended. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And we say the more and the less are always present in the hotter and the colder. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: So our argument keeps signaling to us that these two have no end — and being endless, they become altogether unlimited. PROTARCHUS: Emphatically so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well said, dear Protarchus — you've caught the point and reminded me that this word "very," which you just uttered, and "gently" too, have the same force as "more" and "less." For wherever they occur, they don't allow a thing to have a definite quantity — they always import into every action a more and a less, making the vehement stand against the mild or the reverse, and thereby wipe out the definite quantity. For, as I just said, if they didn't wipe out the quantity, but instead let quantity and the measured settle in where the more and less, the vehement and the mild, reside, these very qualities would be driven out from the region they occupied. For once they took on quantity, they would no longer be hotter or colder — since the hotter and the colder are always advancing and never staying still, whereas quantity stays put and does not advance. By this reasoning the hotter would become unlimited, and its opposite likewise. PROTARCHUS: So it appears, Socrates — though, as you said, these things are not easy to follow. Perhaps repeated statement, again and again, would bring questioner and answerer into sufficient agreement. SOCRATES: Well said — that's the way we should try to proceed. But for now, look and see whether we should accept this as the mark of the nature of the unlimited, so as not to draw things out by going through everything. PROTARCHUS: What mark do you mean?
SOCRATES: Whatever appears to us to become more and less, and to admit the vehement and the mild, and the excessive, and all things of that sort — all these we must place into the class of the unlimited as into one thing, in accordance with what we said earlier: that whatever is scattered and split apart must be gathered together and marked, so far as we can, with a single nature — do you remember? PROTARCHUS: I remember. SOCRATES: Then whatever does not admit these, but admits instead all their opposites — first the equal and equality, and after the equal the double, and whatever is as number to number or measure to measure — if we reckon all these into the limit, we would seem to be doing well. What do you say? PROTARCHUS: Very well indeed, Socrates. SOCRATES: Good. Now what shape shall we say the third thing has, the one mixed out of these two? PROTARCHUS: You'll tell me that, I think. SOCRATES: Rather a god will — if indeed any god will hear my prayers. PROTARCHUS: Pray, then, and look. SOCRATES: I am looking — and it seems to me, Protarchus, that one of the gods has just now turned out to be our friend. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean by that, and what's your evidence? SOCRATES: I'll tell you plainly — just follow the argument with me. PROTARCHUS: Only speak. SOCRATES: We spoke just now of something hotter, and something colder, didn't we? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Add to these the drier and the wetter, the more and the less, the faster and the slower, the greater and the smaller, and all the things we put earlier into the single nature that admits more and less. PROTARCHUS: You mean the nature of the unlimited? SOCRATES: Yes. Now mix into it, after this, the offspring of limit in turn. PROTARCHUS: Which offspring? SOCRATES: The one which we failed to gather into one just now, though we should have, just as we gathered the nature of the unlimited into one — that of the limit-bearing kind. But perhaps it will still do the same thing now, if, once both are gathered together, that one too becomes visible. PROTARCHUS: Which one, and how do you mean? SOCRATES: The nature of the equal and the double, and whatever puts a stop to opposites being at variance with one another, making them commensurate and harmonious by introducing number into them. PROTARCHUS: I understand — you seem to mean that mixing these produces certain kinds of generation in each case. SOCRATES: Yes, that's right. PROTARCHUS: Go on, then.
SOCRATES: Now in the case of diseases, isn't it the correct combination of these elements that produces the nature of health? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And in the sharp and the low, the fast and the slow — which are unlimited in themselves — doesn't the same thing happen: this combination both produces a limit and puts together the whole of music in its most perfect form? PROTARCHUS: Beautifully put. SOCRATES: And again, when it occurs in frost and stifling heat, it removes the excessive and unlimited, and produces instead what is measured and proportionate. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So it's from these things that the seasons and everything beautiful in our lives has come to be, from the mixing of the unlimited things with the things that have a limit? PROTARCHUS: How could it be otherwise? SOCRATES: And there are countless other things I'm leaving out — beauty and strength that come along with health, and a great many other beautiful things in souls as well. For this goddess, my dear Philebus, looking upon outrage and the wickedness of everything — seeing that there is no limit in pleasures or in the desire for satisfaction — established law and order, which have a limit. You say she wears things down, but I say, on the contrary, that she preserves them. What does it seem like to you, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: Very much in line with my own thinking, Socrates. SOCRATES: So I've now named the three, if you're following. PROTARCHUS: I think I understand — one thing you seem to mean is the unlimited, and a second is limit among the things that are; but I don't quite grasp what you want to call the third. SOCRATES: That's because the sheer abundance of it startled you, my friend, at the birth of the third kind. And yet the unlimited too supplied many kinds, but once they were stamped with the mark of the more-and-less family, they appeared as one. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: And limit, too, didn't have many kinds, nor did we have trouble accepting that it was naturally one. PROTARCHUS: How could we? SOCRATES: Not at all. So take it that I mean by the third the single offspring of these two — the coming-into-being that results when things are measured and worked into limit. PROTARCHUS: I understand. SOCRATES: But besides these three, we said there was some fourth kind to examine — and this examination is shared work. Consider whether it seems necessary to you that everything that comes to be, comes to be through some cause. PROTARCHUS: It does to me — how could it come to be otherwise? SOCRATES: And the nature of that which makes differs from the cause in nothing but name — so that what makes and the cause could rightly be said to be one? PROTARCHUS: Rightly said.
SOCRATES: And likewise that which is made and that which comes to be will turn out, as we just said, to differ in nothing but name. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Just so. SOCRATES: Then does what makes always lead by nature, while what is made follows along, coming to be after it? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So the cause and that which is enslaved to the cause in the process of coming-to-be are different, not the same thing. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So the things that come to be, and the things out of which they come to be, gave us all three kinds together? PROTARCHUS: Indeed. SOCRATES: And what we call the fourth is that which produces all of these — the cause — since it has been shown clearly enough to be distinct from the others? PROTARCHUS: Yes, distinct. SOCRATES: Now that the four have been distinguished, it's proper, for the sake of remembering each one, to count them off in order. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So first I name the unlimited, second the limit, then third the mixed being that comes to be out of these; and would I be making any mistake if I called the cause of the mixture and of its coming-to-be the fourth? PROTARCHUS: Not at all. SOCRATES: Well then, what comes next for us, and what did we want when we arrived at all this? Wasn't it this: we were asking whether second prize would go to pleasure or to thoughtfulness. Wasn't that it? PROTARCHUS: Yes, that was it. SOCRATES: So now, perhaps, since we've made this division, we can carry out the judgment about what's first and what's second more elegantly than we did when we first disputed about it? PROTARCHUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Come then — we set down as the winner the mixed life of pleasure and thoughtfulness together. Was that it? PROTARCHUS: It was. SOCRATES: Then don't we see what this life is and what kind it belongs to? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And we'll say it's a part, I think, of the third kind — for that mixture isn't a mixing of just any two things, but of everything unlimited bound by the limit, so that this victorious life would rightly turn out to be a part of that. PROTARCHUS: Quite rightly. SOCRATES: Very well then — what about your candidate, Philebus, pleasant and unmixed as it is? In which of the kinds we've named could it rightly be placed? But answer me this before you declare yourself. PHILEBUS: Just ask. SOCRATES: Do pleasure and pain have a limit, or do they belong among the things that admit of more and less? PHILEBUS: Yes, among the things that admit of more, Socrates — pleasure wouldn't be wholly good if it weren't unlimited by nature, both in quantity and in degree.
SOCRATES: Nor, Philebus, would pain be wholly bad — so what we need to look at is something else: how the nature of the unlimited supplies some part of good to pleasures. So let these two of yours belong to the class of the unlimited. But thoughtfulness, knowledge, and mind — into which of the classes we've named could we place them, Protarchus and Philebus, without impiety? For I think the risk we run here is not small, whether we get this right or miss the actual question. PHILEBUS: You're glorifying your own god, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you, my friend, are glorifying yours — but we still have to answer the question. PROTARCHUS: Socrates is right, Philebus, and we must yield to him. PHILEBUS: Well then, haven't you, Protarchus, taken over the job of speaking for me? PROTARCHUS: Certainly — though now I'm rather at a loss, and I ask you, Socrates, to become our spokesman yourself, so that we don't blunder in representing our contestant and strike some false note. SOCRATES: I must obey, Protarchus — and indeed what you ask isn't difficult. But did I really, as Philebus said, upset you by glorifying you in jest, when I asked what class mind and knowledge belonged to? PROTARCHUS: You certainly did, Socrates. SOCRATES: But it's easy enough — for all the wise agree, in truly glorifying themselves, that mind is king of heaven and earth for us. And perhaps they're right. Shall we, if you like, examine the nature of this class at greater length? PROTARCHUS: Say whatever you like, Socrates, without worrying at all about the length, since you won't wear out our patience. SOCRATES: Well said. Let's begin, then, somewhere like this, by asking further questions. PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: Shall we say, Protarchus, that the sum of things, this so-called universe, is governed by the power of the irrational and the random, however it happens to fall out — or on the contrary, as those before us said, that mind and some wondrous thoughtfulness arrange and steer it? PROTARCHUS: These aren't remotely the same thing, my dear Socrates. What you're now suggesting doesn't even seem reverent to me. But to say that mind orders all things is worthy of the sight of the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the whole revolving heaven — and I could never say or think otherwise about them.
SOCRATES: Do you want us, then, to agree with the view held before us, that this is how things are, and not merely think we should state other people's views without any risk, but actually share the risk and take our part of the blame, whenever some formidable man says that things are not so, but disordered? PROTARCHUS: Of course I want that. SOCRATES: Come then, consider the argument now approaching us on this subject. PROTARCHUS: Just speak. SOCRATES: In the bodily nature of all living things we see, I think, fire and water and air, and earth too — as those caught in storms say — present in their makeup. PROTARCHUS: Very much so — we really are caught in a storm of confusion in our present argument. SOCRATES: Come then, take the following point about each of these elements as they exist in us. PROTARCHUS: What point? SOCRATES: That each of these is present in us only in small measure, and poor quality, and nowhere pure in any way, and possessing a power unworthy of its true nature. Take one case and think the same about all: fire exists in us, but it also exists in the universe. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And the fire in us is something small, weak, and poor, while the fire in the universe is wondrous in quantity, beauty, and every power that belongs to fire. PROTARCHUS: What you say is quite true. SOCRATES: Well then — is the fire of the universe nourished, generated, and increased from the fire in us, or is it rather the reverse — that mine and yours and every living thing's fire gets all these from that greater fire? PROTARCHUS: That question doesn't even deserve an answer. SOCRATES: Right — for I think you'll say the same about the earth here in living things and the earth in the universe, and about all the other elements I asked about a moment ago. Is that how you'll answer? PROTARCHUS: Who could answer otherwise and still seem sane? SOCRATES: Hardly anyone. But follow along to what comes next. Seeing all these things just mentioned gathered into one, didn't we name it a body? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Take the same view of what we call the universe — for by the same reasoning it too would be a body, being composed of the same elements. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: Then does our body draw nourishment from that body, or does that one draw from ours, receiving and possessing everything we just described about them? PROTARCHUS: That too, Socrates, isn't worth asking.
SOCRATES: Well, is this worth asking, or how will you answer? PROTARCHUS: Just say what it is. SOCRATES: Won't we say that our body has a soul? PROTARCHUS: Clearly we will. SOCRATES: And where would it have gotten it from, dear Protarchus, unless the body of the universe happened to be ensouled too, possessing the same things as ours, and even more beautiful in every way? PROTARCHUS: Clearly from nowhere else, Socrates. SOCRATES: For surely, Protarchus, we don't imagine that those four things — limit and the unlimited and the common thing and the class of cause present as fourth in everything — this last, present in the things within us, providing soul and instilling bodily training, and when the body stumbles, providing medicine, and combining various things in various ways and setting them right, being called all wisdom in its every form — while these same things, existing in the whole heaven and in its great regions, and moreover being beautiful and pure — that in these it hasn't contrived the nature of what is most beautiful and most precious? PROTARCHUS: But that could make no sense at all. SOCRATES: Then if not that, following the other argument we'd do better to say, as we've said many times, that there is much of the unlimited in the universe, and limit enough, and some cause over them, of no small account, ordering and arranging years and seasons and months, which would most justly be called wisdom and mind. PROTARCHUS: Most justly indeed. SOCRATES: And wisdom and mind could never come to be without soul. PROTARCHUS: No, indeed not. SOCRATES: So in the nature of Zeus you'll say a kingly soul and a kingly mind come to be, through the power of the cause, while in other gods other beautiful qualities arise, whichever each is fittingly said to have. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Don't imagine, Protarchus, that we've said this argument in vain — it's an ally to those who declared long ago that mind always rules the universe. PROTARCHUS: So it is. SOCRATES: And it has supplied an answer to my own inquiry — that mind belongs to the class of that which was called the cause of all things, being one of our four. You have our answer now, I think. PROTARCHUS: I have it, and quite sufficiently — though you slipped an answer past me without my noticing. SOCRATES: Well, Protarchus, play is sometimes a rest from serious effort. PROTARCHUS: Well said.
SOCRATES: Now then, my friend, we've shown fairly well what kind of thing knowledge is and what power it has. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And likewise we saw earlier what kind of thing pleasure is. PROTARCHUS: Indeed. SOCRATES: Let's keep this much in mind about both: that intellect was akin to cause and belongs more or less to that class, while pleasure is itself unlimited, and belongs to the class of things that have no beginning, middle, or end in themselves and never will. PROTARCHUS: We'll remember; how could we not? SOCRATES: Now we need to see, next, in what condition each of them occurs and what happens to produce them whenever they do occur. Pleasure first — just as we tested its class first, so let's take these questions about it first too. But we could never adequately test pleasure apart from pain. PROTARCHUS: Well, if that's the road we must take, let's take it. SOCRATES: Does it look to you the way it looks to me, regarding how they come about? PROTARCHUS: How do you mean? SOCRATES: It seems to me that pain and pleasure arise together, naturally, within that common class. PROTARCHUS: Remind us, dear Socrates, which of the classes we mentioned before you mean by 'common.' SOCRATES: I'll do my best, my good man. PROTARCHUS: Well said. SOCRATES: Let's understand by 'common' the third of the four we spoke of. PROTARCHUS: The one you placed after the unlimited and the limit, in which you put health, and harmony too, I believe? SOCRATES: Exactly right. Now pay the closest attention. PROTARCHUS: Just tell me. SOCRATES: I say that when the harmony in living things is broken up, at that very moment there occurs both a breakdown of their nature and the birth of pains. PROTARCHUS: That's quite plausible. SOCRATES: And when it's restored again, returning to its own nature, we should say pleasure occurs — if we're to state the greatest matters briefly and as quickly as possible. PROTARCHUS: I think you're right, Socrates, but let's try to state the same things still more clearly. SOCRATES: Well, isn't it easiest to think through the common, obvious cases? PROTARCHUS: Which ones? SOCRATES: Hunger, I take it, is a breakdown and a pain? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And eating, which restores the fullness again, is pleasure? PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And thirst, again, is a wasting away and a pain and a breakdown, while the power of moisture that refills what's been dried out is pleasure. And separation and dissolution against nature — the experience of suffocating — is pain, while the return to nature, the cooling, is pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And with cold, the freezing of the creature's moisture against nature is pain, while the return to sameness and the loosening again, the natural path, is pleasure. Consider, in one word, whether it's a fair account to say that whenever the form that's naturally composed of the unlimited and the limit, as we spoke of before, is alive and this composite is destroyed, the destruction is pain, while the path back to its own being is pleasure — the return, that is, of all things to themselves. PROTARCHUS: Let it stand; it seems to me to have a certain outline of truth. SOCRATES: Shall we then set this down as one form of pain and pleasure, occurring in each of these conditions? PROTARCHUS: Let it be set down. SOCRATES: Now set down this too: within the soul itself, in anticipation of these conditions, there's a pleasant and confident feeling before pleasant things, and a fearful, painful feeling before painful ones. PROTARCHUS: Yes, this is indeed another form of pleasure and pain, the one that arises in the soul itself, apart from the body, through expectation. SOCRATES: You've grasped it rightly. For in these cases, I think — when each occurs pure, as it seems, and unmixed with the other, pain with pleasure — it will become clear about pleasure whether the whole class is welcome, or whether this should be assigned to one of the other classes we mentioned, while pleasure and pain themselves, like hot and cold and all such things, are sometimes to be welcomed and sometimes not, since they aren't good in themselves, though some of them do at times take on the nature of good things. PROTARCHUS: You're quite right that this is the direction in which our present pursuit must be worked through. SOCRATES: First, then, let's see this together: if what's been said is really true, that when things are being destroyed there's pain, and when they're being restored there's pleasure, let's think about those things that are being neither destroyed nor restored — what condition must each living thing be in at that time, when it stands that way? Pay very close attention and tell me: isn't it absolutely necessary that every living thing, at such a time, feel neither pain nor pleasure, whether great or small? PROTARCHUS: It is necessary.
SOCRATES: So then there's a third condition of ours, distinct from that of the one feeling joy and that of the one feeling pain? PROTARCHUS: Indeed there is. SOCRATES: Come now, try hard to keep this in mind. For it makes no small difference, in judging pleasure, whether we remember this or not. Let's work through it briefly, if you're willing. PROTARCHUS: Tell me what you mean. SOCRATES: You know that nothing prevents someone who has chosen the life of thought from living in just this way. PROTARCHUS: You mean the life of neither feeling joy nor feeling pain? SOCRATES: Yes — it was said, in that comparison of lives, that the one who chose the life of understanding and thinking need feel no joy at all, great or small. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that was indeed said. SOCRATES: Then that condition would belong to him; and perhaps it's not at all strange if his is the most godlike of all lives. PROTARCHUS: It's certainly not likely that the gods feel joy, or its opposite either. SOCRATES: No, not likely at all — either one would be unseemly for them. But we'll look into this further another time, if it's relevant, and credit it toward intellect's claim to second prize, if we can't credit it toward first prize. SOCRATES: Now, the other form of pleasure, the one we said belongs to the soul itself, comes about entirely through memory. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: We need to first take up what memory actually is — and it looks like we need to go back even further, to perception, if these matters are going to become clear to us in due course. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Consider that, of the states our body undergoes each time, some are quenched in the body before reaching the soul, leaving it unaffected, while others pass through both and set up a kind of disturbance peculiar to each and shared by both. PROTARCHUS: Let that stand. SOCRATES: If we say that the soul fails to notice those that don't pass through both, but does notice those that do, would we be speaking most correctly? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Now don't suppose for a moment that by 'failing to notice' I mean some coming-into-being of forgetting here; for forgetting is the departure of memory, and in the case we're now discussing, memory hasn't yet occurred. It would be absurd to speak of the loss of something that neither exists nor has yet come to be. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Indeed. SOCRATES: Then just change the names. PROTARCHUS: How?
SOCRATES: Instead of 'the soul failing to notice,' when it remains unaffected by the body's disturbances, call what you're now calling forgetting by the name insensibility. PROTARCHUS: I understand. SOCRATES: And when the soul and body are jointly affected by one experience and jointly moved, if you name this movement perception, you wouldn't be speaking off the mark. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: So we now understand what we want to call perception? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Then one would be right to call memory the preservation of perception, in my judgment at least. PROTARCHUS: Yes, rightly so. SOCRATES: But don't we say that recollection is different from memory? PROTARCHUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Isn't it this? PROTARCHUS: What? SOCRATES: When the soul, without the body, recovers within itself, as fully as it can, what it once experienced together with the body — that, we say, is when it recollects. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And also when it has lost the memory of some perception or piece of learning and then recovers this again within itself, by itself — all these cases too we call recollections and memories. PROTARCHUS: You're right. SOCRATES: The reason all this has been said is the following. PROTARCHUS: What is it? SOCRATES: So that we might grasp the pleasure of the soul, apart from the body, as clearly and distinctly as possible — and desire along with it; for it's through these, it seems, that both are somehow made evident. PROTARCHUS: Let's move on then, Socrates, to what comes next. SOCRATES: It seems we must, in discussing the origin of pleasure and its whole form, examine a good many things. And now, even before that, it appears we must grasp what desire is and where it arises. PROTARCHUS: Then let's examine it — we'll lose nothing by it. SOCRATES: On the contrary, Protarchus, we will lose something — we'll lose, once we've found what we're now seeking, the puzzlement surrounding these very questions. PROTARCHUS: A fair rebuttal. Let's try to say what comes next. SOCRATES: Didn't we just say that hunger and thirst and many other such things are desires? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: What in the world do we have in view, that we call things so different by one name? PROTARCHUS: By Zeus, that's perhaps not easy to say, Socrates, but it must be said all the same. SOCRATES: Let's take it up again from the same starting point. PROTARCHUS: From where? SOCRATES: We say, on each occasion, that someone is thirsty? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And this means he is being emptied? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Is thirst, then, a desire? PROTARCHUS: Yes, a desire for drink.
SOCRATES: For drink, or for the filling that comes with drink? PROTARCHUS: For the filling, I'd say. SOCRATES: So it seems that whichever of us is being emptied desires the opposite of what he's undergoing — being emptied, he longs to be filled. PROTARCHUS: Perfectly clear. SOCRATES: Well then: can someone who is being emptied for the first time somehow lay hold, whether by perception or by memory, of fullness — a thing he isn't experiencing now and never experienced before? PROTARCHUS: How could he? SOCRATES: And yet we say the one who desires, desires something. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So he doesn't desire what he's undergoing; for he's thirsty, and that's emptiness, while what he desires is fullness. PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then something belonging to the thirsty man must somehow lay hold of fullness. PROTARCHUS: It must. SOCRATES: But the body can't; for it's being emptied. PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So it remains that the soul lays hold of the fullness — clearly by memory; for by what else could it lay hold of it? PROTARCHUS: By hardly anything else. SOCRATES: Do we now understand what follows from this argument? PROTARCHUS: What? SOCRATES: This argument tells us that desire doesn't arise in the body. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: Because it shows that every living thing's effort is always directed against its own bodily condition. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And the impulse that leads toward the opposite of that condition surely reveals a memory of the opposite of what it's undergoing. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So by showing that it's memory that leads us toward the objects of our desire, the argument has revealed that the whole impulse, the desire, and indeed the very origin of every living thing, belong to the soul. PROTARCHUS: Perfectly right. SOCRATES: So the argument allows in no way that our body thirsts or hungers or undergoes anything of that sort. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: Now let's notice something further about these same matters. For the argument seems to me to want to reveal to us some particular form of life in just these cases. PROTARCHUS: In which cases, and concerning what sort of life do you mean? SOCRATES: In being filled and being emptied, and everything that has to do with the preservation and destruction of living things — and whether any of us, finding himself in either of these, feels pain at one time and joy at another, according to the changes. PROTARCHUS: That's so. SOCRATES: What about when he's in between these two?
SOCRATES: Because of what he's suffering he feels pain, but he remembers the pleasant things that would end his pain once they came about, and yet he isn't filled with them yet. What do we say then? Should we say he's in the middle of these two experiences, or not? PROTARCHUS: We should say that. SOCRATES: Is he in pain altogether, or feeling pleasure? PROTARCHUS: No, by Zeus—rather he's pained by a kind of double pain: in his body from the actual affliction, and in his soul from a longing tied to expectation. SOCRATES: What do you mean, Protarchus, by this doubling of pain? Isn't it true that sometimes one of us, in a state of emptiness, stands in clear hope of being filled, while at other times he's without hope of it? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And don't you think that when a man hopes to be filled, the very remembering gives him pleasure, while at the same time, being empty in that period, he feels pain? PROTARCHUS: That must be so. SOCRATES: So then a human being, and the other animals too, feels pain and pleasure at the same time. PROTARCHUS: It seems likely. SOCRATES: And what about when a person is without hope of achieving fulfillment while empty? Isn't it then that the double condition regarding pains arises—the one you just now noticed and thought was simply double? PROTARCHUS: Very true, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, let's put this consideration to use for these experiences. PROTARCHUS: What consideration? SOCRATES: Shall we say these pleasures and pains are true, or false—or that some are true and others not? PROTARCHUS: But Socrates, how could pleasures or pains be false? SOCRATES: And how, Protarchus, could fears be true or false, or expectations true or not, or opinions true or false? PROTARCHUS: Opinions I'd grant you, perhaps, but not those other things. SOCRATES: What do you mean? We're likely stirring up a rather substantial argument. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: But we must examine whether this is relevant to what came before, son of that man. PROTARCHUS: Perhaps it is. SOCRATES: Then we must dismiss anything long-winded, or anything else said out of place. PROTARCHUS: Rightly said. SOCRATES: Tell me then—I'm continually amazed at the very same puzzles we just now set out. How do you put it? Are some pleasures false and others true, or not? PROTARCHUS: How could that be? SOCRATES: Neither in dreams, you say, nor waking, nor in madness or derangement, is there ever anyone who seems to feel pleasure but doesn't feel it at all, or seems to feel pain but doesn't. PROTARCHUS: We've all assumed things stand just that way, Socrates. SOCRATES: Is that assumption correct, then? Or must we examine whether it's said rightly or not? PROTARCHUS: We must examine it, I'd say.
SOCRATES: Let's mark out still more clearly what we just said about pleasure and opinion. There's such a thing as forming an opinion for us, isn't there? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And feeling pleasure? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And there's also something that is opined? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And something by which the one who feels pleasure feels pleasure? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now the one forming the opinion, whether he opines rightly or not, never loses the actual act of opining. PROTARCHUS: How could he? SOCRATES: And likewise the one feeling pleasure, whether rightly or not, clearly never loses the actual feeling of pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's how it stands too. SOCRATES: So we must examine in what way opinion tends to become both false and true for us, while pleasure has only the true kind—though the actual opining and the actual feeling of pleasure are allotted equally to both. PROTARCHUS: We must examine it. SOCRATES: Is it because falsity and truth attach themselves to opinion, so that it becomes, through this, not merely opinion but opinion of a certain quality—is that what you say needs examining? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And besides this, we must also agree whether, generally, some things have qualities while pleasure and pain are only what they are, without ever becoming qualified. PROTARCHUS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: But it's not at all hard to see that they too have qualities—we said long ago that pains and pleasures alike come in great and small, and in intense degrees. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And if badness attaches itself to one of these, Protarchus, shall we say the opinion becomes bad in that way—and the pleasure bad too? PROTARCHUS: Well, what else, Socrates? SOCRATES: And what if rightness, or its opposite, attaches to one of them? Won't we call the opinion right, if it has rightness—and the pleasure the same? PROTARCHUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And if what's opined turns out to be mistaken, must we agree the opinion, erring then, is not right, nor rightly opining? PROTARCHUS: How could it be? SOCRATES: But what if we observe that a pain or a pleasure is mistaken about the very thing it's pained or pleased over—shall we attach to it the word 'right' or 'good' or any of the fine names? PROTARCHUS: That's not possible, if the pleasure will indeed be in error. SOCRATES: And yet it does seem that pleasure often arises in us not accompanied by right opinion, but by falsehood.
PROTARCHUS: Of course. And in such a case, Socrates, we do call the opinion false—but no one would ever call the pleasure itself false. SOCRATES: You're eagerly defending pleasure's case just now, Protarchus. PROTARCHUS: Not at all—I'm only saying what I've heard said. SOCRATES: Does it make no difference to us, my friend, whether the pleasure comes with right opinion and knowledge, or with the falsehood and ignorance that often arise in each of us? PROTARCHUS: It's likely to make no small difference. SOCRATES: Then let's proceed to examine the difference between them. PROTARCHUS: Lead the way, wherever seems best to you. SOCRATES: This is the way I'll lead. PROTARCHUS: Which way? SOCRATES: Opinion, we say, is sometimes false and sometimes true? PROTARCHUS: It is. SOCRATES: And often, as we were just saying, pleasure and pain follow along with these—true opinion and false opinion, I mean. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Now doesn't opinion, and the attempt to form opinions, arise for us on each occasion out of memory and perception? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Isn't it necessary that we're in something like this condition regarding these things? PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: When someone sees things from a distance, not very clearly, wouldn't you say he often wants to judge what he's making out? PROTARCHUS: I'd say so. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't this same person next ask himself something like this? PROTARCHUS: What? SOCRATES: 'What in the world is that thing appearing to stand by the rock, under some tree?' Don't you think a person would say such things to himself, having glimpsed some such appearance? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And then, after this, wouldn't such a person, as if answering himself, say that it's a man, hitting on the truth? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But then again, misled, he might instead call the thing he's making out the work of some shepherds. PROTARCHUS: Very possibly. SOCRATES: And if someone is there with him, he'd stretch what he said to himself into speech, addressing it to the person present—the very same words—and so what we then called opinion has become an actual statement? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: But if he's alone, thinking this same thing to himself, he carries it around within him, sometimes for quite a while. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then—does what I think about this appear the same to you? PROTARCHUS: What's that? SOCRATES: It seems to me that at such a time our soul resembles a kind of book. PROTARCHUS: How so?
SOCRATES: Memory, coinciding with the perceptions, and whatever feelings cluster around these, seem to me to write words in our souls, as it were, at that moment. And when this experience writes what's true, true opinion results, and true statements arising from it come about in us; but when the scribe within us writes something false, the opposite of the truth results. PROTARCHUS: That's quite how it seems to me too, and I accept what's been said in that way. SOCRATES: Then accept also another craftsman at work in our souls at that same time. PROTARCHUS: Which one? SOCRATES: A painter, who comes after the scribe of words and paints in the soul images of the things just spoken of. PROTARCHUS: But how and when do we say this one works? SOCRATES: Whenever someone, having drawn the opinions and statements from sight or some other perception away from the act of seeing itself, then in some way views within himself images of the things opined and stated. Isn't that something that happens in us? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: So then the images of true opinions and statements are true, while those of false ones are false? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: If we've spoken rightly on this, let's examine one further point besides. PROTARCHUS: What point? SOCRATES: Whether this is something we must necessarily undergo regarding things that are and have happened, but not regarding things that are going to be. PROTARCHUS: No—the same holds for all times alike. SOCRATES: Now weren't the pleasures and pains that come through the soul itself said earlier to arise even before the pleasures and pains that come through the body—so that it turns out we can feel pleasure and pain in advance, regarding time yet to come? PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: Then do the writings and paintings, which we said a little earlier come to be in us, concern only past and present time, and not the future? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Do you really mean that all these are hopes reaching toward time to come, and that we are, throughout our whole life, always full of hopes? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Come then, answer me this as well, in addition to what's been said. PROTARCHUS: What is it? SOCRATES: A just man, and a pious and good one—is he not altogether dear to the gods? PROTARCHUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: And what about the unjust man, and the wholly bad one—isn't he the opposite of that man? PROTARCHUS: How could he not be? SOCRATES: And every human being, as we were just saying, is full of many hopes? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And there are statements present in each of us, which we call hopes? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what's more, there are also the painted images. And a person often sees himself coming into abundant gold, and many pleasures on account of it; indeed he sees himself painted in there too, rejoicing greatly over it. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Shall we say, then, that for the good these painted scenes are, for the most part, true, since they're dear to the gods, while for the wicked it's, for the most part, the opposite—or shall we not say that? PROTARCHUS: We certainly must say it. SOCRATES: But the wicked no less have pleasures painted within them too—only these, presumably, are false. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: So the wicked, for the most part, delight in false pleasures, while good people delight in true ones. PROTARCHUS: What you say is quite inevitable. SOCRATES: So according to our present account there are false pleasures in the souls of human beings, imitating the true ones but in a more ridiculous way—and pains likewise. PROTARCHUS: There are. SOCRATES: Now it was the case that anyone who forms an opinion at all always genuinely does form an opinion, even when it isn't about things that are, or have been, or will be. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And this, I think, is what produced false opinion then, and the forming of a false opinion. Is that right? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then—mustn't we grant to pains and pleasures the corresponding condition in their own case? PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: That whoever feels pleasure at all, however and about whatever it may randomly be, always genuinely does feel pleasure—even though it isn't about things that are, or have been, and often, perhaps most often, about things that will never even come to be. PROTARCHUS: This too must be so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't the same account hold for fears, and fits of anger, and all such things—that all of these too are sometimes false? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And what about it—can we say bad and good opinions come to be otherwise than by being false? PROTARCHUS: In no other way. SOCRATES: Nor, I think, do we understand pleasures to be bad in any other way than by being false.
PROTARCHUS: You've said exactly the opposite of the truth, Socrates. It's hardly the case that false pains and pleasures are especially bad—rather it's the ones mixed up with some other great and widespread badness. SOCRATES: Well, we'll talk shortly about the pains and pleasures that are bad because of badness, if we still think it worth doing. But the false ones—the many that exist in us and keep arising in a different way—those we need to discuss now, since we'll probably need that for our judgments. PROTARCHUS: Of course—if they really exist. SOCRATES: But they do exist, Protarchus, in my view at least. And as long as that opinion stands with us, it obviously can't go untested. PROTARCHUS: Fair enough. SOCRATES: Then let's circle around this argument the way wrestlers do. PROTARCHUS: Let's go. SOCRATES: Now, if we remember, we said a little earlier that whenever the so-called desires are in us, the body and the soul are at that moment split apart and separated in their experiences. PROTARCHUS: We remember—that was said before. SOCRATES: And wasn't it the soul that did the desiring, desiring the state opposite to what the body was in, while it was the body that produced the pain, or some pleasure, through its condition? PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's how it was. SOCRATES: Then work out what happens in these cases. PROTARCHUS: Go on. SOCRATES: It turns out that whenever this happens, pain and pleasure lie side by side, and our perceptions of them, opposite as they are, arise right next to each other—which is exactly what showed up just now. PROTARCHUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And hasn't this also been said and already agreed between us? PROTARCHUS: What's that? SOCRATES: That both of these, pain and pleasure, admit of more and less, and that they belong among the unlimited things. PROTARCHUS: It's been said. What of it? SOCRATES: So what means do we have of judging these correctly? PROTARCHUS: In what way, and how? SOCRATES: If the aim of our judgment in cases like these is, each time, to determine which of them is greater than the other and which is smaller, and which is more intense and which more forceful—pain against pleasure, pain against pain, pleasure against pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's the kind of thing they are, and that is indeed the aim of the judgment.
SOCRATES: Well then—in sight, doesn't looking at sizes from far away and from close up hide the truth and make us form false opinions? And doesn't the very same thing happen with pains and pleasures? PROTARCHUS: Even more so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So now we've arrived at the opposite of what we said a moment ago. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Earlier, it was the opinions—true or false—that, in becoming so, filled the pains and pleasures themselves with their own condition. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: But now it's the pains and pleasures themselves that, because they're each time viewed from far away or close up and set side by side with each other, appear—the pleasures—greater and more intense next to what is painful, and the pains, in turn, appear the opposite next to pleasures. PROTARCHUS: That's bound to happen, given all this. SOCRATES: So then, to whatever degree each of the two appears greater or smaller than it really is—if you cut away that apparent excess, which isn't real, from each of them, you won't call that appearance itself correct, nor will you ever dare to call the resulting portion of the pleasure or pain right and true. PROTARCHUS: No, indeed not. SOCRATES: Next we'll look, if we approach it this way, for pleasures and pains that are false in a still deeper sense than these—both as they appear and as they exist in living creatures. PROTARCHUS: Which ones do you mean, and how? SOCRATES: It's been said many times that when the nature of each thing is being disturbed—by combinations and separations, fillings and emptyings, certain growths and wastings—pains and aches and sufferings and everything that goes by such names result. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's been said often. SOCRATES: And when a thing is settling back into its own nature, we agreed that this restoration is pleasure, as far as we ourselves are concerned. PROTARCHUS: Correct. SOCRATES: But what about when none of this is happening in our body at all? PROTARCHUS: And when would that ever happen, Socrates? SOCRATES: That question you're asking now is beside the point, Protarchus. PROTARCHUS: Why is that? SOCRATES: Because it doesn't stop me from asking you my own question again. PROTARCHUS: Which one? SOCRATES: If such a state didn't occur, Protarchus, I'll say—what would necessarily follow from that for us? PROTARCHUS: You mean, with the body moved in neither direction? SOCRATES: That's it. PROTARCHUS: Well, this much is clear, Socrates: neither pleasure nor pain would ever arise in such a state.
SOCRATES: Beautifully put. But I think what you mean is that one of these two must always be happening to us, as the wise men say—for everything is always flowing, up and down. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's what they say, and they don't seem to be talking nonsense. SOCRATES: How could they, being no fools themselves? But I want to slip out of the way of this argument as it comes bearing down. Here's how I plan to make my escape—join me in it. PROTARCHUS: Tell me how. SOCRATES: Let's grant them all this, we'll say to these people—but you answer me: is it always true that whatever happens to any living thing is felt by the thing it happens to, so that we never fail to notice ourselves growing, or undergoing anything of that sort—or is it quite the opposite? PROTARCHUS: Quite the opposite, surely—nearly all such things escape our notice completely. SOCRATES: Then what we just said wasn't well put—that changes moving up and down produce pains and pleasures. PROTARCHUS: True enough. SOCRATES: It will be put better and less open to objection this way. PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: That the great changes produce pains and pleasures in us, while the moderate and small ones produce neither of the two at all. PROTARCHUS: That's more correct than the other way, Socrates. SOCRATES: And if that's so, then the life we spoke of a moment ago comes back into view. PROTARCHUS: Which life? SOCRATES: The one we said was free of pain and without joys. PROTARCHUS: Quite true. SOCRATES: So from this, let's posit three lives for ourselves—one pleasant, one painful, and one neither. Or how would you put it? PROTARCHUS: I'd put it no other way—there are three lives. SOCRATES: Then not being in pain wouldn't be the same thing as feeling joy? PROTARCHUS: How could it be? SOCRATES: So whenever you hear someone say that the sweetest thing of all is to pass one's whole life without pain, what do you take such a person to mean? PROTARCHUS: It seems to me he's saying that not being in pain is pleasant. SOCRATES: Well, take any three things you like and set them down, using nicer names for them—call one gold, another silver, and the third neither of these. PROTARCHUS: Done. SOCRATES: Now, could the one that is neither of the two ever become one of them, gold or silver? PROTARCHUS: How could it? SOCRATES: So the middle life, too, if it's called pleasant or painful, could never rightly be so judged—not if one thinks it, nor if one says it, at least by the correct account. PROTARCHUS: How could it?
SOCRATES: And yet, my friend, we do notice people saying this and thinking it. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Do they then also suppose they feel pleasure whenever they aren't in pain? PROTARCHUS: That's what they say, at any rate. SOCRATES: So they do suppose they feel pleasure then—otherwise they wouldn't say so. PROTARCHUS: It seems so. SOCRATES: But they hold a false opinion about feeling pleasure, if indeed the nature of not-being-in-pain is distinct from that of feeling pleasure. PROTARCHUS: And it was distinct. SOCRATES: So shall we choose to hold that there are three states, as just now, or only two—pain as an evil for human beings, and release from pains, which is itself a good, being called pleasant? PROTARCHUS: Why are we asking ourselves this now, Socrates? I don't follow. SOCRATES: Do you really not recognize the enemies of our friend Philebus here, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: Who do you mean? SOCRATES: People with quite a reputation for expertise in natural science, who say there is no such thing as pleasure at all. PROTARCHUS: What of it? SOCRATES: That all these things Philebus and his party now call pleasures are nothing but escapes from pain. PROTARCHUS: So are you advising us to believe them, Socrates, or what? SOCRATES: No—rather to make use of them the way one makes use of prophets, who divine not by skill but by a certain harshness of nature, not ignoble, that has come to hate the power of pleasure so intensely, and to regard it as nothing sound, that they take even pleasure's alluring charm to be sorcery rather than pleasure at all. You could make use of them in this way, after examining their other objections too. After that you'll hear what pleasures seem true to me, so that, having examined it from both accounts, we can weigh its power against the judgment. PROTARCHUS: Well said. SOCRATES: Let's pursue these people, then, as allies, following the trail of their harsh objection. I think what they mean is something like this, starting from somewhere further back: if we wanted to see the nature of any kind of thing—hardness, say—would we understand it better by looking at the hardest things, or at things with only a trace of hardness? You must answer these harsh critics the way you'd answer me, Protarchus. PROTARCHUS: Certainly—and I tell them: by looking at the things that are first in degree.
SOCRATES: So if we wanted to see what nature the kind called pleasure has, we shouldn't look at the faintest pleasures, but at those said to be the most extreme and most intense. PROTARCHUS: Everyone would grant you that now. SOCRATES: And the pleasures readiest to hand, and also the greatest, are the bodily ones we keep mentioning—aren't they? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Are they greater, and do they arise more, in people who are sick and suffering than in people who are healthy? Let's be careful not to answer too hastily and stumble somewhere. We might well be tempted to say: in the healthy. PROTARCHUS: That's plausible. SOCRATES: Well, but don't the greatest pleasures come from the things that are preceded by the greatest desires? PROTARCHUS: That's true. SOCRATES: And don't people with fevers, and those gripped by illnesses of that sort, feel thirst and cold more, and everything the body normally undergoes, and are they not more caught up in deprivation, and don't they get greater pleasures when it's satisfied? Or shall we deny this is true? PROTARCHUS: What you've just said certainly does seem true. SOCRATES: So then, would we be right to say that if someone wanted to see the greatest pleasures, he shouldn't look toward health but toward sickness? Watch that you don't take me to be asking whether the very sick feel more pleasure than the healthy—rather, think I'm looking for the size of pleasure, and where its intensity occurs at each point. We need, I say, to grasp what nature it has, and what those who deny it exists at all are talking about. PROTARCHUS: Well, I think I'm following your argument. SOCRATES: You'll show it soon enough, Protarchus. Answer me this: do you see greater pleasures—I don't mean more numerous, but exceeding in intensity and degree—in a life of excess, or in a life of self-control? Answer carefully. PROTARCHUS: I've understood what you mean, and I see a great difference. The self-controlled are held in check, at every turn, by that proverbial maxim—'nothing too much'—which they obey; but with the senseless and unrestrained, violent pleasure takes hold right up to madness and makes them notorious. SOCRATES: Well said—and if that's really so, it's clear that the greatest pleasures, and the greatest pains too, arise in some badness of soul and body, not in virtue. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: So we need to pick out some of these and examine in just what way we meant they were the greatest.
PROTARCHUS: That must be so. SOCRATES: Now look at the pleasures that come with disorders of this sort — what shape they take. PROTARCHUS: Which disorders do you mean? SOCRATES: The unseemly ones, the kind that people we called squeamish find utterly hateful. PROTARCHUS: Such as? SOCRATES: Take the relief people get from scratching an itch, and anything like that, which needs no other remedy. For heaven's sake, what should we call that feeling? Pleasure, or pain? PROTARCHUS: It looks like some mixed sort of bad thing, Socrates. SOCRATES: I didn't bring this up for Philebus's sake. Without these pleasures, Protarchus, and the ones that go with them, once we've examined them closely, we probably won't be able to settle the question we're now pursuing. PROTARCHUS: Then we'd better go after their relatives. SOCRATES: You mean the ones that share in this mixing? PROTARCHUS: Exactly. SOCRATES: Now, some mixtures occur in the body itself, within the body, others belong to the soul alone, within the soul; and then we'll find further mixtures of pain and pleasure belonging to soul and body together, which are sometimes called pleasures and sometimes pains, depending on both together. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: Whenever someone, in the process of settling into a state or being pulled apart from it, undergoes opposite affections at once — sometimes shivering and getting warm, sometimes being heated and then chilled — wanting, I think, to keep the one and be rid of the other. What's called 'a sweetness mixed with bitterness' — when it's hard to shake off, it produces irritation, and later a wild tension. PROTARCHUS: What you just said is quite true. SOCRATES: So some of these mixtures consist of equal pains and pleasures, others of one or the other in excess? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Tell me about the ones where the pains outweigh the pleasures — the itching cases we just mentioned, and cases of tickling — when there's a boiling and inflammation inside, and the rubbing and scratching doesn't reach it, only stirs up the surface: sometimes people bring these spots to the fire, or turn to the opposite, applying heat treatments, producing at times overwhelming pleasures, at other times the reverse, setting what's inside against what's outside — mixing pains with pleasures, and depending on which way the balance tips, they give relief either by forcibly dispersing what's compacted together or by compacting together what's dispersed — and so they set pains right alongside pleasures.
PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And when, in cases like these, more pleasure gets mixed in, the small residue of pain causes a tingling and a mild irritation, while the much larger dose of pleasure poured in creates tension and sometimes makes people leap about, producing all sorts of colors, all sorts of postures, all sorts of gasping, and works up utter astonishment and cries devoid of sense. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And it makes a person say of himself, my friend, and makes others say of him, that he's practically dying of delight in these pleasures; and the more dissolute and senseless he happens to be, the more relentlessly he chases after them — he calls these the greatest pleasures, and reckons the one who lives immersed in them as much as possible to be the happiest of all. PROTARCHUS: You've laid out exactly, Socrates, what most people believe on all this. SOCRATES: Yes, concerning the pleasures found in the body's own common affections, blended from what's on the surface and what's within. But as for the cases where soul opposes body — pain set against pleasure and pleasure against pain, so that the two come together into one single blend — we went through those earlier: how, when a person is emptied out, he desires to be filled, and rejoices in hoping, yet suffers pain while being emptied. We didn't call witnesses to that then, but now we say that when soul and body pull apart in all these countless cases, a single mixture of pain and pleasure comes about. PROTARCHUS: You're probably quite right. SOCRATES: There's still one mixture of pleasure and pain left for us. PROTARCHUS: Which one do you mean? SOCRATES: The one we said the soul itself often takes on, all by itself. PROTARCHUS: What exactly do we mean by that? SOCRATES: Anger, fear, longing, lamentation, love, jealousy, envy, and all such things — don't you count these as pains belonging to the soul itself? PROTARCHUS: I do.
SOCRATES: Then won't we find them also full of boundless pleasures? Or do we need reminding — the case of rage and anger, the one who 'goads even a wise man into fury,' though 'far sweeter than dripping honey' — and the pleasures found in lamentation and longing, mixed in among the pains? PROTARCHUS: No, that's exactly how these things come about, and no other way. SOCRATES: And you remember watching tragedies, how people weep even as they enjoy themselves? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And do you know that our state of soul at comedies also involves a mixture of pain and pleasure? PROTARCHUS: I don't quite follow that one. SOCRATES: It really isn't easy, Protarchus, to grasp that particular experience in this case. PROTARCHUS: It doesn't seem so to me, at any rate. SOCRATES: Then let's take it up all the more precisely, since it's the murkier case — so that in other instances too, one may find it easier to recognize a mixture of pain and pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Go on, then. SOCRATES: Take the term we just used, envy — will you set it down as some pain of the soul, or how? PROTARCHUS: Yes, that. SOCRATES: But surely the envious man will turn out to take pleasure in the misfortunes of his neighbors. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And ignorance is a bad thing — what we call a foolish condition. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now, from all this, see what nature laughter has. PROTARCHUS: Just tell me. SOCRATES: It's a kind of badness in sum, named after a certain condition; and of all badness, it's the opposite state to what's written on the inscription at Delphi. PROTARCHUS: You mean 'know yourself,' Socrates? SOCRATES: I do. The opposite of that would clearly be not knowing oneself at all, the thing the inscription warns against. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now, Protarchus, try to cut this into three. PROTARCHUS: How do you mean? I doubt I can manage it. SOCRATES: So you're saying I need to make this division now? PROTARCHUS: I am, and I'm asking you to, on top of saying so. SOCRATES: Isn't it necessary that those who don't know themselves fall into this condition in one of three ways? PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: First, regarding money — thinking oneself richer than one's actual wealth. PROTARCHUS: Many people, at any rate, have that condition. SOCRATES: And even more think themselves taller and better-looking than they are, and superior in every bodily respect, beyond the truth of their actual state. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: But the vast majority, I think, are mistaken about the third kind, the one concerning qualities of soul — thinking themselves better in virtue than they are, when they're not. PROTARCHUS: Very much so.
SOCRATES: And among the virtues, isn't it wisdom that the crowd clings to hardest of all, full of quarrels and false pretensions to wisdom? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: One would be right to call all of this a bad condition. PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: Now we still need to split this in two, Protarchus, if we're going to see, in this childish envy, the strange mixture of pleasure and pain. How do we cut it in two, you ask? All those who hold this false opinion of themselves foolishly, as is true of everyone — of these, some necessarily have strength and power attached to them, others, I think, the opposite. PROTARCHUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Divide it that way, then: those among them who are weak, and unable to retaliate when laughed at — call them ridiculous, and you'll speak the plain truth. But those who are capable of retaliating, and strong — call them frightening and hateful; you'll give the most accurate account of them for yourself. For ignorance in the strong is hateful and shameful — harmful to their neighbors, both itself and any likenesses of it — while the weak sort of ignorance has been allotted the rank and nature of the ridiculous. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. But I still don't see clearly the mixture of pleasures and pains in these cases. SOCRATES: Then take up first the power of envy. PROTARCHUS: Just tell me. SOCRATES: There's some unjust pain, and some pleasure too? PROTARCHUS: That must be so. SOCRATES: Now, taking pleasure in the misfortunes of enemies is neither unjust nor a mark of envy? PROTARCHUS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But seeing the misfortunes of friends and not being pained, but taking pleasure instead — isn't that unjust? PROTARCHUS: Of course it is. SOCRATES: And didn't we say ignorance is bad for everyone? PROTARCHUS: Rightly so. SOCRATES: So the false pretension to wisdom or beauty in our friends, and all the rest we just went through — occurring, we said, in three kinds — ridiculous when weak, hateful when powerful: shall we say, or not say, what I said just now, that this condition in friends, when it's harmless to others, is ridiculous? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And don't we agree that it's a bad thing, being ignorance? PROTARCHUS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And do we feel pleasure or pain when we laugh at it?
PROTARCHUS: Clearly pleasure. SOCRATES: And didn't we say that pleasure at the misfortunes of friends is the work of envy? PROTARCHUS: It must be. SOCRATES: So our argument tells us that in laughing at the ridiculous traits of our friends, by mixing pleasure with envy, we're mixing pleasure with pain — since we agreed long ago that envy is a pain of the soul, and laughing is a pleasure, and the two occur together on these occasions. PROTARCHUS: True. SOCRATES: So our argument now reveals that in laments, in tragedies and comedies — not only on stage, but in the whole tragedy and comedy of life — pains are mixed together with pleasures, and in countless other cases too. PROTARCHUS: It's impossible not to agree with this, Socrates, even for someone bent on arguing the opposite. SOCRATES: Now, we proposed anger, longing, lamentation, fear, love, jealousy, and envy, and all such things, as cases where we said we'd find the very mixtures we've now often discussed. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then we understand that everything we just went through applies to lamentation, envy, and anger? PROTARCHUS: Of course we understand. SOCRATES: And there's still much left over? PROTARCHUS: A great deal, indeed. SOCRATES: Why do you suppose I singled out the mixture in comedy to show you? Wasn't it to give you confidence — since it's easy to display the blend in fears, in love, and the rest — so that once you've grasped this point for yourself, you'd let me off from having to go through those other cases and drawing things out, and simply accept this: that body without soul, soul without body, and the two together, are full, in their experiences, of pleasure blended with pain? So tell me now, will you let me off, or will you keep me here till midnight? I think I can get off with saying just a little more — I'll be willing to give you an account of all this tomorrow. For now I want to move on to what remains, toward the judgment Philebus is pressing us for. PROTARCHUS: Well said, Socrates. But go through what's left, in whatever way you please. SOCRATES: Then naturally, after the mixed pleasures, by some necessity we should move on in turn to the unmixed ones.
PROTARCHUS: Well put. SOCRATES: Let me try to shift ground and explain these to you. As for those who claim that every pleasure is simply a cessation of pain, I'm not at all convinced -- rather, as I said, I'm using them as witnesses that some things that seem to be pleasures are not pleasures at all, while certain other things appear great and numerous at once, though they are really jumbled together with pains and with the relief of the worst distresses of body and soul. PROTARCHUS: And which pleasures, Socrates, would one correctly take to be true? SOCRATES: Those connected with what are called beautiful colors, with shapes, with most smells, with sounds, and with anything whose lack goes unnoticed and unfelt while its fulfillment is felt and pleasant, arriving pure of any pain. PROTARCHUS: How do you mean this, Socrates? SOCRATES: What I'm saying isn't obvious right away, but let's try to make it clear. I'm not now trying to speak of the beauty of shapes in the sense the many would assume -- living things, say, or paintings of them -- but something straight, our argument says, and round, and the plane and solid figures produced from these by the lathe, and those made by rulers and set-squares, if you follow me. These, I claim, are not beautiful relative to something, as other things are, but are by nature always beautiful in themselves, and possess pleasures of their own, in no way like the pleasure of scratching an itch. And colors of this same kind are beautiful too, and have their own pleasures. Do we follow this, or not? PROTARCHUS: I'm trying to, Socrates -- but you try to put it still more clearly. SOCRATES: I mean the smooth, clear sounds that give off one pure note, beautiful not in relation to something else but in themselves, with pleasures native to them that follow along. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that too exists. SOCRATES: The class of pleasures connected with smells is a less divine kind than these, but the fact that no necessary pains are mixed in with them -- wherever and in whatever this occurs for us -- I count as the exact counterpart of the other case. So, if you follow, these are the two kinds of pleasure we're speaking of. PROTARCHUS: I follow.
SOCRATES: Now then, let's add to these the pleasures connected with learning, if indeed we think these have no hungers -- no pains arising at the start from a hunger for learning. PROTARCHUS: Yes, I agree with that. SOCRATES: But what about this: when people who have been filled with learning later suffer losses through forgetting, do you see any pains in that? PROTARCHUS: Not by nature, no -- only in certain calculations about the experience, whenever someone, deprived of it, is pained by the need for it. SOCRATES: But right now, my good man, we're tracing only the natural experiences themselves, apart from any calculation. PROTARCHUS: Then you're right that forgetting happens to us in matters of learning every time without pain. SOCRATES: So these pleasures of learning must be said to be unmixed with pain, and belong not to the many at all but to very few. PROTARCHUS: How could one not say so? SOCRATES: Now that we've reasonably distinguished the pure pleasures from those that could rightly be called nearly impure, let's add to our account that the violent pleasures involve excess, while the others involve the opposite, measure -- and let's set down that those admitting of the great and the violent, occurring often or seldom, belong to that class of the unlimited which runs, more or less, through body and soul alike, while the others belong to the class of the measured. PROTARCHUS: Perfectly right, Socrates. SOCRATES: There's still one more thing about them to examine after this. PROTARCHUS: What's that? SOCRATES: What should we say is closer to truth -- the pure and unmixed, or the intense, the abundant, the great, the vehement? PROTARCHUS: What are you really asking me, Socrates, and why? SOCRATES: So as to leave nothing out, Protarchus, in testing pleasure and knowledge fully -- whether each of them has a pure part and an impure part -- so that each may come to judgment in its purest form, making the verdict easier for me, for you, and for all of us here. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: Come then, let's think this way about all the kinds we call pure: let's pick out one of them first and examine it.
PROTARCHUS: Which shall we pick? SOCRATES: Let's look first at the kind called white, if you like. PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Then what would purity in white be, and what would count as it? Is it the largest and most abundant amount, or the most unmixed, in which no trace whatever of any other color is present? PROTARCHUS: Clearly the most unadulterated. SOCRATES: Right. So won't we say, Protarchus, that this is the truest white, and at the same time the most beautiful of all whites -- not the most abundant or the greatest? PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: So if we say that a small amount of pure white is whiter, and at the same time more beautiful and truer, than a large amount mixed with other things, we'll be speaking entirely correctly. PROTARCHUS: Entirely correctly indeed. SOCRATES: Well then -- surely we won't need many such examples for our account of pleasure; it's enough to grasp straightaway from this that any pleasure whatever, small or great, will be more pleasant, truer, and more beautiful once purified of pain. PROTARCHUS: Absolutely -- and this example is sufficient. SOCRATES: Now what about this: haven't we heard it said of pleasure that it's always a coming-into-being, and that pleasure has no being at all? Some clever people try to convey this very point to us, and we owe them thanks. PROTARCHUS: How so? SOCRATES: I'll work this out for you by asking further questions, dear Protarchus. PROTARCHUS: Just speak and ask. SOCRATES: There are two things, one existing in itself, the other always reaching after something else. PROTARCHUS: What are these two, and what do you mean? SOCRATES: The one is always by nature the most august; the other falls short of it. PROTARCHUS: Say it still more clearly. SOCRATES: We've observed beautiful and good boys, and along with them their courageous lovers. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now look for two other things resembling these two, running through everything we say exists. PROTARCHUS: Should I say it a third time? Speak more clearly, Socrates, about what you mean. SOCRATES: Nothing elaborate, Protarchus -- our argument is just teasing us. It's saying that of the things that exist, one is always for the sake of something, while the other -- that for whose sake the first is always coming to be -- is what it's always coming to be for the sake of. PROTARCHUS: I barely followed that, and only because you said it so many times.
SOCRATES: Perhaps, my boy, we'll understand better as the argument goes on. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Let's take up these two further things. PROTARCHUS: What things? SOCRATES: One, coming-to-be of all things; the other, being, as a separate thing. PROTARCHUS: I accept these two from you -- being and coming-to-be. SOCRATES: Quite right. Now which of these is for the sake of which? Shall we say coming-to-be is for the sake of being, or being for the sake of coming-to-be? PROTARCHUS: Are you now asking whether the thing called being is what it is for the sake of coming-to-be? SOCRATES: So it seems. PROTARCHUS: In the gods' name, are you asking me something like this: tell me, Protarchus, do you say shipbuilding happens for the sake of ships, or ships for the sake of shipbuilding, and all such cases? SOCRATES: That's exactly what I mean, Protarchus. PROTARCHUS: Then why didn't you answer yourself, Socrates? SOCRATES: No particular reason -- but you should share in the argument too. PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: Well, I say that drugs and all instruments and all materials are provided for the sake of coming-to-be in every case, and that each particular coming-to-be occurs for the sake of some particular being, and that coming-to-be as a whole occurs for the sake of being as a whole. PROTARCHUS: Perfectly clear. SOCRATES: So pleasure too, if indeed it's a coming-to-be, must necessarily come to be for the sake of some being. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And surely that for whose sake a thing that comes to be for something always comes to be belongs to the portion of the good; while what comes to be for the sake of something else must be placed, my friend, in a different portion. PROTARCHUS: Absolutely necessary. SOCRATES: So if pleasure really is a coming-to-be, won't we be right to place it in a portion other than the good? PROTARCHUS: Perfectly right. SOCRATES: So, just as I said at the start of this argument, we owe thanks to the one who pointed out that pleasure is a coming-to-be and has no being whatsoever -- for clearly he's laughing at those who claim pleasure is a good. PROTARCHUS: He certainly is. SOCRATES: And this same person will also laugh at all those who find their fulfillment in the various comings-to-be. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, and which people? SOCRATES: I mean those who, curing hunger or thirst or anything of that sort that coming-to-be cures, rejoice in the coming-to-be as though it were pleasure itself, and say they wouldn't choose to live without thirsting and hungering and experiencing all the other things that follow upon such states.
PROTARCHUS: They do seem to say that, at least. SOCRATES: And wouldn't we all say that the opposite of coming-to-be is perishing? PROTARCHUS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So anyone choosing this would be choosing perishing and coming-to-be, not that third life in which one neither rejoices nor suffers pain, but which allows for thinking in the purest way possible. PROTARCHUS: A great deal of absurdity results, it seems, Socrates, if one sets down pleasure as our good. SOCRATES: A great deal indeed -- since we can still put it this way too. PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: Isn't it absurd that nothing is good or beautiful in bodies, or in most other things, except in the soul, and there only pleasure -- while courage, moderation, understanding, and all the other goods the soul possesses count as nothing of the kind? And beyond this, that the person not rejoicing but in pain must be forced to admit he's bad whenever he's in pain, even if he's the best of all people -- while the one who rejoices, the more he rejoices, the more he's supposed to excel in virtue, just in that moment of rejoicing? PROTARCHUS: All this, Socrates, is as absurd as it could possibly be. SOCRATES: So let's not try to conduct every possible scrutiny of pleasure while appearing to spare understanding and knowledge entirely. Instead let's nobly knock on both of them all over, to see if either has anything unsound in it, so that once we've seen what is purest by nature in each, we can use that for the common judgment between them and the truest parts of pleasure. PROTARCHUS: Right. SOCRATES: Now I think one part of our knowledge is the craftsman's kind, concerned with the arts, and another part concerns education and nurture. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Let's first consider, in the case of the manual arts, whether one part of them holds more to knowledge and another less, and whether we should regard some as the purest and others as more impure. PROTARCHUS: Yes, we should. SOCRATES: Then we must distinguish the leading ones among them, each separately. PROTARCHUS: Which ones, and how? SOCRATES: For instance, if one were to separate arithmetic, measurement, and weighing out from all the other arts, what's left over from each would, so to speak, be trivial. PROTARCHUS: Trivial indeed.
SOCRATES: What's left, after that, would be guesswork—training the senses through experience and a certain practiced skill, drawing on the powers of estimation that many people call arts, powers whose strength has been built up through practice and effort. PROTARCHUS: That's exactly right. SOCRATES: Now music, to begin with, is full of this, isn't it—tuning its harmonies not by measurement but by a trained guess, and the whole art of flute-playing along with it, hunting for the right pitch of each string by estimation, so that it has a great deal of guesswork mixed in and only a small amount of certainty. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And we'll find medicine, farming, piloting, and generalship the same way. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: Carpentry, though, I think, by using a great many measures and instruments that give it a high degree of precision, comes out more exact than most of the sciences. PROTARCHUS: In what way? SOCRATES: In shipbuilding and housebuilding, and in many other kinds of woodworking—it uses the ruler, I think, and the lathe, the compass, the chalk-line, and a certain ingenious contraption for aligning things. PROTARCHUS: Quite right, Socrates. SOCRATES: Let's set the so-called arts, then, into two groups—those that go along with music, sharing a lesser degree of precision in their work, and those that go with carpentry, sharing more. PROTARCHUS: Let it stand so. SOCRATES: And of these, the most exact are the ones we mentioned first just now. PROTARCHUS: You seem to mean arithmetic, and the arts you named just now that go along with it. SOCRATES: Certainly. But Protarchus, shouldn't we say these too come in two kinds? Or how do you see it? PROTARCHUS: Which kinds do you mean? SOCRATES: Isn't there one arithmetic practiced by the many, and another practiced by philosophers—shouldn't we say that first? PROTARCHUS: How would one draw the line between one and the other kind of arithmetic? SOCRATES: It's no small distinction, Protarchus. Some people count unequal units when they reckon—two armies, say, or two oxen, or two of the smallest things there are, or two of the very greatest. Others would never go along with them unless one insists that not a single one of all those countless units differs in the least from any other. PROTARCHUS: You're quite right that there's no small difference among those who busy themselves with number—enough to justify calling them two distinct things.
SOCRATES: And what about this—calculation and measurement as practiced in carpentry and commerce, compared with the geometry and calculation practiced in philosophy—should we say each of these is one thing, or set them down as two? PROTARCHUS: Following what we said before, I'd cast my vote for calling each of them two. SOCRATES: Rightly so. Now do you see why we brought all this into the middle of the discussion? PROTARCHUS: Perhaps—but I'd rather you were the one to answer the question you're now asking. SOCRATES: Well, it seems to me that this argument, no less than when we first began to make it, has set up something to stand opposite the pleasures, by asking whether one branch of knowledge is purer than another, just as one pleasure is purer than another. PROTARCHUS: Yes, that's quite clear—that this is exactly what it's been aiming at. SOCRATES: So then—hadn't we already found, earlier on, that one art was clearer than another applied to different subjects, one more exact and another less so? PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And in these cases here, hasn't he used a single name for what is really two arts, creating the impression that it's one thing, and then asked all over again, as though there were two, which of the two—the philosophers' version or the non-philosophers'—has more clarity and purity in these matters? PROTARCHUS: Yes, that does seem to be what he's asking. SOCRATES: Then what answer shall we give him, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: Socrates, we've come to see a tremendous difference in the clarity of these branches of knowledge. SOCRATES: Won't we find it easier to answer, then? PROTARCHUS: Certainly—and let it be said that these two are far superior to the other arts, and that among these two, the ones connected with the drive of true philosophers surpass the rest immeasurably in precision and truth about measures and numbers. SOCRATES: Let that stand as you say, and trusting you, we can boldly answer those who are skilled at pulling arguments in every direction— PROTARCHUS: Answer them how? SOCRATES: That there are two arithmetics and two arts of measurement, and a good many other such pairs following along with them, sharing this same twin nature while being called by one common name. PROTARCHUS: Let's give this answer, and good luck to us, to those clever fellows you speak of, Socrates. SOCRATES: So we're saying these are the most exact of the sciences? PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: But Protarchus, the power of dialectic would refuse to have anything to do with us if we ranked any other science above it. PROTARCHUS: And what science must we call this one, then?
SOCRATES: Clearly, anyone would recognize the one just described. I think that everyone who has even a small share of intelligence believes that the knowledge concerned with what is, with what is truly and always constant in the same way, is by far the truest kind of knowledge. But what do you think? How would you settle this, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: I've heard it said again and again, Socrates, by Gorgias, that the art of persuasion far surpasses all other arts—for it makes everything its slave through willing consent rather than through force, and is by far the best of all the arts. But I wouldn't want to set myself against you or against him right now. SOCRATES: It seems to me you wanted to name your weapon, but felt ashamed and left it behind. PROTARCHUS: Let it be however you think it is. SOCRATES: Am I to blame, then, for your not understanding correctly? PROTARCHUS: For what? SOCRATES: My dear Protarchus, I wasn't asking, at least not yet, which art or science surpasses all the rest by being the greatest and best and most useful to us, but rather which one looks toward clarity, exactness, and the truest truth, however small its scope and however little benefit it provides—that's what we're looking for now. And see here—you won't offend Gorgias by granting that his art has the advantage of practical mastery over people, while granting to the pursuit I'm describing—just as I said before about the color white—that even if it's a small thing, so long as it's pure, it surpasses whatever is large in quantity but impure, precisely in being the truest thing of its kind. So now, having thought this through carefully and reasoned it out well enough, without looking to any usefulness or reputation the sciences might have, but asking whether there is some power native to our soul that loves the truth and does everything for its sake—let's say, once we've thoroughly investigated it, whether this power has acquired, as far as we can judge, the purest possible share of intellect and understanding, or whether we must look for some other power more sovereign than this one. PROTARCHUS: I'm considering it, and I think it would be hard to grant that any other science or art holds more firmly to truth than this one.
SOCRATES: Now did you have something like this in mind when you said what you just said—that most of the arts, and those who've labored hard at them, work first of all with opinions, and pursue matters of opinion with great intensity? And if someone thinks he's investigating the natural world, you know that he spends his whole life investigating this world around us—how it came to be, how it's affected, and how it acts. Shall we say that, or how? PROTARCHUS: That's how it is. SOCRATES: So such a person has devoted his labor not to what always is, but to what comes to be, will come to be, and has come to be? PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: Could we then say that anything about these things becomes clear with the most exact truth, when none of them has ever remained, or will remain, or now remains, in the same state? PROTARCHUS: How could it? SOCRATES: How, then, could anything ever become certain for us regarding things that possess no stability whatsoever? PROTARCHUS: I don't think it could, in any way. SOCRATES: Then neither intellect nor any science concerning these things possesses the truest truth. PROTARCHUS: It doesn't seem likely. SOCRATES: So we must set aside entirely—you, me, Gorgias, and Philebus—and affirm the following through our argument. PROTARCHUS: What is that? SOCRATES: That certainty, purity, truth, and what we call unmixed reality belong either to those things that are forever constant in the very same way, utterly unmixed, or, second to those, to whatever is most akin to them; and everything else must be called secondary and inferior. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: And isn't it most just to assign the finest of names to the finest of these things? PROTARCHUS: That seems likely. SOCRATES: Aren't intellect and understanding the names one would honor most of all? PROTARCHUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So these names find their most precise and proper use in application to thoughts concerning what truly is. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And indeed, the very things I brought forward earlier for our judgment are nothing other than these same names. PROTARCHUS: Of course, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then. If someone were to say that, regarding understanding and pleasure and their mixture with each other, we're like craftsmen who need the materials out of which, or in which, to build something, he would be making a fine comparison. PROTARCHUS: A very fine one. SOCRATES: So after this, shouldn't we attempt the mixing itself? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And wouldn't it help to remind ourselves of a few points first? PROTARCHUS: Which points?
SOCRATES: The ones we mentioned before. The proverb seems right that what's worth saying well is worth repeating twice, even three times. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: Come then, by Zeus—I think this is more or less how what was said before went. PROTARCHUS: How? SOCRATES: Philebus claims that pleasure is the correct target for all living things, and that all of them ought to aim at it, and further that this very thing is the good for everyone, and that the two names 'good' and 'pleasant' rightly apply to one single thing with one single nature. Socrates, on the other hand, says this isn't one thing but two, just as the names are two, and that the good and the pleasant have natures different from each other, and further that understanding has a greater share in the good than pleasure does. Isn't that what was said then, and what is being said now, Protarchus? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And wouldn't we also agree, both then and now, on this point? PROTARCHUS: Which point? SOCRATES: That the nature of the good differs from everything else in this way. PROTARCHUS: In what way? SOCRATES: That whatever living thing possesses it, always, completely, and in every respect, has no further need of anything else, but has everything sufficient and complete. Isn't that so? PROTARCHUS: Yes, it is. SOCRATES: And didn't we try, in our argument, to set each of the two apart from the other, testing them separately in the life of each creature—pleasure unmixed with understanding, and understanding, likewise, having not the slightest trace of pleasure? PROTARCHUS: We did. SOCRATES: And did either of the two seem sufficient to us at that time? PROTARCHUS: How could it have? SOCRATES: And if we went astray at all back then, let anyone now take up the matter and correct it, treating memory, understanding, knowledge, and true opinion as belonging to one and the same class, and considering whether anyone would choose to have or acquire anything at all without these—let alone pleasure, however great or however intense, if he neither truly believed he was enjoying it, nor knew at all what he was experiencing, nor retained any memory of the experience for any length of time whatsoever. Let him say the same about understanding too—whether anyone would choose to have understanding entirely without pleasure, even the smallest amount, rather than combined with some pleasures, or would choose all pleasures apart from understanding rather than combined with some understanding. PROTARCHUS: That's not possible, Socrates—but there's no need to keep asking this over and over.
SOCRATES: So neither of these two could be the perfect thing, the thing choiceworthy for everyone, the wholly good? PROTARCHUS: How could it be? SOCRATES: Then we need to grasp the good clearly, or at least get some outline of it, so that, as we said, we'll know to whom to award second prize. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: Well, haven't we found a certain path toward the good? PROTARCHUS: Which one? SOCRATES: The way that if someone were looking for a particular man, and first found out correctly where he lives, that would go a long way toward finding the man he's after. PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And just now some argument showed us, as it did at the start, that we shouldn't look for the good in the unmixed life but in the mixed one. PROTARCHUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And there's more hope that what we're after will show up more clearly in a well-mixed blend than in one that isn't? PROTARCHUS: Much more. SOCRATES: Then, Protarchus, let's pray to the gods and start mixing — whether it's Dionysus or Hephaestus or whichever god has been given the honor of this blending. PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: And indeed we have, standing by us like a pair of wine-pourers, two springs — you might compare pleasure's spring to honey, and understanding's to some sober, wineless, healthy water — and we must do our best to mix them together as well as we can. PROTARCHUS: How could we not? SOCRATES: Well then, first: if we mixed every kind of pleasure with every kind of understanding, would we hit the mark best that way? PROTARCHUS: Maybe. SOCRATES: But that's not safe. I think I can show a way to mix that's less risky. PROTARCHUS: Tell me what it is. SOCRATES: We agreed, didn't we, that one pleasure is truly more true than another, and likewise one skill more exact than another? PROTARCHUS: Of course. SOCRATES: And knowledge differs from knowledge too — one kind looks at things that come to be and perish, the other at things that neither come to be nor perish but remain the same, in the same way, forever. Judging by the standard of truth, we decided the second was truer than the first. PROTARCHUS: Quite rightly. SOCRATES: So if we first mixed together the truest portions of each — would that blend be enough, all by itself, to produce the most desirable life for us, or do we still need something more, even some things that aren't like that?
PROTARCHUS: I think that's what we should do, at any rate. SOCRATES: Then let's suppose we have a man who understands justice itself, what it is, and can give an account that follows his understanding, and who thinks the same way about everything else that is. PROTARCHUS: Let's suppose so. SOCRATES: Will this man have adequate knowledge, if he has an account of the circle and the sphere themselves, the divine ones, but is ignorant of this human sphere and these human circles here, and uses the same rulers and circles when he builds a house and does everything else? PROTARCHUS: What we're describing, Socrates, is a ridiculous state to be in, if we're confined only to the divine sciences. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Must we throw in and blend together, with the rest, even the unreliable, impure craft that uses the false ruler and the false circle? PROTARCHUS: We have to, if any of us is ever going to find his way home. SOCRATES: And what about music, which we said a little while ago is full of guesswork and imitation and lacks purity? PROTARCHUS: It seems necessary to me, if our life is going to be a life at all, in any sense. SOCRATES: Do you want me, then, like a doorkeeper shoved and jostled by a crowd, to give in, throw the doors wide open, and let all the sciences pour in and mix together, the less pure right along with the pure? PROTARCHUS: I certainly can't see, Socrates, how anyone would be harmed by having all the other sciences as well, so long as he keeps the first ones. SOCRATES: Shall I, then, let them all flow together into the reservoir of Homer's — and indeed poetry's — 'meeting of the waters'? PROTARCHUS: By all means. SOCRATES: They're let in. Now we need to go back again to the spring of the pleasures. Because our plan to mix in only the true pleasures first — that didn't work out for us; instead, out of our fondness for every kind of knowledge, we let them all flood in together before we ever got to the pleasures. PROTARCHUS: That's exactly true. SOCRATES: So now it's time for us to deliberate about the pleasures too — whether we should let all of these in as a mass as well, or whether here too we should let in the true ones first. PROTARCHUS: It makes a great difference for safety's sake to let the true ones in first. SOCRATES: Let them in, then. What comes next? If some pleasures are necessary, as was true there, mustn't we mix those in too? PROTARCHUS: Of course — the necessary ones, surely.
SOCRATES: And if, just as it was harmless and beneficial to know all the crafts throughout one's life, the same holds now for the pleasures — if it's actually good for us and harmless to everyone to feel every pleasure throughout life, then we should blend them all in. PROTARCHUS: So how should we talk about this, and what should we do? SOCRATES: It's not us we should be questioning, Protarchus, but the pleasures themselves, and the kinds of understanding, asking them something like this about each other. PROTARCHUS: What sort of thing? SOCRATES: 'Dear friends — whether we should call you pleasures, or by whatever other name — wouldn't you rather live together with understanding of every kind, or apart from thought altogether?' I think they'd be bound to answer this. PROTARCHUS: What? SOCRATES: What we said before — that for any single kind to exist alone, in isolation and pure, is neither really possible nor beneficial. And of all the kinds, we hold that the best thing to have living alongside us is the capacity to know everything else, and in turn to know itself completely, as far as that's possible for each of us. PROTARCHUS: We'll say they've answered well just now. SOCRATES: Rightly so. Next, then, we must in turn question understanding and mind: 'Do you need any pleasures at all in the mixture?' We'd be asking mind and understanding this in turn. 'What kind of pleasures?' they might well ask. PROTARCHUS: Likely enough. SOCRATES: And here's how our argument goes next. 'Besides those true pleasures we mentioned' — we'll say — 'do you still need the greatest and most intense pleasures to live with you?' 'How could we, Socrates,' they might well say, 'when those pleasures throw countless obstacles in our way, throwing the souls we live in into turmoil with their mad excess, and won't even let us come into being in the first place, and as a rule, through the carelessness they breed and the forgetfulness that follows, they utterly destroy whatever offspring of ours do come to be?'
SOCRATES: But the pleasures you called true and pure — take those as belonging to us, more or less, and along with them the pleasures that come with health and self-control, and indeed with the whole of virtue, all the pleasures that follow virtue everywhere as its attendants, the way attendants follow a god — mix those in. But as for the pleasures that are forever tagging along with folly and the rest of vice, it would be sheer irrationality to mix those in with mind — for anyone who wants to see the finest, least conflicted blend and mixture, and to try to learn from it what the good really is, by nature, in a human being and in the universe, and what form we should divine it to have. Won't we say that mind has answered wisely and consistently with itself, on behalf of itself, and of memory, and of correct opinion, in what it's just said? PROTARCHUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: But then there's this too, which is necessary, and without which nothing could ever come to be, not even one thing. PROTARCHUS: What's that? SOCRATES: Whatever we don't mix truth into could never truly come to be, and even if it did come to be, it couldn't continue to be. PROTARCHUS: How could it? SOCRATES: No way at all. But if this mixture still needs anything more, you and Philebus should say so. As for me, the argument now looks to me like it's produced something like an incorporeal order that will rule beautifully over an ensouled body. PROTARCHUS: Then count me as agreeing that's how it is too, Socrates. SOCRATES: So perhaps we'd be right, in a sense, to say that we're now standing at the very threshold of the good, at the door of its dwelling. PROTARCHUS: I think so, at any rate. SOCRATES: Well then, what element in this mixture would strike us as the most valuable, and at the same time most responsible for making such a disposition dear to everyone? Once we've seen this, we'll go on to examine whether it's more closely allied and akin to pleasure, or to mind, in the nature of things as a whole. PROTARCHUS: Right — that's the most useful thing for us in reaching our judgment. SOCRATES: And indeed, it isn't hard to see the reason why any mixture whatever turns out to be worth everything, or worth nothing at all. PROTARCHUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: No human being is ignorant of this. PROTARCHUS: Of what? SOCRATES: That any mixture whatsoever, made in any way at all, that misses measure and the nature of due proportion, necessarily destroys its ingredients, and itself first of all. Such a thing isn't really a blend at all, but a sort of unblended jumble, and it turns out, every time, to be a genuine disaster for whoever possesses it. PROTARCHUS: Perfectly true. SOCRATES: So now the power of the good has taken refuge for us in the nature of the beautiful — for measure and proportion, surely, everywhere turn out to be beauty and virtue. PROTARCHUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And we also said that truth is mixed in with them, in the blend. PROTARCHUS: Yes indeed.
SOCRATES: So then, if we can't capture the good under one single form, let's take hold of it with three — beauty, proportion, and truth — and say that we'd be most right to treat these, as if they were one thing, as responsible for what's in the mixture, and that it's because of these, as being good, that the mixture has turned out as it has. PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: At this point, then, Protarchus, anyone at all could serve as an adequate judge between pleasure and understanding, as to which of the two is more akin to the best thing and more valuable, among gods and among men. PROTARCHUS: That's clear, but still, it's better to work it through with the argument. SOCRATES: Then let's judge each of the three, one by one, in relation to pleasure and to mind — we need to see which of the two we should assign each of them to as more closely related. PROTARCHUS: You mean beauty, truth, and proportion? SOCRATES: Yes. Take truth first, Protarchus — and having taken hold of it, look at the three, mind, truth, and pleasure, and after taking your time, answer yourself: is pleasure more akin to truth, or is mind? PROTARCHUS: What do we need time for? I think the two are worlds apart. Pleasure is the biggest fraud of them all — and, as the story goes, in the pleasures of sex, which are held to be the greatest, even perjury gets forgiveness from the gods, as if pleasures were children possessing not the least bit of sense. But mind is either the same thing as truth, or of all things the most like it and the truest. SOCRATES: Then next, consider proportion the same way: does pleasure possess more of it, or does understanding possess more than pleasure? PROTARCHUS: That's an easy question too, the one you've set before us. I think you'd never find anything by nature more lacking in proportion than pleasure and its excess of delight, and nothing more full of proportion than mind and knowledge. SOCRATES: Well said. But go on and give me the third one too. Has mind gotten a greater share of beauty than the class of pleasure has, so that mind is more beautiful than pleasure, or is it the other way around? PROTARCHUS: Well, Socrates, no one has ever seen or imagined understanding and mind as shameful, whether waking or dreaming, at any time, in any way — whether in the past, the present, or the future. SOCRATES: Rightly said.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, and pleasures too — even, one might say, the greatest of them — when we see someone in the grip of pleasure and notice either the ridiculousness that follows or the utter shamefulness of it, we ourselves feel embarrassed, and we do our best to hide it out of sight, handing all such things over to night, as though daylight had no business seeing them. SOCRATES: Then you will proclaim it everywhere, Protarchus, sending messengers to the absent and telling it to those present, that pleasure is not the first thing worth possessing, nor even the second, but that the first prize — the eternal one — has been won by whatever belongs to measure, the moderate, the timely, and everything else of that sort. PROTARCHUS: So it appears, at least from what has just been said. SOCRATES: The second prize, then, goes to the proportionate, the beautiful, the complete, the sufficient, and everything else of that family. PROTARCHUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And the third, as my own divination tells me, if you set down intelligence and wisdom there, you would not stray far from the truth. PROTARCHUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: And then, in fourth place — those things we assigned to the soul itself, the branches of knowledge, the arts, and what we called correct opinions — shouldn't these come fourth, right after the first three, since they are more akin to the good than to pleasure? PROTARCHUS: Perhaps so. SOCRATES: And fifth, then, the pleasures we set apart, defining them as painless, calling them the pure pleasures of the soul itself, those that follow upon knowledge, as opposed to those that follow upon the senses? PROTARCHUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: 'But in the sixth generation,' says Orpheus, 'let the order of the song cease' — and it looks as though our own argument, too, has come to a halt at the sixth judgment. Nothing remains for us after this except to set, so to speak, a head upon what has been said. PROTARCHUS: Yes, we ought to do that. SOCRATES: Come then — let us call once more, for the third time, on the same god as our savior, and go back over the argument. PROTARCHUS: Which argument do you mean? SOCRATES: Philebus maintained that the good, for us, was pleasure — all pleasure, entire and complete. PROTARCHUS: It seems, Socrates, you were just now saying we ought to take up the argument again from the beginning — that was your 'third time.' SOCRATES: Yes — but let's hear what comes after that. For once I had seen through the things I have just gone over, and grown weary of Philebus's claim — not only his, but that of countless others as well — I said that intelligence was by far the better and superior thing for human life, compared with pleasure. PROTARCHUS: That is what you said. SOCRATES: But suspecting, too, that there were many other things in play, I said that if something should appear better than both of these, then I would fight alongside intelligence for second place against pleasure, and pleasure would be deprived even of second place.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, that is what you said. SOCRATES: And after that it became utterly clear that neither of the two was sufficient by itself. PROTARCHUS: Very true. SOCRATES: So in this argument, weren't both intelligence and pleasure entirely ruled out from being the good itself, or even a substitute for it, seeing that they were deprived of self-sufficiency and of the power that belongs to what is adequate and complete? PROTARCHUS: Quite right. SOCRATES: And once a third thing appeared, better than either of these two, intelligence has now shown itself to be, by an enormous margin, closer akin to the character of the victor than pleasure is. PROTARCHUS: How could it not be? SOCRATES: So then, by the ranking our argument has just now revealed, the power of pleasure would come in fifth. PROTARCHUS: So it seems. SOCRATES: But first place it certainly will not hold, not even if all the cattle and horses and every other kind of beast should insist on it by their pursuit of enjoyment — trusting them, as though they were birds and we the prophets reading their flight, the many judge that pleasures are the strongest things for living well, and think that the cravings of beasts are more authoritative witnesses than the arguments divined, again and again, in the company of the philosophic Muse. PROTARCHUS: We all say now, Socrates, that what you have just said is entirely true. SOCRATES: Then will you let me go? PROTARCHUS: There is still a small bit left, Socrates — for surely you will not give up before we do; I will remind you of what remains.
HERMOGENES: Shall we bring the question to Socrates here? CRATYLUS: If you like. HERMOGENES: Socrates, Cratylus here says that there is a correctness of names belonging to each thing by nature, and that a name is not whatever people agree to call a thing, uttering some fragment of their own speech, but that there is a certain correctness in names, the same for Greeks and for foreigners alike. So I asked him whether "Cratylus" is truly his name, and he agreed that it is. And what about Socrates, I said. "Socrates," he said. Then isn't this also the name that belongs to every other person, whatever we call each of them? But he said, no, not "Hermogenes" for you, not even if everyone in the world called you that.
HERMOGENES: And when I question him and press him to say what in the world he means, he explains nothing, and he's being ironic with me, pretending to have some private thought of his own about the matter, as if he knew, which, if he cared to state it plainly, would make even me agree and say the same things he says. So if you can somehow make sense of Cratylus's oracle, I'd be glad to hear it, or rather, I'd be even happier to learn from you yourself what you think about the correctness of names, if you're willing. SOCRATES: Hermogenes, son of Hipponicus, there's an old saying that fine things are hard to learn, and the study of names turns out to be no small thing. Now if I had already heard Prodicus's fifty-drachma lecture, which he says gives its hearer a complete education on the subject, nothing would stop you from knowing the truth about the correctness of names right away. But as it is I haven't heard that one, only the one-drachma version. So I don't know how the truth stands on such matters, but I'm ready to look into it together with you and Cratylus. As for his denying that "Hermogenes" is truly your name, I suspect he's teasing you, since he probably thinks you're always failing to acquire the wealth you're after. But, as I was just saying, such things are hard to know, and we should pool our resources and examine whether the matter stands as you say or as Cratylus says.
SOCRATES: Perhaps you're saying something, Hermogenes. Let's look into it. Whatever anyone calls a thing, is that its name? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Whether a private person calls it that, or a whole city? HERMOGENES: I say yes. SOCRATES: Well then, if I call some existing thing something, say what we now call "man," if I address that as "horse," and what we now call "horse" as "man," will the same thing publicly be named "man" but privately "horse"? And privately "man" but publicly "horse"? Is that what you're saying? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Now tell me this: do you speak of things being said truly and falsely? HERMOGENES: I do. SOCRATES: So there would be a true statement and a false one? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the one that says what is, as it is, is true, while the one that says it as it is not, is false? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So it's possible in speech to say both what is and what is not? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: A true statement, then, is it true as a whole while its parts are not true? HERMOGENES: No, the parts too. SOCRATES: Are the large parts true and the small ones not, or all of them? HERMOGENES: All, I think. SOCRATES: Is there any part of a statement smaller than a name? HERMOGENES: No, that's the smallest. SOCRATES: So this too, a name, is said to belong to the true statement? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: True, as you say. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the part of the false statement isn't false? HERMOGENES: It is, I say. SOCRATES: So it's possible for a name to be spoken falsely and truly, if a statement can be? HERMOGENES: How could it not? SOCRATES: So whatever each person says is the name of a thing, that is its name for that person? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And however many names each person says a thing has, will it have that many, whenever he says so? HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, because I don't have any other correctness for a name than this, that it's one thing for me to call each thing whatever name I've assigned it, and another thing for you, whatever you in turn assign. And this is how I see it with cities too, each having its own names privately set on the same things, and Greeks differing from other Greeks, and Greeks differing from foreigners.
SOCRATES: Well then, let's see, Hermogenes, whether things themselves seem to you to stand this way too, that their being is private to each person, as Protagoras used to say, claiming that man is the measure of all things, meaning that whatever things appear to me to be, such they are for me, and whatever they appear to you to be, such they are for you. Or does it seem to you that they have some fixed stability of their own being? HERMOGENES: There was a time, Socrates, when I was at a loss and was carried along to what Protagoras says, but it doesn't altogether seem right to me. SOCRATES: What then? Have you been carried so far as to think there's no such thing as a wicked man? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, but I've often had the experience of thinking some men quite wicked, and a good many of them. SOCRATES: What then, have quite good men never seemed to you to exist? HERMOGENES: Very few. SOCRATES: But some have seemed so? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: How do you classify this, then? Would it be that the quite good are quite wise, and the quite wicked quite foolish? HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: Is it possible, then, if Protagoras spoke truly and this is the truth, that whatever seems to each person to be so, is so, that some of us are wise and others foolish? HERMOGENES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: And this, I imagine, seems quite right to you: since wisdom and foolishness exist, it's not really possible for Protagoras to be speaking the truth. For surely neither of two people would in truth be wiser than the other, if whatever seems true to each person is going to be true. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: But surely you don't think, following Euthydemus either, that all things are alike for everyone at once and always; for then there wouldn't be good people and wicked ones in this way, if virtue and vice were alike for everyone always. HERMOGENES: What you say is true. SOCRATES: So if things aren't alike for everyone at once and always, nor is each existing thing private to each person, then it's clear that things themselves have some fixed being of their own, not in relation to us, nor dragged up and down by our imagining, but existing by themselves in relation to their own being, in whatever way they naturally are. HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Would things themselves, then, be so by nature, while actions concerning them are not the same way? Or aren't actions too one class of existing things? HERMOGENES: Certainly, they are too.
SOCRATES: Then actions too are performed according to their own nature, not according to our opinion. For instance, if we undertake to cut something, should we cut it however we wish, and with whatever we wish, or if we wish to cut each thing according to nature, according to what cutting and being cut naturally are, and with what is natural for it, will we cut successfully and accomplish something and do it correctly, whereas if we go against nature we'll fail and accomplish nothing? HERMOGENES: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: And if we undertake to burn something, shouldn't we burn it not according to every opinion, but according to the right one? And this is the way in which each thing naturally is burned and burns, and with what is natural for it. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same with everything else? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then isn't speaking too one of the actions? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So will a person speak correctly by speaking however it seems to him things should be spoken, or will he, if he speaks in the way things naturally are to be said and to say, and with what they're naturally said with, accomplish something and actually say something, whereas otherwise he'll fail and accomplish nothing? HERMOGENES: It seems to me to be as you say. SOCRATES: So isn't naming a part of speaking? For people speak statements, I take it, by naming things within them. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So isn't naming also a kind of action, if speaking was indeed a kind of action concerning things? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And actions turned out for us to not be relative to us, but to have some nature of their own? HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: So we must name things in the way it's natural for things to be named and to name, and with what's natural for it, not however we might wish, if anything we said before is to be consistent, and in that way we'll accomplish something and be naming, but not otherwise? HERMOGENES: It appears so to me. SOCRATES: Come then, what needed cutting, we say, needed to be cut with something? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what needed weaving needed to be woven with something, and what needed boring needed to be bored with something? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what needed naming needed to be named with something?
HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: What was that thing one needed to bore with? HERMOGENES: An auger. SOCRATES: And to weave with? HERMOGENES: A shuttle. SOCRATES: And to name with? HERMOGENES: A name. SOCRATES: Well said. So a name too is a kind of instrument. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Now if I asked, what sort of instrument is a shuttle? Isn't it the thing we weave with? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And when we weave, what do we do? Don't we separate out the warp and weft threads that were tangled together? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And could you say the same sort of thing about an auger, and about the others? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Can you say the same sort of thing about a name too? When we name with a name, which is an instrument, what do we do? HERMOGENES: I can't say. SOCRATES: Don't we teach one another something, and separate out things according to how they really are? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: A name, then, is a kind of instrument for teaching, and for separating out being, just as a shuttle is for separating out a woven fabric. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And a shuttle is an instrument for weaving? HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: So a weaver will use a shuttle well, and using it well means using it as a weaver would. And a teacher will use a name well, and using it well means using it as a teacher would. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Whose work, then, will the weaver be using well when he uses the shuttle? HERMOGENES: The carpenter's. SOCRATES: Is every man a carpenter, or the one who has the craft? HERMOGENES: The one who has the craft. SOCRATES: And whose work will the borer be using well when he uses the auger? HERMOGENES: The smith's. SOCRATES: Is every man a smith, or the one who has the craft? HERMOGENES: The one who has the craft. SOCRATES: Very well. And whose work will the teacher be using when he uses a name? HERMOGENES: That too I can't say. SOCRATES: Can't you say this either, who hands down to us the names we use? HERMOGENES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Doesn't it seem to you that it's the law that hands them down? HERMOGENES: It seems so. SOCRATES: So the teacher will be using the work of a lawgiver when he uses a name? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Does it seem to you that every man is a lawgiver, or only the one who has the craft?
SOCRATES: So it isn't every man, Hermogenes, who can assign a name, but only a certain craftsman of names. And this, it seems, is the lawgiver, who is the rarest of craftsmen among men. HERMOGENES: So it seems. SOCRATES: Come then, consider what the lawgiver looks to when he assigns names. Go back to what we said before. What does the carpenter look to when he makes a shuttle? Isn't it something naturally suited for the work of weaving? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And if his shuttle breaks while he's making one, will he make another by looking at the broken one, or at that same form which he was looking at when he made the one that broke? HERMOGENES: At that form, I should think. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't we most rightly call that very thing 'what a shuttle is'? HERMOGENES: I should think so. SOCRATES: So whenever he needs to make a shuttle for a fine cloak or a coarse one, for linen or wool or whatever, all of them must have the form of shuttle, but each must be given whatever shape is naturally best suited to its particular job. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the same holds for every other tool. Once you've discovered the tool naturally suited to each task, you must render it in whatever material you're working with — not however you yourself happen to want, but however it's naturally suited to be. It seems the craftsman must know how to put the naturally suited form of drill into the iron. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the naturally suited form of shuttle into the wood. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Because, it seems, each kind of fabric naturally calls for its own kind of shuttle, and so with everything else. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then, my good man, mustn't the lawgiver also know how to put into sounds and syllables the name naturally suited to each thing — must he not make and assign all names looking to what a name itself is, if he's going to be an authoritative namer? And if different lawgivers don't put it into the same syllables, that needn't trouble us — no more than every blacksmith puts the same form into the same iron, though he's making the same tool for the same purpose. As long as he renders the same form, the tool is correct whether it's made of different iron, and whether it's made here or among foreigners. Isn't that so?
HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So won't you likewise judge that the lawgiver here and the lawgiver among foreigners, as long as he renders the form of name appropriate to each thing in whatever syllables, is no worse a lawgiver than one anywhere else? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then who is to know whether the appropriate form of shuttle lies in a given piece of wood — the one who made it, the carpenter, or the one who will use it, the weaver? HERMOGENES: More likely the one who will use it, Socrates. SOCRATES: And who is it that will use the lyre-maker's work? Isn't it the one who would know best how to oversee its making, and who would know, once it's made, whether it's well made or not? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Who is that? HERMOGENES: The lyre-player. SOCRATES: And who oversees the shipwright's work? HERMOGENES: The pilot. SOCRATES: And who would oversee the lawgiver's work best, and judge it once done, both here and among foreigners? Isn't it the one who will use it? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't this the one who knows how to ask questions? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the same one knows how to answer them too? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the one who knows how to ask and answer — do you call him anything but a dialectician? HERMOGENES: No, that's just what I call him. SOCRATES: So it's the carpenter's job to make a rudder, under the pilot's oversight, if the rudder is to be a good one. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And it's the lawgiver's job, it seems, to make a name under the oversight of a dialectician, if names are to be well assigned. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: So it's likely, Hermogenes, that assigning names is no trivial matter, as you think, nor a task for trivial men or just anyone. And Cratylus speaks the truth when he says names belong to things by nature, and that not everyone is a craftsman of names, but only the one who keeps his eye on the name that belongs to each thing by nature and who can render its form in letters and syllables.
HERMOGENES: I don't see how to oppose what you're saying, Socrates. Still, it isn't easy to be persuaded so suddenly. I think I'd be won over more readily if you showed me what this natural correctness of names actually is that you're talking about. SOCRATES: My dear Hermogenes, I'm not talking about any correctness at all — you've forgotten what I said just a little earlier, that I didn't know, but would look into it together with you. But now, as we've been examining it, you and I, this much already appears clearer than before: that a name has some natural correctness, and that not just anyone knows how to assign it well to any given thing. Isn't that so? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the next thing to look for, if you really want to know, is what exactly this correctness is. HERMOGENES: Well, I certainly do want to know. SOCRATES: Then consider it. HERMOGENES: How should I go about it? SOCRATES: The most correct way to inquire, my friend, is together with those who know — paying them fees and showing them gratitude. These are the sophists, the very men your brother Callias paid a great deal of money to and is thought wise for it. But since you're not master of your father's estate, you should press your brother and beg him to teach you the correctness he learned from Protagoras on such matters. HERMOGENES: It would be strange of me to make that request, Socrates, when I reject Protagoras's Truth altogether, yet welcome what was said on the basis of such a truth as if it were worth something. SOCRATES: Well, if that doesn't suit you either, you should learn from Homer and the other poets. HERMOGENES: And what does Homer say about names, Socrates, and where? SOCRATES: In many places. But the grandest and finest are where he distinguishes, for the same things, the names men use from the names the gods use. Or don't you think he says something great and remarkable there about the correctness of names? For clearly the gods call things by their correct names, the ones that belong to them by nature — or don't you think so? HERMOGENES: I'm quite sure that if they do call them anything, they call them correctly. But what examples do you mean? SOCRATES: Don't you know that concerning the river in Troy that fought single-handed with Hephaestus, he says the gods call it Xanthus, but men call it Scamander? HERMOGENES: I do.
SOCRATES: Well then? Don't you think it's a solemn thing to know why it's actually correct to call that river Xanthus rather than Scamander? Or if you like, take the bird he says—the gods call it chalkis, but men call it kymindis—do you think it's a trivial lesson to learn how much more correct it is for that same bird to be called chalkis than kymindis? Or Batieia and Myrine, and many other such examples from this poet and from others? But perhaps those are too big a task for you and me to work out. The names Scamandrius and Astyanax, though, are easier and more human to examine, I think — the names he says belong to Hector's son — what correctness he means by them. You know the verses I mean, of course. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then which do you think Homer considered the more correct name for the boy — Astyanax or Scamandrius? HERMOGENES: I can't say. SOCRATES: Consider it this way. If someone asked you whether you think the wiser people or the more foolish give more correct names, what would you say? HERMOGENES: Clearly the wiser, I'd say. SOCRATES: And in cities, do you think women as a class are wiser than men? HERMOGENES: The men. SOCRATES: Then you know that Homer says Hector's child was called Astyanax by the Trojans, while Scamandrius was clearly the name used by the women, since the men called him Astyanax? HERMOGENES: So it seems. SOCRATES: And didn't Homer also consider the Trojans wiser than their women? HERMOGENES: I think he did. SOCRATES: So he thought Astyanax the more correct name for the boy than Scamandrius? HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Let's consider why. Doesn't he himself give us the best guide to the reason? For he says: 'For he alone defended their city and its long walls.' For this reason, it seems, it's correct to call the son of the protector Astyanax — 'lord of the city' — since it was that very city his father was protecting, as Homer says. HERMOGENES: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: But why exactly? I don't yet understand it myself, Hermogenes — do you? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't either.
SOCRATES: But tell me, my good man — did Homer himself assign the name to Hector too? HERMOGENES: Why do you ask? SOCRATES: Because it seems to me that this name too is something like Astyanax, and both names look Greek. For anax, 'lord,' and Hector are pretty much the same in meaning — both are royal names. For whatever a man is lord (anax) of, he is surely also hector (Hector) of — clearly he holds it, possesses it, and has it. Or do you think I'm talking nonsense, and merely imagine I've caught hold of some trace of Homer's view on the correctness of names? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't think it's nonsense — I think you really have caught hold of something. SOCRATES: It's only right, it seems to me, to call the offspring of a lion a lion, and the offspring of a horse a horse. I don't mean if some freak is born from a horse unlike a horse — I mean whatever is naturally the offspring of that kind. If a horse should, contrary to nature, bear the offspring of an ox, we shouldn't call it a foal but a calf. And if what's born isn't the natural offspring of a human being, I don't think it should be called human, but whatever it actually is. The same goes for trees and everything else. Or don't you agree? HERMOGENES: I agree. SOCRATES: Good — watch me, in case I somehow trick you along the way. By the same reasoning, if some offspring comes from a king, it should be called king. It makes no difference if the same meaning is expressed in different syllables — nor does it matter if a letter is added or taken away, so long as the being of the thing signified by the name still holds firm. HERMOGENES: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: Nothing complicated. You know that we speak the names of the letters, not the letters themselves — except for four: E, U, O, and O-long. For the rest, both vowels and consonants, we speak them by adding other letters around them, making them into names. But as long as we build in the power that belongs to the letter, it's correct to call it by the name that will make it clear to us. Take beta, for instance: you see that adding eta, tau, and alpha caused no harm — it didn't prevent the whole name from making clear the nature of that letter, in the way the lawgiver intended. So skillfully was it arranged, to assign names to the letters. HERMOGENES: I think you're right.
SOCRATES: And doesn't the same reasoning apply to a king? A king will in time be born of a king, a good man of a good man, a beautiful one of a beautiful one, and so on for everything else—each kind producing another offspring of the same sort, unless some monstrosity occurs. So the same names must be applied. But it's possible to vary them with different syllables, so that someone unfamiliar with the matter might think things that are really the same are different from one another—just as, to us, doctors' medicines look different when they're dressed up with colors and smells, though they're really the same, while to the doctor, who examines the medicines' actual power, they look the same, and he isn't thrown off by what's added to them. In the same way, I suppose, someone who understands names looks at their power, and isn't thrown off if some letter is added, or moved, or taken away, or even if the name's power resides in entirely different letters. Take what we were just saying: Astyanax and Hector share no letters except the tau, and yet they mean the same thing. And Archepolis—what does it share, letterwise? Yet it signifies the very same thing. And there are many other names that signify nothing but 'king'; and others again that mean 'general,' like Agis and Polemarchus and Eupolemus. And others that belong to medicine, Iatrocles and Acesimbrotus; and we could probably find plenty more that disagree in syllables and letters but say the same thing in their power. Does it appear so, or not? HERMOGENES: It certainly does. SOCRATES: So to things born according to nature, the same names must be assigned. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But what about things contrary to nature, that turn out as a kind of monstrosity? For instance, when an impious man is born from a good and god-fearing man—isn't it just as in the earlier cases, where if a horse produces the offspring of an ox, it shouldn't, I take it, get the name of its begetter, but of the kind it belongs to? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And so to the impious man born of the pious one, the name of his own kind must be given. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Not Theophilus, it seems, nor Mnesitheus, nor anything of that sort—but a name meaning the opposite of these, provided the names hit their proper correctness. HERMOGENES: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: Just as Orestes too, Hermogenes, seems likely to have the right name—whether it was chance that gave it to him or some poet—pointing, by that name, to the beastly and wild and mountain-like side of his nature.
HERMOGENES: So it appears, Socrates. SOCRATES: And his father's name too seems to fit nature. HERMOGENES: It appears so. SOCRATES: For Agamemnon seems to be the sort of man who, once he'd resolved on something, would labor at it and hold out to the end, sticking to what he'd decided out of virtue. The proof of this is his staying at Troy through all that suffering and endurance. So this name Agamemnon signals that this man is admirable (agastos) for his persistence (epimonē). And perhaps Atreus too is correctly named. For the murder of Chrysippus and the savage things he did to Thyestes—all of these are ruinous and harmful (atēra) to virtue. So the meaning of this name is bent a little to one side and disguised, so that it doesn't reveal the man's nature to everyone; but to those with adequate understanding of names, it shows plainly enough what Atreus means. For by 'unyielding' (ateires) and by 'unflinching' (atrestos) and by 'destructive' (atēron), the name is rightly given to him in every way. And it seems to me that Pelops' name too fits him fittingly; for this name signifies one who sees only what is near (pelas) and is worthy of that title. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: Well, it's said of that man, in the murder of Myrtilus, that he was unable to plan ahead or foresee any of the distant consequences for his whole line, how much misfortune he was filling it with—seeing only what was near and immediate (and that's what 'near' means)—when he was eager to win the marriage of Hippodamia by any means at all. And as for Tantalus, everyone would agree his name was rightly and naturally given, if the stories told about him are true. HERMOGENES: What stories are those? SOCRATES: The many terrible misfortunes that came upon him while he still lived, which ended in the total overthrow of his homeland, and then, after his death, the famous stone balanced (talanteia) over his head in Hades—how well it harmonizes with his name! And it's exactly as if someone, wanting to call him 'most wretched' (talantatos) but hiding what he meant, said 'Tantalus' instead—it seems some such thing is what chance contrived for him in giving him this name and this reputation.
SOCRATES: And it appears to me that his father, as he's called, Zeus, has a name given most beautifully—though it isn't easy to grasp. For the name of Zeus is really like a whole sentence, which we split into two, and some of us use one part, some the other—some say Zena, others Dia—and put together into one they reveal the god's nature, which we say a name ought to be able to do. For there is no one, for us or for anyone else, more responsible for life than the ruler and king of all things. So it turns out this god is rightly named, this being through whom living always belongs to all living things; the name, though one, has been split in two, as I say, into Dia and Zena. Now if you heard suddenly that he's the son of Cronus, you might think that an insult, but it's reasonable that Zeus should be the offspring of some great intellect. For 'Cronus' signifies not a child, but the purity and unsulliedness of his mind (korron). And this Cronus, so the story goes, is the son of Uranus; and the upward gaze is rightly called by this name, ourania, 'looking at things above,' and that, Hermogenes, is exactly where the astronomers say pure mind comes from, and so 'heaven' (ouranos) has the right name too. If I remembered Hesiod's genealogy, and which still earlier ancestors he names before these, I wouldn't stop going through how correctly their names too are given, until I'd tested this wisdom that has suddenly fallen upon me from I don't know where, just now, to see what it will do—whether it will give out or not. HERMOGENES: Yes indeed, Socrates, you really do seem to me like one of those who suddenly, like the inspired, start prophesying. SOCRATES: And I do blame it, Hermogenes, mostly on having caught it from Euthyphro of Prospalta; I was with him a great deal since early this morning, lending him my ears. It seems that in his inspired state he's not only filled my ears with this divine wisdom but has taken hold of my soul as well. So I think we ought to do this: for today, let's make use of it and go on examining the rest about names, but tomorrow, if you all agree, we'll perform a rite of banishment on it and get purified, once we find someone skilled at purifying such things, whether some priest or some sophist.
HERMOGENES: Well, I agree—I'd be very glad to hear the rest about names. SOCRATES: Then that's what we should do. Where do you want us to begin our inquiry, now that we've stepped into a kind of pattern, so we can see whether the names themselves will bear witness for us that they aren't simply assigned at random in each case, but have some correctness? Now, the names given to heroes and to men might well deceive us; for many of them are given after their ancestors' names, which doesn't fit some of them at all, as we said at the start, and many are given as a kind of wish, like Eutychides and Sosias and Theophilus and plenty of others. So I think we should leave such names aside; it's much more likely we'll find the correctly given names among things that always exist and are so by nature. For it's there above all that the giving of names ought to have been done with care; though perhaps some of them were even established by a power more divine than that of men. HERMOGENES: You seem to me to be speaking well, Socrates. SOCRATES: Isn't it right, then, to start from the gods, examining how it is that this very name, 'gods,' came to be rightly given to them? HERMOGENES: That's reasonable. SOCRATES: Well, here's what I suspect: it seems to me that the earliest people around Greece believed only in those gods that many of the barbarians believe in even now—sun, moon, earth, stars, and heaven. Seeing all these always moving and running (theonta) in their course, it was from this nature of 'running' that they named them theous, 'gods'; and later, once they came to recognize all the other gods, they went on calling them by this same name. Does what I'm saying resemble the truth at all, or not? HERMOGENES: It certainly does resemble it. SOCRATES: What should we examine after this? HERMOGENES: Clearly, spirits (daimones) and heroes and men. SOCRATES: And truly, Hermogenes, whatever might the name 'daimones' mean? See what you think of what I'm about to say. HERMOGENES: Just say it. SOCRATES: Do you know who Hesiod says the daimones are? HERMOGENES: I don't recall. SOCRATES: Nor that he says the first race of men to come to be was the golden race? HERMOGENES: That much I do know.
SOCRATES: Well, he says of it—'but when fate covered over this race, they are called sacred spirits beneath the earth, good, warders-off of evil, guardians of mortal men.' HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: Because I think what he means by the golden race is not one made of gold, but one that was good and beautiful. My proof of this is that he says we are a race of iron. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: And don't you think he'd say that anyone good among people today belongs to that golden race? HERMOGENES: That's reasonable. SOCRATES: And the good are nothing other than the wise (phronimoi)? HERMOGENES: Wise, yes. SOCRATES: This, then, more than anything, I think, is what he means by the daimones: that because they were wise (phronimoi) and knowing (daēmones), he named them daimones. And in our own old language this name actually comes out that way. So he speaks well, and so do many other poets, who say that when a good man dies, he holds great fortune and honor, and becomes a spirit, in accordance with the title of wisdom. That's how I too hold that every man who is wise (daēmōn) and good is something divine (daimonion), in life and in death, and is rightly called a daimon. HERMOGENES: And I think, Socrates, I'm quite in agreement with you on this. But what would a 'hero' be? SOCRATES: That's not too hard to work out. Their name has been slightly altered, revealing its birth from Eros, love. HERMOGENES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Don't you know that heroes are half-gods? HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: All of them, surely, were born from a god's love for a mortal woman, or a mortal man's for a goddess. If you look at this too according to the old Attic speech, you'll understand better: it will show you that, starting from the name of Eros, from which the heroes were born, it's been slightly altered for the sake of the name. And either this is what 'heroes' means, or else it means that they were wise and skilled speakers and clever in argument, being capable questioners (erōtan)—for eirein means 'to speak.' So, as we were just saying, in Attic speech, those called heroes turn out to be a kind of speakers and questioners, so that the heroic tribe turns out to be a race of orators and sophists. But that's not hard to grasp; what's harder is the question of men—why on earth they're called anthrōpoi. Can you say? HERMOGENES: Where would I get that from, my good man? Even if I were able to find it, I wouldn't strain myself, since I think you're more likely to find it than I am.
SOCRATES: You're putting your trust in Euthyphro's inspiration, it seems. HERMOGENES: Clearly. SOCRATES: And you're right to trust it—since even now I seem to myself to have hit on something rather clever, and I run the risk, if I'm not careful, of becoming wiser than I ought to be, this very day. Consider what I mean. First we need to notice this about names: we often insert letters, and remove others, changing what we mean to name, and we shift the accents too. Take "dear to Zeus"—to turn that phrase into a single name, we dropped one of the iotas straightaway and pronounced the middle syllable with a grave accent instead of an acute one. In other cases we do the opposite—we insert letters, and pronounce what was low-pitched as high-pitched. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: Well, the word for "human being" has undergone one of these very changes, in my view. It's become a name out of a phrase, with the alpha dropped and the ending made grave. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Like this. This name signifies that whereas the other animals neither examine nor reason about nor scrutinize anything they see, the human being, as soon as he has seen something—that's what "has seen" means—scrutinizes and reasons about what he has seen. So it's from this alone that a human being was rightly named human, as one who scrutinizes what he has seen. HERMOGENES: What comes after that? There's something I'd love to ask you. SOCRATES: Go ahead. HERMOGENES: It seems to me there's something that follows naturally on these—soul and body, as we call the two parts of a human being. SOCRATES: Of course. HERMOGENES: Let's try to analyze these too, the way we did the earlier ones. SOCRATES: You mean examine whether "soul" fits its name for a good reason, and then "body" after that? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, to speak off the cuff, I think those who named the soul had something like this in mind: that it, whenever present in the body, is the cause of its living, supplying the power to breathe and cooling it, and as soon as this cooling agent gives out, the body perishes and comes to an end. That, I think, is why they called it soul. But if you like—wait a moment, I think I see something more persuasive to offer Euthyphro's circle. The explanation I just gave, I suspect, they'd look down on and consider crude. But consider this one, and see if it pleases you too.
HERMOGENES: Just say it. SOCRATES: What do you think holds and sustains the nature of the whole body, so that it lives and moves about, if not the soul? HERMOGENES: Nothing else. SOCRATES: And what about the nature of everything else? Don't you believe Anaxagoras, that it's mind and soul that arrange and hold all things together? HERMOGENES: I do. SOCRATES: Then this name would fit well for that power which sustains and holds nature—one might call it "physechē." It's also possible, more elegantly, to say "psyche," soul. HERMOGENES: Quite so, and I think this is more skillfully done than the other account. SOCRATES: And so it is—though it does look rather absurd as the name was actually formed. HERMOGENES: Well, what shall we say comes next? SOCRATES: You mean the body? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: This one seems to me to admit of many accounts—if one twists it even slightly, a great many. Some say it is the "sema"—the tomb—of the soul, on the ground that the soul is buried in it during this present life; and again, because it is by means of this that the soul signifies whatever it signifies, on this count too it's rightly called "sema," a sign. But I think it's above all the followers of Orpheus who gave it this name, on the view that the soul is paying a penalty for whatever it is paying it for, and that it has this enclosure around it, like a prison, to keep it safe—an image of a jail—being, then, exactly what its name says, a "soma," the body of the soul, until it has paid off what it owes, with not even a single letter needing to be changed. HERMOGENES: I think that's been said adequately enough, Socrates. But as for the names of the gods—as you were just saying about Zeus—could we examine along the same lines by what kind of correctness their names are established? SOCRATES: Yes indeed, Hermogenes, if we have any sense—there's one way, the finest one: that we know nothing about the gods, neither about themselves nor about the names by which they call themselves, whatever those may be, for clearly they call themselves by the true ones. The second way of correctness is the one prescribed by custom in our prayers—to call the gods by whatever names and titles please them to be called, since we know nothing else—for this seems to me to be a fine custom.
SOCRATES: So if you're willing, let's examine things having first told the gods that we won't be inquiring into them at all—since we don't claim to be capable of that—but into human beings, and what notion they had in mind when they gave the gods these names. That, at least, incurs no blame. HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, I think that's a fair way to put it—let's proceed like that. SOCRATES: Shall we begin, then, with Hestia, as custom dictates? HERMOGENES: That's only right. SOCRATES: What, then, would one say the namer had in mind in naming Hestia? HERMOGENES: By Zeus, I don't think that's an easy one either. SOCRATES: In any case, my good Hermogenes, the first name-givers run the risk of having been no ordinary people, but sky-gazing chatterers of a sort. HERMOGENES: Why do you say that? SOCRATES: It appears to me that the giving of names is the work of people of just that kind, and if one examines foreign names too, one finds no less clearly what each one means. Take, for instance, what we call "ousia," being: some call it "essia," others "ōsia." Now, first, by the one of these names, it makes sense that the being of things should be called Hestia, and also because we ourselves say that what partakes of being "is"—by this too Hestia would rightly be the name, since it seems we too used to call being "essia" in olden times. Further, one might come to this understanding by considering our sacrifices too: it's likely that those who named the being of all things "essia" would be the ones to offer first sacrifice to Hestia before all the other gods. And those who instead say "ōsia" would probably hold, in the manner of Heraclitus, that all things are in motion and nothing stands still, so that the cause and the first principle of things is "the pushing," whence it would be fitting for that to be named "ōsia." Let this much be said on the matter, as coming from people who know nothing at all; and after Hestia it's proper to examine Rhea and Cronus. And yet we've already gone over the name of Cronus. Perhaps, though, I'm talking nonsense. HERMOGENES: Why do you say that, Socrates? SOCRATES: My good man, I've just noticed a whole hive of wisdom. HERMOGENES: What sort of thing is this?
SOCRATES: It's quite absurd to say, and yet I think it has some plausibility. HERMOGENES: What is it? SOCRATES: I seem to see Heraclitus uttering ancient bits of wisdom—exactly what applies to Cronus and Rhea—which Homer, too, was talking about. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: Heraclitus says somewhere that everything moves on and nothing stands still, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step into the same river twice. HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Well then, do you think the one who set Rhea and Cronus as the ancestors of the other gods had any different notion from Heraclitus? Do you suppose it was by pure accident that he gave both of them names having to do with flowing? Just as Homer, too, says that Ocean was the origin of the gods, and Tethys their mother; and Hesiod, I think, says the same. Orpheus, too, says somewhere that "fair-flowing Ocean was first to begin the marriage, he who took to wife his sister born of the same mother, Tethys." Consider, then, how these all agree with one another and all tend toward the doctrine of Heraclitus. HERMOGENES: I think you're onto something, Socrates. But the name Tethys—I can't make out what it means. SOCRATES: In fact this name itself all but says outright that it is the disguised name of a spring; for what is filtered and strained is an image of a spring, and the name Tethys is put together out of both of these words. HERMOGENES: That's clever, Socrates. SOCRATES: Of course it is. But what comes after this? We've dealt with Zeus. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then let's speak of his brothers, Poseidon and Pluto, and that other name by which they call him. HERMOGENES: Very well. SOCRATES: Now it seems to me that Poseidon was named by the one who first gave the name because the nature of the sea checked him as he was walking and would not let him go further, but became like a bond upon his feet. So he named the god who rules over this power Poseidon, as being a "foot-bond"—posi-desmon; the epsilon is inserted, perhaps, for the sake of elegance.
SOCRATES: Or perhaps that isn't what he meant, but rather two lambdas were originally said in place of the sigma, on the ground that the god knows many things—"polla"; or maybe the "shaking one" is named from "to shake"—"seiein"—with the pi and the delta then added on. As for Pluto's name, that was given with respect to the giving of wealth—"ploutos"—since wealth is sent up from below out of the earth. And Hades—most people, I think, take this name to mean "the unseen"—"aïdes"—and, being afraid of the name, they call him Pluto instead. HERMOGENES: And how does it seem to you, Socrates? SOCRATES: In many ways I think people have gone quite wrong about the power of this god, and fear him more than he deserves. They're afraid because once any of us has died, he remains there forever, and they're afraid too because the soul departs to him stripped naked of the body. But to my mind all of this points to one and the same thing—both the god's office and his name. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: I'll tell you what appears to me. Tell me, of all the bonds that hold any living creature in one place, which is the stronger—necessity or desire? HERMOGENES: Desire is far stronger, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then don't you think Hades would lose a great many, if he did not bind those who go there with the strongest possible bond? HERMOGENES: Clearly so. SOCRATES: So it must be some desire that binds them, if indeed it's the greatest of bonds that binds them, and not necessity. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And there are many desires, are there not? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then he must bind them with the greatest of all desires, if he means to hold them with the greatest bond. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And is there any greater desire than this—when someone, in another's company, believes he will become a better man because of him? HERMOGENES: By Zeus, none whatsoever, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's say, Hermogenes, that this is why no one down there has ever wanted to come back up—not even the Sirens themselves—but they, and everyone else, have been utterly enchanted; so fine, it seems, are the words Hades knows how to speak. And, to judge by this account, this god is a consummate sophist and a great benefactor to those in his company—one who sends up so many good things even to us up here, so abundant are the riches he has to spare down there—and it's from this, in fact, that he got the name Pluto.
SOCRATES: And this business of the soul being unwilling to keep company with people while they still have bodies, but only coming together with them once it's been purified of all the evils and desires connected with the body — doesn't that seem to you the mark of someone philosophical, someone who has thought hard about the fact that this is the only way to hold people fast, by binding them with a desire for excellence, whereas if they still had the body's frenzy and madness on them, not even Kronos their father, for all his famous chains, could keep them bound to himself? HERMOGENES: You may be onto something there, Socrates. SOCRATES: And as for the name Hades, Hermogenes, it is far from being named for the unseen — quite the opposite, it was given by the lawgiver from his knowing all things beautiful, and that is why he was called Hades. HERMOGENES: All right — but what about Demeter and Hera and Apollo and Athena and Hephaestus and Ares and the rest of the gods — how do we account for them? SOCRATES: Demeter seems to be called Demeter, 'the mother who gives,' because of her giving of food, as a mother does. Hera is a kind of 'beloved' — that's in fact why they say Zeus fell in love with her and took her as his wife. But perhaps the lawgiver, speaking of things up in the sky, called the air Hera, disguising it by putting the beginning at the end — you'd see it if you said the name Hera over and over. As for Pherephatta — many people are frightened of that name too, and of Apollo, out of sheer inexperience, it seems, with the correctness of names. They change it around and consider it as Phersephone, and it strikes them as something dreadful; but really it signifies that the goddess is wise. Since all things are in motion, whatever grasps them and touches them and is able to follow along with them would be wisdom. So Pherepapha would be the correct name for the goddess, on account of her wisdom and her touching of what is in motion — or something along those lines — and that is exactly why Hades, being wise himself, keeps company with her, because she is of that nature. But as things stand people shy away from her real name, caring more for a pleasant-sounding word than for the truth, and so they call her Pherrephatta. It's the same with Apollo, as I said — many people are frightened of the god's name, as though it signified something dreadful. Haven't you noticed that? HERMOGENES: I certainly have, and you're right. SOCRATES: Yet it is, in my opinion, a name most beautifully suited to the god's power. HERMOGENES: How so?
SOCRATES: I'll try to say how it looks to me. There could hardly be a name better fitted to be one and yet touch all four of the god's powers at once, so as to take hold of them all and somehow signify music and prophecy and medicine and archery. HERMOGENES: Go on then — you make the name sound like a strange thing indeed. SOCRATES: It is thoroughly harmonious, in fact, seeing that the god is a musician. First of all, purification and purifying rites, both in medicine and in prophecy, and the fumigations with medicinal drugs and with the sulfur used in divination, and the washings and sprinklings used in such rituals — all of these have one single aim, to render a person pure both in body and in soul. Isn't that so? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't the god who purifies, who washes away and releases people from such evils, be this very god? HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So with respect to these releasings and washings, since he is a physician of such things, he would rightly be called Apolouon, 'the one who washes away.' And with respect to prophecy and truth and simplicity — which are the same thing — he would most correctly be called, just as the Thessalians call him: for all Thessalians call this god Aplous, 'the simple one.' And because he always has mastery over his shots, he is Aeiballon, 'ever-shooting.' As for the musical side, we should understand it the way we understand akolouthos, 'companion,' and akoitis, 'bedmate' — that the letter alpha often signifies 'together,' and here it signifies the joint revolving, both in the heavens, where they call the poles homopoloi, and in the harmony found in song, which is called symphonia, 'sounding together' — because all these things, as those clever about music and astronomy say, revolve together in a single harmony. And this god presides over that harmony, making all things revolve together, both among gods and among men. So just as we formed akolouthos and akoitis from homokeleuthos and homokoitis by changing homo- to a-, in the same way we formed Apollon from one who makes-things-revolve-together, homopolon, inserting an extra lambda, because otherwise it would have sounded the same as that harsh word for destruction.
SOCRATES: And that is exactly what some people now suspect, since they don't examine the power of the name correctly, and so they're afraid of it, taking it to signify some kind of destruction. But in truth, as I just said, it takes hold of all the god's powers at once — of the simple, the ever-shooting, the washing-away, the revolving-together. And the Muses, and music generally, got their name, it seems, from mosthai, 'to seek,' and from inquiry and philosophy. Leto is named from the gentleness of the goddess, from her willingness to grant whatever one asks of her. Or perhaps it's as foreigners call her — many call her Letho — and it seems that name was given, by those who use it, to mark that her character is not harsh but tame and smooth. Artemis seems named for artemes, 'sound' and 'orderly,' because of her desire for virginity; or perhaps whoever named her called the goddess an inquirer into virtue, or perhaps because she hates the sowing of man in woman — for one or all of these reasons, whoever gave the goddess this name gave it to her. HERMOGENES: And what about Dionysus and Aphrodite? SOCRATES: You're asking big questions, son of Hipponicus. But there is both a serious account of the names of these gods and a playful one. The serious one, you'll have to ask someone else; but nothing stops us going through the playful one, since the gods too are fond of play. Dionysus might be, in play, Didoinysos, 'the one who gives wine,' and wine might most fittingly be called oionous, since it makes most of those who drink it think they have sense when they don't. And as for Aphrodite, there's no point arguing with Hesiod — let's just agree that she was called Aphrodite from her birth out of the sea-foam, aphros. HERMOGENES: But surely you, an Athenian, won't forget Athena, Socrates — nor Hephaestus and Ares. SOCRATES: No, that wouldn't be likely. HERMOGENES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Well, one of her names isn't hard to explain. HERMOGENES: Which one? SOCRATES: We call her Pallas, don't we? HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: I think we'd be right to suppose this was given from the brandishing involved in weapons-dancing; for we use the words pallein and pallesthai, and orchein and orcheisthai, for lifting either oneself or something else up off the ground, or brandishing it in one's hands.
HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: That accounts for Pallas, then. HERMOGENES: And rightly so. But what about the other name — how do you explain that? SOCRATES: Athena's own name? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: That one is weightier, my friend. It seems the ancients thought of Athena the same way today's experts on Homer do. Most of these interpreters, explaining the poet, say that he made Athena stand for mind and thought, and the maker of names appears to have had something similar in mind about her — indeed he says something still grander, calling her, as it were, 'the mind of god,' as though he were saying ha theonoa — using an alien alpha in place of eta, and dropping the iota and the sigma. Or perhaps that isn't it either, and he called her Theonoe because she understands divine things beyond all others. Nor is it out of the question that he wanted to call this goddess Ethonoe, as one whose understanding lies in character; and then either the name-giver himself, or others afterward, altered it, thinking to improve it, into Athenaa. HERMOGENES: And Hephaestus — what do you say about him? SOCRATES: Are you really asking me about that noble lord, the master of light? HERMOGENES: It seems I am. SOCRATES: Then isn't it plain to everyone that he is Phaestos, 'the shining one,' with an eta drawn in? HERMOGENES: That's probably so — unless, as usual, some other view strikes you. SOCRATES: Well, so that none does, ask me about Ares instead. HERMOGENES: I'm asking. SOCRATES: Well then, if you like, Ares might be named from arren and andreion, 'male' and 'manly'; or again from the hard and unyielding, which is called arraton, and in that sense too the name Ares would fit a god of war in every respect. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, let's get ourselves clear of the gods, before the gods themselves — I'm rather afraid of discussing them further. Ask me about anything else you like, so you can see what sort of horses Euthyphro's are. HERMOGENES: I'll do that — but first let me ask you one more thing, about Hermes, since Cratylus says I'm no true Hermogenes. Let's try to examine what the name Hermes really means, so we can tell whether there's anything to what he says.
SOCRATES: Well, it does look as though Hermes has something to do with speech — being an interpreter, a messenger, given to thievery and deceit in words, and a trader as well; all this business has to do with the power of speech. As we said earlier, eirein, 'to speak,' has to do with the use of words, and there's that word Homer often uses, emesato, 'he contrived' — which means to devise. So out of both these words, the one for speaking and the one for devising, the lawgiver, so to speak, appoints for us this god who devised speaking and speech — for legein is really the same as eirein — as though saying: 'People, the one who devised eirein would rightly be called by you eiremes'; but as it is, we, thinking to prettify the name, call him Hermes. And Iris too seems to be named from eirein, since she was a messenger. HERMOGENES: By Zeus, I think Cratylus is right after all in saying I'm no true Hermogenes — I'm certainly no master of contriving speech. SOCRATES: And there's good reason, my friend, why Pan should be Hermes' son, and have a double nature. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: You know that speech signifies the whole, and sets everything turning and circling forever, and it is twofold, both true and false. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well, the true part of it is smooth and divine, and dwells above among the gods, while the false part dwells below among the mass of men, and is rough and goatish; for that's where most myths and falsehoods are found, in the realm of the goatish, tragic life. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: So the one who reveals the whole (pan) and is forever turning (polon) would rightly be Pan the goatherd, of double nature, Hermes' son, smooth above and rough and goat-shaped below. And Pan is either speech itself or speech's brother, if indeed he's Hermes' son — and it's no wonder for one brother to resemble another. But as I was saying, my good man, let's get ourselves free of the gods. HERMOGENES: Free of gods of that kind, Socrates, if you like. But what's stopping you going through names of the following sort — sun and moon, stars and earth, aether and air, fire and water, the seasons, and the year? SOCRATES: You're asking a great deal of me, but still, if it will please you, I'm willing. HERMOGENES: It certainly will please me. SOCRATES: Well then, which do you want first? Shall we go through the sun, as you said? HERMOGENES: By all means.
SOCRATES: This will probably become clearer if we use the Doric word for it — the Dorians say "halios" for sun. "Halios" could come from "halizein," gathering people together, since the sun brings people together once it rises. Or it could come from its always rolling around the earth as it travels. Or it might fit because it embroiders the things that grow from the earth as it goes along — "embroider" and "variegate" mean the same thing. HERMOGENES: And the moon? SOCRATES: That name seems to put Anaxagoras in a tight spot. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: It seems to reveal, long before he said it, the very thing he recently claimed — that the moon gets its light from the sun. HERMOGENES: How does the name show that? SOCRATES: Well, "selas," gleam, and "phos," light, are the same thing. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: And this light around the moon is always both new and old, if the followers of Anaxagoras are right — since the sun, circling around it constantly, is always casting new light onto it, while what remains from the previous month is old. HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And many people call the moon "Selanaia." HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Since it always has gleam that is new and old, the most correct name for it would be "Selaenoneoaeia" — but compressed together it's called "Selanaia." HERMOGENES: That's a positively dithyrambic name, Socrates! But what do you say about the month and the stars? SOCRATES: The month, "meis," would rightly be called "meies" from "meiousthai," to grow smaller. And the stars, "astra," seem to take their name from "astrape," lightning. And lightning, since it turns the eyes back on themselves — "anastrephei ta opa" — would be "anastrope," though nowadays it's been prettied up into "astrape." HERMOGENES: And fire and water? SOCRATES: Fire baffles me. Either the muse of Euthyphro has abandoned me, or this is simply a very hard case. But look at the device I bring in for all such cases where I'm stuck. HERMOGENES: What device? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. Answer me this: could you say in what way the word "fire" got its name? HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I certainly could not. SOCRATES: Then consider what I suspect about it. I notice that the Greeks, especially those living among foreign peoples, have taken many words from those foreigners. HERMOGENES: What of it? SOCRATES: If someone tried to trace such words back through Greek, as though they made sense in Greek, rather than through the language they actually come from, you know he'd get nowhere. HERMOGENES: Naturally.
SOCRATES: So consider whether this word "fire" might also be foreign. It's not easy to connect to Greek speech, and it's clear the Phrygians call it something very close to this, with just a slight twist — and the same goes for water, and dogs, and many other words. HERMOGENES: That's true. SOCRATES: So we shouldn't force these into a Greek explanation, even though one could invent something to say about them. I set aside fire and water on those grounds. But air, Hermogenes — is it called "aer" because it raises things up from the earth? Or because it always flows? Or because wind, "pneuma," arises from its flowing? For the poets, I think, call winds "aetai." Perhaps, then, what he means is something like "pneumatorroun" — flowing as wind — shortened to "aetorroun," and from there he wants to call it "aer." As for the aether, I take it this way: since it always runs, "thei," flowing around the air, it would rightly be called "aeithees" — ever-running. And "ge," earth, shows its meaning better if one uses the form "gaia": for "gaia" would rightly be called the "begetter," "gennetteira," as Homer says — for he uses "gegaasin" to mean "to have been born." Well then — what came next on our list? HERMOGENES: Seasons, Socrates, and "eniautos" and "etos" — both words for year. SOCRATES: The seasons, "horai," should be pronounced the old Attic way, if you want to know the likely truth — "HORAI," spelled with the rough breathing, because they mark off, "horizein," the winters and summers and winds and the crops that come from the earth. Since they mark boundaries, they'd rightly be called "horai." As for "eniautos" and "etos," they're probably really one and the same word. Whatever brings each growing and coming-to-be thing forward into the light in its turn, and examines it in itself — this, just as in our earlier example the name of Zeus was split in two, with some saying "Zena" and others "Dia," so here too some call it "eniautos," because it is "in itself," en heautoi, and others "etos," because it "examines," etazei. The whole account is that this thing which examines within itself is addressed by two names though it is one, so that "eniautos" and "etos" have arisen as two words from a single account. HERMOGENES: Well really, Socrates, you're making great strides. SOCRATES: I do think I appear to be racing far ahead into wisdom now. HERMOGENES: Very much so. SOCRATES: You'll say so even more shortly.
HERMOGENES: But after this class of words, I'd be glad to look at those beautiful names connected with virtue — words like practical wisdom, understanding, justice, and all the rest of that kind — and see by what correctness they're given. SOCRATES: You're stirring up no small family of names, my friend! Still, since I've already put on the lion's skin, I mustn't shrink back now — I must examine, it seems, practical wisdom, understanding, judgment, knowledge, and all those other fine words you mention. HERMOGENES: We certainly mustn't turn back now. SOCRATES: And indeed, by the dog, I think I'm divining something not badly here — a thought that just occurred to me, that the very ancient people who established names, more than anything else — like most of today's clever people who get so dizzy from spinning round and round in their search for how things really are — grow dizzy themselves, and then it seems to them that things are spinning around and moving every which way. They blame this impression not on the condition within themselves, but claim that reality itself is like this — that nothing in it is stable or fixed, but that everything flows and moves and is always full of every kind of motion and coming-to-be. I say this having thought it through with all the names we've just been discussing. HERMOGENES: How do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Perhaps you didn't notice that what we've just been saying applies throughout, as if names were imposed on things entirely as though they were moving, flowing, and coming into being. HERMOGENES: I hadn't really thought about it that way. SOCRATES: Well, take the very first word we discussed — it's entirely of that sort. HERMOGENES: Which word? SOCRATES: Practical wisdom, "phronesis" — it's understanding, "noesis," of motion and flow, "phora" and "rous." Or one might take it as grasping the benefit, "onesis," of motion — in any case it concerns being carried along. And if you like, "gnome," judgment, plainly shows an examination, "skepsis," of begetting, "gone," and a distributing, "nomesis" — for "to distribute," "noman," and "to examine," "skopein," are the same thing. And if you like, "noesis" itself is a reaching, "hesis," for the new, "neon" — and for things to be new means that they are always coming to be. So the name-giver, in calling it "neoesis," shows that the soul reaches for this. For the old word wasn't "noesis" — instead of the eta they had to say two epsilons, "noeesis."
SOCRATES: And "sophrosyne," self-control, is the preservation, "soteria," of the very thing we just examined — practical wisdom, "phronesis." And indeed knowledge, "episteme," shows that as things are being carried along, the worthy soul follows along with them, neither falling behind nor running ahead — so we should insert the epsilon and call it "hepeisteme," the following-onto. "Synesis," understanding, in turn, might seem to be a kind of reasoning-together, "syllogismos" — but when we say someone "understands," "synienai," it turns out to mean exactly the same thing as "knowing," "epistasthai": for "synienai" says that the soul travels along together with things. And "sophia," wisdom, signifies grasping, "ephaptesthai," of motion — though this one is rather obscure and more foreign-sounding. But we should recall from the poets that they often say of something just beginning to move quickly that it "rushed forward," "esuthe." And there was a famous Spartan man actually named "Sous" — for the Spartans call swift onrush by this name. So "sophia" signifies a touching, "ephe," of this motion, "thoou," on the assumption that reality is in motion. And indeed "agathon," the good — this name is meant to be applied to whatever in the whole of nature is admirable, "agaston." Since things are in motion, they contain both speed and slowness. Not everything fast is admirable — only some part of it is. So this name, "agathon," belongs to what is admirable, "agaston," about the swift, "thoou." As for justice, "dikaiosyne" — that this name is given for understanding, "synesis," of the just, "dikaion," is easy enough to work out; but the just itself, "dikaion," is hard. It seems that up to a point many people agree about it, but beyond that point they start to disagree. Those who hold that everything is in motion suppose that most of it is such that it simply passes through, and that there's something passing all the way through everything, through which all that comes to be, comes to be — and that this is the fastest and finest thing there is. For it couldn't pass through the whole of reality otherwise, unless it were so fine that nothing could contain it, and so fast that it could treat everything else as standing still by comparison. So since it governs everything else by passing through it, this thing was rightly called "dikaion," just — taking on the sound of kappa for the sake of pleasant pronunciation.
SOCRATES: Up to this point, then — what we've just been saying — most people agree that this is what the just is. But I, Hermogenes, since I've been quite persistent about it, have learned all this in secret — that this is the just, and also the cause, "aition" (for that through which something comes to be is the cause) — and someone told me it's for this reason that it's correct to call it "Zeus," Dia. But when I calmly press them further, having heard all this, and ask: well then, my excellent friend, what actually is the just, if this account is right? — I seem already to be asking questions longer than I should, and leaping beyond the bounds we set. For they say I've heard quite enough already, and, wanting to satisfy me, they each start saying something different, and no longer agree with one another. One of them says the just is the sun — since only the sun, passing through and burning, governs what exists. So when I go and joyfully repeat this to someone else, as though I'd heard something fine, he laughs at me when he hears it and asks whether I really think there's nothing just among human beings once the sun sets. When I then persist and ask what he says it is, he says it's fire. But that's not easy to make sense of either. Someone else says it's not fire itself, but the heat that exists within fire. Yet another claims all of this is laughable, and says the just is what Anaxagoras calls mind, "nous" — for mind, being self-ruling and mixed with nothing, orders all things by passing through them all. At this point, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity than before I ever tried to learn what the just actually is. Still, for the purpose we set out to examine, it does appear that this is why the name is given as it is. HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to have heard this from someone, and not to be making it up on the spot. SOCRATES: And the rest? HERMOGENES: Not so much. SOCRATES: Listen then — perhaps I can fool you about the rest too, into thinking I'm not speaking from something I've heard. What's left for us after justice? Courage, I think — we haven't gone through that yet. Injustice, clearly, is an obstruction, "empodisma," to what passes through, "to diaion." And courage, "andreia," signifies something named as if in battle — for battle within reality, if indeed everything flows, could only be a counter-flow. So if one removes the delta from the word "andreia," the name itself, "anreia," reveals the very thing it does.
SOCRATES: So it's clear that courage doesn't mean flowing against every current, but only against the current that runs contrary to justice — otherwise courage wouldn't be praised. And the words for "male" and "man" point to something similar, an upward flow. "Woman," I think, wants to be "begetting." "Female" seems to be named from "nipple," and the nipple, Hermogenes, perhaps because it makes things bloom, the way watered plants do? HERMOGENES: So it seems, Socrates. SOCRATES: And "blooming" itself seems to me to picture the growth of the young, because it happens fast and suddenly. That's just what the word imitates — it's built by joining "run" and "leap." But you're not watching me the way I'm running off the track once I get hold of something smooth — and we've still got plenty of the words that are supposed to matter. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: One of them is worth seeing — what "skill" is actually meant to say. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Doesn't this signify a holding of mind — if you drop the "t" and insert an "e" between the "ch" and the "n," and then another between the "n" and the... HERMOGENES: That's stretching it rather thin, Socrates. SOCRATES: My good man, don't you know the earliest words have long since been buried by people wanting to dress them up tragically — adding letters, removing them, twisting them every way for the sake of a smoother sound, all for style, and time does the rest. Take a mirror — doesn't it seem strange to you that an "r" got inserted into its name? But I think that's what people do who care nothing for truth, only for shaping the mouth nicely — piling so much onto the original words that in the end no human being could work out what a word is actually supposed to mean. They even call the Sphinx "Sphinx" instead of "Phix," and plenty of others besides. HERMOGENES: That's how it is, Socrates. SOCRATES: And if we're going to let anyone insert or remove whatever they like in words, there'll be no end of resourcefulness, and anyone could fit any name to anything. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: True indeed. But I think you, as the wise overseer of this, need to keep to what's moderate and plausible. HERMOGENES: I'd like that.
SOCRATES: So would I, Hermogenes. But don't press for excessive precision, my dear fellow — don't drain the strength out of me. I'm working my way up to the peak of what I've been saying, once we've looked at "contrivance" after "skill." "Contrivance" seems to me a sign of achieving a great deal, since "much" somehow signifies length — so the word "contrivance" is put together from both of these, length and achieving. But as I just said, we need to reach the peak of what's been said — we must look into what "virtue" and "vice" are meant to say. One of them I can't yet make out, but the other seems clear to me — it agrees with everything said before. Since things are in motion, whatever moves badly would be "vice," and when this happens in the soul — moving badly toward things — that above all earns the name of vice as a whole. And what "moving badly" actually is, I think is shown also in "cowardice," which we haven't yet gone through but skipped over, though it ought to have been examined right after courage — I think we've skipped quite a few other things too. Well, "cowardice" signifies a strong binding of the soul, since "excess" is a kind of strength. So the greatest binding, the excessive one, would be cowardice — just as helplessness is bad, and so, it seems, is anything that stands in the way of moving and proceeding. So this appears to be what "moving badly" shows — proceeding held back and obstructed, which, whenever the soul has it, becomes full of vice. And if "vice" is the name for such a condition, the opposite of this would be virtue, signifying first ease of movement, and then that the flow of a good soul is always released, so that flowing without restraint and without hindrance has earned, it seems, this very name — which properly ought to be called "ever-flowing" but perhaps means "choiceworthy," as this condition is the most choiceworthy — and it's been compressed and is called "virtue." And perhaps you'll say again that I'm making this up; but I say that if what I said earlier about "vice" is correct, then this word for "virtue" is correct too.
HERMOGENES: And what about "bad," the word behind much of what you've said — what would it mean? SOCRATES: By Zeus, that one strikes me as strange and hard to work out. So I'll bring in that same device for this one too. HERMOGENES: Which device is that? SOCRATES: Saying that this one too is some foreign word. HERMOGENES: And you're probably right about that. But if you're willing, let's leave that aside and try to see how "noble" and "shameful" make sense. SOCRATES: Well, "shameful" already seems clear enough to me — it agrees with what came before. The one who assigns names seems, throughout, to be finding fault with whatever hinders and holds back the flow of things, and now he's given the thing that always holds back the flow the name "ever-holding-flow" — which, compressed, they now call "shameful." HERMOGENES: And "noble"? SOCRATES: That one's harder to grasp. Yet it does say something — it's only been stretched out in harmony and length from "the mind." HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: This word seems to be a kind of name for thought. HERMOGENES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Tell me, what do you think is responsible for each thing being called what it's called? Isn't it whatever assigned the names? HERMOGENES: Surely. SOCRATES: And wouldn't that be thought — either the gods' or human beings', or both? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the thing that named things and the thing that calls them are one and the same — thought? HERMOGENES: Apparently. SOCRATES: And whatever intelligence and thought produce — those are the things that are praised, and whatever they don't produce are blamed? HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And medicine produces medical results, and carpentry carpentry-results — or how do you put it? HERMOGENES: That's how I'd put it. SOCRATES: So what calling produces would be noble things? HERMOGENES: It must be. SOCRATES: And this, as we're saying, is thought? HERMOGENES: Quite so. SOCRATES: So it's rightly a name derived from good sense, this word "noble," for the thing that produces such things — the things we call noble and welcome. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: So what's left for us of this sort of thing?
HERMOGENES: The words around "good" and "noble" — "advantageous," "profitable," "beneficial," "gainful," and their opposites. SOCRATES: Well, "advantageous" you could probably work out yourself from what we examined before — it looks like a relative of "knowledge." It signifies nothing other than the soul's movement together with things, and what's done by such a person seems to be called "advantageous" and "beneficial" from moving-along-together — and "gainful" from "gain." If you put an "n" in place of the "d" in that word, it shows what it means — since it names "the good" in a different way, by the fact that it mixes through everything it passes through, and naming this power of it, the name was given — putting a "d" in place of the "n" it comes out "gain." HERMOGENES: And what about "profitable"? SOCRATES: It seems, Hermogenes, that it isn't used the way shopkeepers use it, when it just covers the expense — I don't think that's what "profitable" is saying here, but rather that, being the swiftest of things, it doesn't let things come to a standstill, and doesn't let the movement of what's being carried along reach an end and stop, but always dissolves any end that tries to form in it, and keeps it unceasing and immortal — that's how I think "the good" earned the name "profitable": it's the thing that dissolves the end of motion, called "profit-dissolving." "Beneficial" is a foreign word, which Homer too uses often, from "ophellein," to increase — this is a name for increasing and producing. HERMOGENES: And what about the opposites of these? SOCRATES: The ones that are simple denials of them, I don't think we need go through. HERMOGENES: Which ones are those? SOCRATES: "Disadvantageous," "unbeneficial," "unprofitable," "ungainful." HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: But "harmful" and "damaging" are different. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: "Harmful" means the thing that harms the flow; and "harming" in turn signifies wanting to bind — and "binding" and "tying" are the same thing, which the name-giver everywhere condemns. So the thing that wants to bind the flow would most correctly be "want-to-bind-flow," but dressed up for style it's called, it seems to me, "harmful." HERMOGENES: Your words are certainly coming out colorful, Socrates. Just now you struck me as piping the prelude to the hymn of Athena, announcing that word "want-to-bind-flow."
SOCRATES: I'm not to blame for that, Hermogenes, but those who gave the name. HERMOGENES: True enough. But what would "damaging" be? SOCRATES: What indeed could "damaging" be? Look, Hermogenes, how true it is what I keep saying — that by adding and removing letters people change the sense of words so much that with quite small twists they sometimes make them mean the opposite. Take the word "binding" — I thought of it and was just reminded, from something I meant to tell you, that our new, refined-sounding speech has flipped it around to mean the opposite of what it should show, "binding" and "damaging," hiding what it means, while the old form of the word shows both meanings plainly. HERMOGENES: How do you mean? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. You know our ancestors made good use of the iota and the delta, and none more than the women, who preserve the old speech best of all. But nowadays people change the iota into an epsilon or an eta, and the delta into a zeta, as if these were grander sounds. HERMOGENES: How so? SOCRATES: For instance, the very earliest people called "day" (hemera) "himera," others "hemera," and now it's "hemera." HERMOGENES: That's so. SOCRATES: Do you know only the ancient form of this word shows the intention of the one who gave it? Because light came to people who were glad and longing to escape the darkness, that's how they named it "himera." HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: But now, so dressed up, you couldn't work out what "hemera" is meant to mean at all. Yet some people think it's named that way because "day" (hemera) makes things "tame" (hemera). HERMOGENES: I think so too. SOCRATES: And you know that "yoke" (zygon) the ancients called "duogon." HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And "zygon" shows nothing at all, while "duogon," for the sake of the binding of the two (duoin) for drawing, was rightly named "duogon" — but now it's "zygon." And plenty of other words are like this. HERMOGENES: So it appears. SOCRATES: In just the same way, then, "binding" (deon), spoken this way, means the opposite of all the words connected with the good; since being a form of the good, "binding" appears instead to be a chain and an obstacle to motion — practically a brother of "the harmful." HERMOGENES: Yes, Socrates, that's certainly how it appears.
SOCRATES: No — not if you use the ancient form of the word, which is far more likely to be correct than the modern one. It will agree with the good qualities mentioned before, once you restore the iota in place of the eta, as they used to write it long ago. For it then signifies 'that which goes through' — not 'that which is needed' — 'the good,' which is exactly what it praises. And so the namer of things does not contradict himself: rather 'the needed,' 'the beneficial,' 'the profitable,' 'the gainful,' 'the good,' and 'the advantageous' all turn out to mean the same thing under different names — the thing that orders all and moves through everything, which is everywhere praised — while the thing that holds back and binds is blamed. And likewise 'damaging,' if you restore delta for zeta according to the ancient pronunciation, will turn out to be a name given to what binds the flow — 'daminaging,' one might say. HERMOGENES: But what about pleasure and pain and desire and things of that sort, Socrates? SOCRATES: They don't seem very difficult to me, Hermogenes. 'Pleasure' looks like an action tending toward benefit that has this name — though a delta has slipped in, so that it's called 'pleasure' instead of 'the benefiting-action.' 'Pain' seems to be named from the dissolving of the body which the body undergoes in that condition. And 'distress' is that which impedes going. 'Anguish' looks like a foreign word to me, derived from 'anguished.' 'Suffering' seems to be named from the entering-in of pain. 'Grief' is plainly likened by everyone to the weight of a burden carried. 'Joy' seems to be named from the dissolving and easy flowing of the soul's current. 'Delight' comes from 'delightful,' and 'delightful' is named from the soul's creeping — likened to a breath, so that by rights it should be called 'creepful,' but time has drawn it out into 'delightful.' 'Gladness' needs no explanation of why it's so called — it's plain to everyone that it got this name from the soul faring well with events, so that by rights it should be 'well-faring,' though we call it 'gladness.' Nor is 'desire' difficult — it's clearly named from the power that goes toward spiritedness. And 'spirit' would get its name from the seething and boiling of the soul.
SOCRATES: And indeed 'longing' is named from the current that draws the soul most strongly — because it flows as one is drawn on and reaches for things, and so pulls the soul forcibly along through the pull of its current; from this whole power it got the name 'longing.' And then again 'yearning' is the name applied not to the longing and current for what is present, but for what is elsewhere and absent — hence 'yearning,' which is what that same longing is called once the thing longed for is gone, though while it was present it was called 'longing.' 'Love,' because it flows in from outside and this current does not belong naturally to the one who has it but is brought in through the eyes, was in ancient times called, from 'inflowing,' 'inflow' — for they used omicron where we now use omega — but now it's called 'love,' through the change of omega for omicron. But what else do you want us to look at? HERMOGENES: How do 'belief' and things like that strike you? SOCRATES: 'Belief' is named either from the pursuit which the soul carries out in pursuing knowledge of how things stand, or from the shooting of an arrow. It seems more like the latter. At any rate, 'supposal' agrees with this — it seems to indicate the soul's aiming at every object, at what each thing that exists is like, just as 'counsel' is somehow related to 'a cast,' and 'to will' signifies 'to aim at,' as does 'to deliberate.' All these appear to be, in a sense, followers of belief, likenesses of the cast — just as, conversely, 'irresolution' seems to be 'missing the mark,' as when one has not cast well nor hit what one was aiming at, what one willed, what one was deliberating about, what one was reaching for. HERMOGENES: You seem to me now, Socrates, to be piling these up rather thick and fast. SOCRATES: Yes, because I'm already running for the finish line. Still, I want to work through 'necessity,' since it comes next in order, and 'the voluntary' too. 'The voluntary,' then — that which yields and does not resist, but, as I say, yields to what is moving — would be indicated by this very name, as what happens in accordance with one's will. But 'the necessary' and 'the resistant,' being contrary to one's will, would belong to the domain of error and ignorance, and is likened to travel through a ravine, since ravines, being hard to pass, rough, and overgrown, hold back one's going. So perhaps it was called 'necessary' from this, likened to travel through a ravine. As long as the strength holds out, let's not let up on it — and don't you let up either, but keep asking.
HERMOGENES: Well, I'll ask about the greatest and finest things — truth and falsehood and being, and this very thing we're now discussing, name — why it has the name it has. SOCRATES: Do you call something 'seeking'? HERMOGENES: I do — that is, searching. SOCRATES: Then 'name' seems to be a compressed statement, one that says: 'this is the being that is the object of the search.' You'd recognize it better in the form we use, 'nameable' — for there it plainly says that this is 'being of which there is a search.' Now 'truth,' too, seems to be compounded like the others; for the divine motion of being seems to be described by this word, 'truth,' as if it were 'divine wandering.' 'Falsehood,' on the other hand, is the opposite of that motion — for again there comes, as a term of reproach, that which is held back and forced to keep still; it is likened to those who are asleep, and the added 'sh' sound conceals the intended meaning of the name. 'Being' and 'essence' agree with 'the true,' once you remove the iota — for it signifies 'going,' and so does 'not-being,' as some also call it, meaning 'not-going.' HERMOGENES: You seem to me, Socrates, to have hammered all this out quite boldly. But if someone were to ask you about this 'going,' this 'flowing,' this 'binding' — what correctness these names have — SOCRATES: What would we answer him? Is that what you mean? HERMOGENES: Exactly. SOCRATES: Well, we already found one way, a moment ago, to seem to be saying something in reply. HERMOGENES: What way was that? SOCRATES: To say that whatever we don't understand is some foreign word. And perhaps some of these really are of that kind; and it may also be that, because of their sheer antiquity, the earliest names have become undiscoverable — since names get twisted every which way, it would be no wonder if the ancient language, compared to today's, is no different from a foreign tongue. HERMOGENES: And that's not an unreasonable thing to say. SOCRATES: No, for I'm saying what's likely. Still, I don't think the contest allows for excuses — we must press on and examine these things eagerly. Let's consider this: if someone keeps asking, for whatever words a name is explained by, what those words in turn mean, and again, for whatever words those are explained by, keeps asking the same question without ever stopping — isn't it inevitable that the one answering will finally have to give up?
HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Then at what point would someone who gives up rightly stop giving answers? Isn't it when he reaches those names which are, so to speak, the elements of the other words and names? For it wouldn't be right, presumably, for these to turn out to be composed of other names, if that's really how it is. Take, for instance, 'the good,' which we just said is composed of 'admirable' and 'swift' — we might say 'swift' in turn is composed from other elements, and those from still others. But if we ever get hold of something no longer composed of other names, we'd rightly say we've now reached an element, and that we no longer need to trace it back to other names. HERMOGENES: I think you're right. SOCRATES: So now too, do the names you're asking about happen to be elements, and must their correctness be examined in some other way? HERMOGENES: Likely so. SOCRATES: Very likely indeed, Hermogenes — at any rate, all the earlier ones appear to trace back to these. And if that's how it is, as I think it is, come, join me in looking again, so I don't talk nonsense in saying what the correctness of the primary names ought to be. HERMOGENES: Just say it, and I'll join in examining it as far as I'm able. SOCRATES: Well, that there's some single correctness belonging to every name, both the first and the last, and that it makes no difference which one is a name and which isn't — I think you agree with me on that. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But surely the correctness we found for the names we've gone through just now was meant to be of the sort that shows what each of the beings is like. HERMOGENES: Of course. SOCRATES: Then the first names must have this quality no less than the later ones, if they're really going to be names. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But the later ones, it seems, were able to accomplish this through the earlier ones. HERMOGENES: Apparently. SOCRATES: Well then — the first names, which have no others underlying them, in what way will they make the things that exist as clear to us as possible, if they're really going to be names? Answer me this: if we had no voice and no tongue, but wanted to show one another the things around us, wouldn't we try to signify them, as the deaf do now, with our hands and head and the rest of our body?
HERMOGENES: How else could we, Socrates? SOCRATES: If we wanted, I imagine, to show what is above and light, we'd raise a hand toward the sky, imitating the very nature of the thing; and if what is below and heavy, toward the earth. And if we wanted to show a horse running, or any other animal, you know we would make our own bodies and postures as like theirs as possible. HERMOGENES: I think that must be so, as you say. SOCRATES: For that, I imagine, is how a showing of some body would come about — by the body imitating what it wanted to show. HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: But since we want to show things using voice and tongue and mouth, won't our showing of each thing come from what results from these, whenever an imitation of something comes about through them? HERMOGENES: I think it must. SOCRATES: A name, then, it seems, is a vocal imitation of that which it imitates, and the one who imitates with his voice names the thing he imitates. HERMOGENES: That's what I think. SOCRATES: By Zeus, but it doesn't yet seem well said to me, my friend. HERMOGENES: Why not? SOCRATES: We'd be forced to agree that those who imitate sheep, and roosters, and other animals, are naming the very things they imitate. HERMOGENES: True. SOCRATES: Does that seem right to you, then? HERMOGENES: Not to me. But then, Socrates, what kind of imitation would a name be? SOCRATES: First of all, I think, not the kind by which we imitate things the way music does — even though we're also imitating with voice there — and next, not by imitating the very things music imitates, do I think we'd be naming. Here's what I mean: each thing has a sound and a shape, and many have a color too. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it seems that the art of naming doesn't consist in imitating these qualities, nor is it concerned with such imitations — those belong, one to music, the other to painting. Right? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: But what about this — doesn't each thing also seem to you to have a being, just as it has a color and the other things we just mentioned? Isn't there some being that belongs to color itself and to sound itself, and to everything else that's deemed worthy of the title 'being'? HERMOGENES: I think so. SOCRATES: Well then — if someone could imitate this very thing about each thing, its being, using letters and syllables, wouldn't he show what each thing is? Or not?
HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And what would you call the person who can do this — just as with the earlier examples you said one man was a musician and another a painter — what would you call this one? HERMOGENES: This, Socrates, seems to me to be exactly what we've been searching for all along — this would be the namer, the name-craftsman. SOCRATES: If that's true, then it seems we now need to examine those words you asked about — flow, and going, and holding-fast — and see whether the letters and syllables get hold of what really is, so as to imitate its nature, or whether they don't. HERMOGENES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come, let's see whether these are the only original names, or whether there are many others. HERMOGENES: I think there are many others. SOCRATES: Likely so. But what would the method of division be, the point from which the imitator begins to imitate? Since the imitation of reality happens by way of syllables and letters, isn't it most correct to distinguish the elements first — just as those who work on rhythms first distinguish the values of the elemental sounds, then those of the syllables, and only then move on to consider the rhythms themselves, not before? HERMOGENES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then shouldn't we do the same — first distinguish the vowels, then, among the rest, sort by kind the voiceless-and-soundless ones (that's how the experts on these matters put it), and then those that are neither vowels nor yet soundless; and among the vowels themselves, distinguish the different kinds they have from one another? And once we've properly sorted all the things that are, the ones we need to give names to, we should ask whether there's anything they can all be traced back to, the way letters can, from which we can see both the things themselves and whether there are kinds within them the same way there are within the elements. Once we've surveyed all this well, we'll know how to apply each name according to likeness — whether one thing needs to be applied to one, or many blended together into one, the way painters, wanting to make a likeness, sometimes use only ochre-red, sometimes some other pigment, and sometimes blend many together, as when they're preparing a human likeness or something of that sort — using, I suppose, whatever pigments each image seems to require. In just this way we too will apply the elements to things, one to one where that seems needed, and several together, making what people call syllables, and then combining syllables in turn, out of which names and verbs are composed; and then again out of names and verbs we'll put together something great and beautiful and whole, just as painting produces a living creature — here, speech is produced by the naming-art, or the rhetorical art, or whatever the craft should be called.
SOCRATES: Or rather — not we, I got carried away in speaking. For it was the ancients who composed things this way, however they're now put together; we, if we're going to examine all this with any skill, need to divide things up this way and see whether the earliest names and the later ones have been laid down properly or not — but stringing things together any other way would be shoddy and off the path, my dear Hermogenes. HERMOGENES: Perhaps so, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then — do you trust yourself to be able to make these distinctions this way? I certainly don't. HERMOGENES: Far from it, I assure you. SOCRATES: Shall we drop it, then, or would you rather we try as best we can, and if we're able to make out even some small part of it, attempt it — first declaring, as we did a little while ago to the gods, that we know nothing of the truth and are only guessing at human opinions about them — and now saying to ourselves in the same way that if it were necessary for anyone at all, ourselves or another, to make these distinctions, this is how they'd have to be made, but as things stand we'll have to do what we can with them? Does that seem right, or how do you put it? HERMOGENES: That seems exactly right to me. SOCRATES: I imagine it will look ridiculous, Hermogenes — things being made plain by being imitated in letters and syllables — yet it's necessary. We have nothing better to appeal to for the truth of the earliest names — unless, like the tragic poets, who resort to hoisting up gods on machines whenever they're stuck, we too should get ourselves out of this by saying that the gods established the earliest names, and that's why they're correct. Is that the strongest argument available to us too? Or is it this one — that we received them from certain foreigners, and foreigners are older than we are?
SOCRATES: Or that because of their sheer antiquity it's impossible to examine them, just as with foreign words? All these would be very clever ways of slipping out for someone unwilling to give an account of how the earliest names are correctly established. And yet whoever doesn't know in what way the correctness of the earliest names stands can hardly know that of the later ones, since these must be made clear by names one knows nothing about. No — it's plain that anyone claiming to have expert knowledge of names must above all be able to give the clearest possible demonstration concerning the earliest names, or else know full well that what he says about the later ones will be nonsense. Or do you think otherwise? HERMOGENES: Not in the least otherwise, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, what I myself have come to sense about the earliest names strikes me as quite outrageous and ridiculous. I'll share it with you, if you like — and if you have anything better from some other source, try to share it with me in turn. HERMOGENES: I will. Go on, speak boldly. SOCRATES: First, then, the letter rho seems to me to be a kind of instrument for all motion — though we haven't said why it has this name. But it's clear that it's meant to be hesis, a going; we didn't use eta but epsilon in the old days. Its root comes from kiein — a foreign word — meaning 'to go.' If, then, one could find its old form fitted into our own language, it would rightly be called hesis; but as it is, from the foreign kiein, and from the change of the eta, and the insertion of the nu, it's called kinesis, motion, though it ought to be called kieinesis, or heisis. Rest, stasis, is meant to be the negation of going, but for the sake of elegance it's been named stasis. Now the letter rho, as I say, seemed to the name-giver a fine instrument for motion, for making likenesses of movement, and he uses it a great deal for that purpose. First, in the very words rhein, to flow, and rhoe, flow, he imitates the movement through this letter; then in tromos, trembling; then in trechein, to run; and further in verbs like krouein, to strike, thrauein, to shatter, ereikein, to rend, thryptein, to crush, kermatizein, to break into pieces, rhymbein, to whirl — all these he represents for the most part by means of the rho. I suppose he observed that the tongue is least at rest and most shaken in pronouncing it, which is why he seems to have put it to use for these things. The letter iota, on the other hand, he applied to all things fine and subtle, which above all can pass through everything.
SOCRATES: That's why he imitates ienai, going, and hiesthai, being sent, by means of the iota — just as, through phi, psi, sigma, and zeta, since these are breathy letters, he imitates with them all such things as psychron, cold, zeon, boiling, seiesthai, shaking, and seismos, quaking generally. And whenever he's imitating something windy, it seems that the name-giver mostly applies such letters there. As for the pressing together of the tongue in delta and tau, and its being pinned in place, he seems to have judged this useful for imitating binding and rest. And noticing that the tongue slips most in pronouncing lambda, he made a likeness of it and named all smooth things, and slipping itself, and the oily, and the sticky, and everything else of that kind. Where the tongue's slipping is checked by the force of gamma, he imitated the viscous, the sweet, and the gluey. As for nu, sensing the inward quality of the sound, he named 'within' and 'inside,' making the sounds resemble the things. Alpha he assigned to greatness, and eta to length, because these are large sounds. Wanting a sign for roundness, he mixed a great deal of omicron into the word for it. And in all the rest he seems to proceed the same way, fitting a sign and a name to each thing that is, letter by letter and syllable by syllable — the name-giver — and building the rest out of these same elements by imitation. This, Hermogenes, seems to me to be what the correctness of names is meant to be, unless our friend Cratylus here has something else to say. HERMOGENES: Well, Socrates, Cratylus really does give me a great deal of trouble, just as I said at the start — claiming there's such a thing as correctness of names, but never saying clearly what it is, so that I can't tell whether he speaks so unclearly about it on purpose or not. So now, Cratylus, tell us in Socrates' presence — do you find what Socrates says about names satisfactory, or do you have some better account to give? And if you do, say it, so that either you learn something from Socrates, or you teach the two of us. CRATYLUS: Come now, Hermogenes — do you think it's easy to learn or teach any matter so quickly, let alone one as weighty as this, which seems to be among the weightiest of all?
HERMOGENES: No, by Zeus, I don't. But I think Hesiod put it well — that if a man lays down even a little upon a little, it comes to something. So if you're able to add even a small amount, don't hold back — do a good turn both to Socrates here, since it's only fair, and to me. SOCRATES: And indeed, Cratylus, I myself wouldn't insist firmly on anything I've said — I only examined it as it appeared to me together with Hermogenes, so on that score speak boldly if you have something better, since I'm ready to accept it. And if you do have something finer to say than this, I wouldn't be surprised — you seem to me to have thought about such matters yourself and to have learned from others as well. So if you have something better to say, enroll me too as one of your pupils in the correctness of names. CRATYLUS: Well, Socrates, as you say, I have indeed given thought to these matters, and perhaps I might make you my pupil. Still, I'm afraid it may be quite the opposite — I find myself inclined to say to you what Achilles says to Ajax in the Embassy. He says: 'Ajax, son of Telamon, born of Zeus, lord of the people, everything you've said seems to speak to my very heart' — and you too, Socrates, seem to me to be uttering oracles quite to my mind, whether you've caught your inspiration from Euthyphro, or whether some other Muse has long been dwelling in you unnoticed. SOCRATES: My good Cratylus, I myself have long been amazed at my own wisdom, and I don't trust it. So I think we ought to look back over what I've actually been saying. For being deceived by oneself is the worst thing of all — when the one who will deceive you never departs even a little but is always right there, how could that not be dreadful? We must, it seems, keep turning back again and again to what's been said before, and try, as the poet puts it, to look both forward and back at once. So let's now see what we've actually said. The correctness of a name, we're claiming, is whatever shows what the thing is like — shall we say that's been stated adequately? CRATYLUS: To me it seems entirely adequate, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then names are spoken for the sake of teaching? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then shall we say this too is a craft, and that it has craftsmen? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Who are they?
CRATYLUS: The ones you mentioned at the start—the lawgivers. SOCRATES: Well then, shall we say this craft too arises among men just as the others do, or not? Here's what I mean. There are painters, some worse, some better? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the better ones produce finer works—their pictures—while the worse ones produce shabbier ones? And builders likewise—some build finer houses, others uglier ones? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then don't lawgivers too produce finer works, some of them, and others uglier ones? CRATYLUS: That I no longer think. SOCRATES: So you don't think some laws are better and others worse? CRATYLUS: No, I don't. SOCRATES: And you don't think a name can be laid down worse or better either? CRATYLUS: No. SOCRATES: So all names are laid down correctly? CRATYLUS: All that are actually names. SOCRATES: Well then—what about the case we just mentioned, our friend Hermogenes here? Shall we say this name isn't laid on him at all, unless something of Hermes's lineage belongs to him—or that it is laid on him, but not correctly? CRATYLUS: It seems to me it isn't laid on him at all, Socrates—it only seems to be, and really belongs to someone else, whoever it is whose nature the name reveals. SOCRATES: Then is even the man lying who says he is Hermogenes? Or is it that this statement itself—that he is Hermogenes—can't even be made, if he isn't? CRATYLUS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Are you claiming that speaking falsely is altogether impossible? Because plenty of people say this, my dear Cratylus, now and in ages past. CRATYLUS: How could it be otherwise, Socrates? Anyone who says what he says—how could he not be saying what is? Or isn't that exactly what speaking falsely is—saying what is not? SOCRATES: That's a subtler argument than I can handle at my age, my friend. Still, tell me this much: do you think it's not possible to speak falsely, but it is possible to assert falsely? CRATYLUS: I don't think even asserting is possible. SOCRATES: Nor stating, nor addressing someone falsely? Suppose, for instance, someone met you as a foreign guest, took your hand, and said, 'Greetings, Athenian stranger, Hermogenes son of Smicrion'—would he be saying this, or asserting it, or stating it, or addressing you this way—speaking not to you but to this man Hermogenes? Or to no one at all? CRATYLUS: It seems to me, Socrates, such a person would just be making noise, pointlessly, to no purpose.
SOCRATES: Well, that's something at least. Would the one making that noise be speaking truly, or falsely? Or would part of it be true and part false? That would settle things too. CRATYLUS: I would say such a person is just clattering—moving himself pointlessly, the way you'd make noise banging on a bronze pot. SOCRATES: Come then, let's see if we can reach some agreement, Cratylus. Wouldn't you say the name is one thing, and the thing the name belongs to is another? CRATYLUS: I would. SOCRATES: And you agree the name is a kind of imitation of the thing? CRATYLUS: Absolutely. SOCRATES: And you'd say paintings too are, in another way, imitations of certain things? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Come then—perhaps I'm failing to grasp what exactly you mean, and you may well be right—is it possible to distribute and assign both these kinds of imitation, paintings and names, to the things they imitate, or not? CRATYLUS: It is. SOCRATES: First consider this. Could someone assign the image of the man to the man, and the image of the woman to the woman, and so on for the rest? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And couldn't he do the opposite—assign the man's image to the woman, and the woman's to the man? CRATYLUS: That's possible too. SOCRATES: So are both these assignments correct, or only one? CRATYLUS: Only one. SOCRATES: The one, I suppose, that gives each thing what fits it and resembles it. CRATYLUS: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: Then, so you and I don't quarrel in our talk, being friends, accept what I say. This kind of assignment, applied to both imitations, images and names alike, I call correct; and for names, besides correct, I also call it true. The other kind—handing out and applying what doesn't resemble—I call incorrect, and when applied to names, false. CRATYLUS: But watch out, Socrates, that this failure of correct assignment might hold for paintings but not for names—that with names it may be necessary to always be correct. SOCRATES: What do you mean? How does the one differ from the other? Can't someone go up to a man and say, 'This is your picture,' and show him—if it happens that way—an image of himself, or perhaps of a woman? By 'show,' I mean bring it before his eyes. CRATYLUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well then? Suppose someone goes up to that same man again and says, 'This is your name.' A name, after all, is an imitation just as a painting is. So here is what I mean: couldn't he say to him, 'This is your name,' and then bring it before his hearing instead—saying, if it happens that way, the imitation of himself by saying 'man,' or, if it happens that way, the imitation of the female of the human race by saying 'woman'? Doesn't it seem to you this could happen, and does happen sometimes? CRATYLUS: I'm willing to grant you that, Socrates, and let it be so. SOCRATES: You do well to grant it, my friend, if it really is so—there's no need to fight over it too hard right now. But if there is indeed such an assignment here too, then we'll want to call one of these speaking truly, and the other speaking falsely. And if that's the case, and it's possible to assign names incorrectly, not giving each thing what fits it but sometimes what doesn't fit, then the same would hold for verbs too. And if verbs and names can be set down this way, then so, necessarily, can sentences—for sentences, I take it, are a composition of these. Or how do you see it, Cratylus? CRATYLUS: That way—I think you're right. SOCRATES: Then if in turn we compare the first names to letters in a drawing, isn't it possible, just as with paintings, to render all the fitting colors and shapes—or, again, not all of them, but to leave some out, and add others, and too many, and too large? Or isn't that so? CRATYLUS: It is so. SOCRATES: So the one who renders all of them renders fine letters and images, while the one who adds or takes away letters also produces letters and images, but poor ones? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about the one who imitates the being of things through syllables and letters? By the same reasoning, if he renders everything fitting, won't the image—which is to say the name—be fine, while if he leaves out or adds a little here and there, it will still be an image, but not a fine one? So that some of the names will be well made, and others badly? CRATYLUS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Then perhaps there will be a good craftsman of names, and a bad one? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And this craftsman was called the lawgiver. CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then perhaps, by Zeus, just as in the other crafts, there will be a good lawgiver and a bad one, if we've agreed on those earlier points.
CRATYLUS: That's so. But you see, Socrates, when we assign these letters—alpha and beta and each of the elements—to names by the art of grammar, if we take one away, or add one, or transpose one, the name hasn't been written for us incorrectly—it hasn't been written at all; it immediately becomes something else the moment any of this happens to it. SOCRATES: Perhaps we're not looking at this rightly, Cratylus, in looking at it that way. CRATYLUS: How so? SOCRATES: Perhaps what you're describing holds true of things that must, by necessity, derive from some fixed number or not exist at all—like the number ten itself, or whatever other number you like—if you take away or add anything, it immediately becomes a different number. But for a thing of a certain quality, and for any image as a whole, perhaps that's not the standard of correctness at all—rather the opposite: it mustn't render everything, in every respect, just as the thing it's the image of, if it's really going to be an image. See if I'm saying something. Suppose there were two things like this—Cratylus, and an image of Cratylus—if some god didn't just copy your color and shape the way painters do, but made all your inner parts too just like yours, reproducing the same softness and warmth, and put in them the same motion and soul and thought that are in you, in a word, set up beside you a duplicate of everything you have—would that be Cratylus and an image of Cratylus, or two Cratyluses? CRATYLUS: It seems to me, Socrates, there would be two Cratyluses. SOCRATES: Then you see, my friend, that we must look for some other standard of correctness for an image than the one we were just discussing, and not insist that if anything is missing or added, it's no longer an image at all? Don't you notice how far short images fall of having the same qualities as the things they're images of? CRATYLUS: I do. SOCRATES: It would be ridiculous indeed, Cratylus, if the things that names belong to suffered the very effects of those names, should everything be made to resemble them in every way. Everything would come in pairs, and no one could ever say which was which—which was the thing itself and which was the name. CRATYLUS: True. SOCRATES: So take heart, my noble friend, and allow that one name may be well laid down and another not, and don't force it to have all the letters needed to be exactly as the thing it names is, but allow even an unfitting letter to be applied. And if a letter, then also a name within a sentence; and if a name, then also a sentence carrying, within discourse, things not quite fitting the matter at hand—and let the thing still be named and spoken of, so long as the outline of the thing the discourse concerns is present in it, just as we said a moment ago about the names of the elements, if you remember what Hermogenes and I were saying then.
CRATYLUS: I do remember. SOCRATES: Good, then. For when that outline is present, even if not all the fitting elements are there, the thing will still be spoken of—well, when all are present, poorly when only a few are. So let's allow that it's spoken of, my good man, so that we don't run afoul the way the night-wanderers in Aegina do, arriving too late on the road—lest we too seem, in reality, to have come to the matter later than we should have—or else you must look for some other standard of correctness for a name, and stop agreeing that a name is a display of a thing by way of syllables and letters. Because if you maintain both of these at once, you won't be able to stay consistent with yourself. CRATYLUS: Well, Socrates, you seem to me to be speaking reasonably, and I accept it on those terms. SOCRATES: Since we agree on this much, then, let's next consider the following. If a name is going to be well laid down, must it have the fitting letters? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the fitting ones are those that resemble the things? CRATYLUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then the well-laid ones are laid down this way; but if some were not laid down well, the greater part might still consist of fitting and resembling letters, if indeed it's to be an image at all, yet it might also contain something unfitting, on account of which the name would not be fine or well made. Do we say this, or something else? CRATYLUS: There's no need to fight about it, Socrates, I think—though it doesn't sit well with me to say a thing is a name and yet is not well laid down. SOCRATES: Is it this that doesn't sit well with you—that the name is a display of the thing? CRATYLUS: It is. SOCRATES: But doesn't it seem right to you to say that some names are composed from earlier ones, and others are primary? CRATYLUS: It does. SOCRATES: But if the primary names are to become displays of certain things, do you have any better way for them to become displays than to make them, as much as possible, of just the sort that the things they must display actually are? Or do you prefer instead the way Hermogenes and many others describe—that names are conventions, and display things to those who have agreed on them and already know the things beforehand, and that this—convention—is the correctness of a name, and it makes no difference whether one agrees on names as they now stand, or the very opposite, calling 'big' what is now 'small,' and 'small' what is now 'big'? Which of these ways do you prefer?
CRATYLUS: It makes all the difference in the world, Socrates, whether you show what you mean by a genuine likeness rather than by whatever happens to come to hand. SOCRATES: Well said. So if a name is going to be like the thing it names, then the letters out of which the first names are put together must themselves be naturally like the things — mustn't they? Here's what I mean. Could anyone ever have put together that painting we were just talking about, so that it resembled some real thing, if colors didn't naturally exist that were like the things — the colors out of which paintings are composed, matching whatever it is that painting imitates? Or is that impossible? CRATYLUS: Impossible. SOCRATES: Then in the same way, names could never come to resemble anything unless the elements out of which names are put together first had some likeness to the things of which the names are imitations. And the elements out of which they must be composed are the letters? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So now you too are in on the argument that Hermogenes and I were just having. Tell me, do you think we were right to say that rho resembles motion and movement and hardness, or not? CRATYLUS: Right, in my view. SOCRATES: And that lambda resembles smoothness and softness and the things we mentioned just now? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then you're aware that for the very same thing, we say 'sklērotēs' — hardness — while the Eretrians say 'sklērotēr'? CRATYLUS: I certainly am. SOCRATES: Well then, do rho and sigma both resemble the same thing, and does the word mean the same thing to the Eretrians ending in rho as it does to us ending in sigma — or does it fail to signify for one or the other of us? CRATYLUS: It signifies for both. SOCRATES: Is that because rho and sigma happen to be alike, or because they aren't? CRATYLUS: Because they're alike. SOCRATES: Are they alike in every respect? CRATYLUS: At least in signifying motion, presumably. SOCRATES: And what about the lambda in the word — doesn't it signify the very opposite of hardness? CRATYLUS: Perhaps it's simply misplaced there, Socrates — the way you yourself were just telling Hermogenes, taking out letters and putting others in wherever needed, and it seemed right to me. So perhaps here too we should say rho instead of lambda. SOCRATES: Well put. But then — as we now speak, do we understand nothing of each other when someone says 'hard'? Don't you know right now what I mean? CRATYLUS: I do, my friend, but only through habit. SOCRATES: And when you say 'habit,' do you think you're saying something different from convention? Or do you mean anything else by habit except that when I utter this word I have that thing in mind, and you recognize that I have it in mind? Isn't that what you mean?
CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if you recognize what I mean when I speak, doesn't that come to you as a signal from me? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: But it comes from something unlike what I have in mind when I speak it, if the lambda really is unlike the hardness you're talking about. And if that's so, then what else is going on except that you yourself have simply agreed to it, and for you the correctness of the name has become a matter of convention — since it signifies both through letters that resemble the thing and letters that don't, once habit and convention have taken hold? And if habit is absolutely not the same as convention, then it would no longer be right to say that likeness is what does the signifying, but habit — since habit, it seems, signifies through both what's alike and what's unlike. Now since we're agreed on this, Cratylus — I'll take your silence as agreement — it must be that convention and habit contribute something toward signifying what we mean when we speak. Because, my good man, if you're willing to go as far as number, where do you think you'll get names resembling each and every number, unless you're going to let your own agreement and convention carry some authority over the correctness of names? For my part, I'd like it if names could, as far as possible, resemble the things they name. But rather than let this pull toward likeness be, as Hermogenes put it, a thin and threadbare thing, I think we're forced to make use of this crude tool too — convention — for the correctness of names. Because presumably a thing is spoken of most beautifully, as far as possible, when it's spoken of through names that are wholly or mostly alike to it — that is, fitting — and most shamefully the opposite way. But tell me this next: what power do names have for us, and what good do we say they accomplish? CRATYLUS: To teach, Socrates, is what I think they do — and this is quite simple: whoever knows the names knows the things as well. SOCRATES: Perhaps, Cratylus, what you mean is something like this: once someone knows what a name is like — and it's just like the thing — he'll then also know the thing, since it happens to be like the name, and there's a single, identical skill involved in knowing all things that are alike to one another. On this view, I take you to be saying that whoever knows the names will also know the things. CRATYLUS: That's exactly right. SOCRATES: Wait, then, and let's see what this manner of teaching about the things that you're now describing could actually be, and whether there's another way — one that's better than this — or whether there's no other way at all except this one. Which do you think it is?
CRATYLUS: I think there's really no other way — this is the only one, and the best one. SOCRATES: And is discovering the things the very same process as this — so that whoever discovers the names has thereby discovered the very things the names belong to? Or must searching and discovering follow one method, and learning another? CRATYLUS: Most certainly, searching and discovering follow this very same method, in just the same way. SOCRATES: Well then, let's think it through, Cratylus. Suppose someone searching for the things followed the names, examining what each one is meant to be — don't you see that there's no small danger of being deceived? CRATYLUS: How so? SOCRATES: Clearly, whoever first laid down the names laid them down to match whatever he supposed the things to be, as we've been saying. Right? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if he didn't suppose rightly, but laid down names to match what he supposed, what do you think will happen to us who follow him? Anything but being deceived? CRATYLUS: But perhaps it isn't like that, Socrates — perhaps whoever laid down the names had to lay them down knowing the things; otherwise, as I said a while ago, they wouldn't even be names at all. And here's the strongest proof for you that the name-giver hasn't strayed from the truth: he could never have made everything so consistent with itself. Or didn't you yourself notice, when you were speaking, that all the names came out agreeing with one and the same pattern? SOCRATES: But that, my good Cratylus, is no defense at all. Because if the name-giver went wrong right at the start, and then forced everything else to fit that mistake and made it all agree with itself, there's nothing strange in that — it's just like a geometric diagram where a small, unnoticed error creeps in at the very first step, and then everything that follows, however vast, comes out consistent with it. So every person, about the starting point of anything at all, needs a great deal of argument and a great deal of examination as to whether it's rightly laid down or not; and once that's been adequately tested, the rest will show itself to follow from it. All the same, I would be surprised if the names really do agree with one another. Let's go back and reconsider what we went through before. We were saying that names signify to us that reality consists of everything going and moving and flowing. Do you think that's what they mean to show, or not?
CRATYLUS: Very much so, and I think they signify it correctly. SOCRATES: Then let's take these up again and examine them, starting with this very word — 'epistēmē,' knowledge — how ambiguous it is, and how it seems more to signify that it stops our soul upon the things than that it moves along with them; and it would be more correct, the way we're saying it just now, to pronounce the beginning of it the way we do, rather than inserting an extra epsilon and saying 'hepeistēmē' — better to make the insertion in the iota instead of the epsilon. Next take 'bebaion,' the steadfast — it's an imitation of a certain standing and settling, not of motion. Next 'historia,' inquiry, itself surely signifies that it stops the flow. And 'piston,' the trustworthy, entirely signifies something that has been made to stand still. Then again, 'mnēmē,' memory, surely tells everyone that it's a remaining-in-place within the soul, not a motion. And if you like, 'hamartia,' error, and 'symphora,' misfortune — if one follows them by their name — will turn out to be the very same as 'synesis,' understanding, and 'epistēmē,' knowledge, and all the other names having to do with serious matters. Further still, 'amathia,' ignorance, and 'akolasia,' licentiousness, appear closely related to these: for the one, ignorance, appears to be the journeying of one who goes along with a god, and licentiousness appears entirely to be a following-along with things. And so the very names we take to belong to the worst things would turn out most similar to those belonging to the best things. And I think one would find many other cases too, if one took the trouble, from which one might in turn come to believe that whoever laid down the names meant to signify not things that go and move, but things that remain at rest. CRATYLUS: But look, Socrates, you see that the majority of names signified it the other way. SOCRATES: So what of that, Cratylus? Shall we count up the names like counting pebbles, and let correctness rest on that — whichever way turns out to have more names signifying it, that will be the truth? CRATYLUS: That, at least, doesn't seem reasonable.
SOCRATES: Not in the least, my friend. Let's leave that point aside, and go back to where we turned off from before. A little while ago, if you remember, you were saying that whoever lays down the names must necessarily know the things he was laying them down for. Do you still think that, or not? CRATYLUS: I still do. SOCRATES: And do you say that whoever laid down the very first names also laid them down knowing the things? CRATYLUS: Knowing them. SOCRATES: Then out of what names had he learned or discovered the things, if indeed the first names hadn't yet been laid down at all — given that we say it's impossible to learn or discover the things in any other way than by learning the names or by finding out for oneself what they're like? CRATYLUS: I think you have a point there, Socrates. SOCRATES: So in what way are we to say that these people knew the things, or were law-givers, before any name whatsoever had been laid down and before they themselves could know it — given that it isn't possible to learn the things except from the names? CRATYLUS: I think, Socrates, that the truest account of this is that some power greater than human laid down the first names for things, so that they're bound to be correct. SOCRATES: Then do you think that this power, being some spirit or god, would have laid down names contradicting each other? Or did you think we were saying nothing just now? CRATYLUS: But perhaps one set of those names simply wasn't names at all. SOCRATES: Which set, my excellent friend — the ones that lead toward rest, or the ones that lead toward motion? Surely it won't be decided, as was said just now, by a head count. CRATYLUS: No, that certainly wouldn't be fair, Socrates. SOCRATES: So with the names in a state of civil war, some claiming that they themselves are the ones like the truth, others claiming the same for themselves, by what shall we still judge between them, or what shall we turn to? Certainly not to other names besides these — there aren't any — but clearly we must look for something else entirely, apart from names, that will show us, without recourse to names, which of the two sets is true, by showing us plainly the truth of the things themselves. CRATYLUS: I think that's so. SOCRATES: Then it seems, Cratylus, that it's possible to learn the things that are without names at all, if that's really how it stands. CRATYLUS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then through what else do you still expect to learn them? Through what else could it be, other than what's reasonable and most just — through one another, if they're somehow akin, and through themselves? For anything other than and different from the things themselves would surely signify something other and different, not the things themselves. CRATYLUS: What you say appears true to me.
SOCRATES: Wait, for heaven's sake. Haven't we agreed, more than once, that names correctly given are like the things they name, and are images of those things? CRATYLUS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then if it's possible to learn about things through names, but also possible to learn about them directly, which way of learning would be better and clearer -- to learn from the image whether it's been well made, and also to learn the truth of which it's an image, or to learn from the truth itself, both the truth and whether its image was fittingly made? CRATYLUS: It seems to me the learning must come from the truth. SOCRATES: Now, just what method one ought to use to learn or discover the things that are -- that's probably a bigger question than you or I can settle. But we can at least agree on this much: that things should be learned and investigated not from names but far more from themselves. CRATYLUS: So it appears, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's look at one more point, so that this great mass of names all tending in the same direction doesn't deceive us -- suppose the people who gave the names really did think, when they gave them, that everything is always moving and flowing (and it does look to me as though they thought exactly that), but suppose that isn't actually how things are, and instead these namers themselves fell into a kind of whirlpool and got stirred up in it, and are now dragging us in after them and pushing us in too. Consider this, my astonishing Cratylus -- something I myself dream about often. Shall we say there is such a thing as the beautiful itself, and the good, and each one of the things that are, just by itself? CRATYLUS: It seems to me there is, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then let's examine that very thing -- not whether some face is beautiful, or something of that sort, since all such things do seem to be in flux -- but rather, isn't the beautiful itself always such as it is? CRATYLUS: It must be. SOCRATES: Then could one even speak of it correctly, if it's always slipping away -- first saying that it is that, and then that it is such -- or must it be that, the very moment we're speaking, it immediately becomes something else and slips away and is no longer as we said? CRATYLUS: It must. SOCRATES: Then how could something be a thing at all, if it never stays the same? For if it's ever in the same state, then clearly, during that time at least, it isn't changing at all; and if it's always in the same state and is always the same thing, how could it possibly change or move, without departing at all from its own form? CRATYLUS: In no way.
SOCRATES: And what's more, it couldn't be known by anyone at all. For the very moment the one who would know it approached, it would become something else, something different, so that it could no longer be known as being of any particular kind or in any particular state. And surely no knowledge knows something that is in no state at all. CRATYLUS: It is as you say. SOCRATES: But then it isn't even reasonable to say that knowledge exists at all, Cratylus, if all things are changing and nothing stays put. For if this very thing, knowledge, did not change from being knowledge, then knowledge would remain forever and would be knowledge. But if even the form of knowledge changes, then at the very moment it changed into another form of knowledge, there would be no knowledge; and if it's always changing, there will always be no knowledge, and by this argument there would be neither anyone to know nor anything to be known. But if there is always something that knows, and something that is known, and if the beautiful exists, and the good exists, and each one of the things that are exists, then it seems to me these things we're now discussing bear no resemblance at all to flux or motion. Whether things really are this way, or the other way -- the way Heraclitus and his followers and many others describe -- that isn't easy to settle, and it isn't the mark of a sensible man to entrust himself and his own soul to names, putting his trust in them and in the people who coined them, and to assert with confidence that he knows something, condemning both himself and everything that is as having nothing sound about it, but everything flowing like leaky pots, and to believe -- exactly like people suffering from a head cold -- that things themselves are in the same condition, all of them, all things being swept along by some perpetual flux and catarrh. Perhaps that's how it is, Cratylus, and perhaps it isn't. So you must examine it courageously and thoroughly, and not accept things too readily -- you're still young, you have time for it -- and once you've examined it, if you find the answer, share it with me too. CRATYLUS: I'll do that. But you should know, Socrates, that even now I haven't been examining this carelessly, and the more I work at it and trouble myself over it, the more it seems to me things are just as Heraclitus says. SOCRATES: Then you'll teach me another time, my friend, when you come back. For now, go to the country, just as you've made ready to do; Hermogenes here will see you on your way. CRATYLUS: So be it, Socrates -- but you too should try to keep thinking about these things.
SOCRATES: Son of Cleinias, I imagine you're wondering why I, who was your first lover, am the only one who hasn't stopped, when all the others have given up — and why the rest of them wore you out with their conversation, while I haven't so much as spoken to you in all these years. The cause of that wasn't anything human, but a certain divine opposition, whose power you'll learn about later. But now that it no longer opposes me, I've approached you like this. I'm hopeful it won't oppose me again in the future. So in this time I've been watching, and I think I've pretty well worked out how you've dealt with your lovers. Many of them were full of themselves, and yet there wasn't one whose pride you didn't outmatch and drive away.
SOCRATES: And I want to go through the reasoning behind that pride of yours. You say you have no need of any man for anything, because what you already possess is so great that you need nothing — starting from your body and ending with your soul. You think, first, that you're the most handsome and the tallest man around — and anyone can see that's no lie — and next, that you come from the most vigorous family in your own city, with the most and the best friends and relatives on your father's side, ready to serve you if you ever needed it, and that your mother's side is no worse or fewer. And beyond all I've mentioned, you think you have at your disposal a power greater still in Pericles, son of Xanthippus, whom your father left as guardian to you and your brother — a man who can do as he pleases not only in this city, but throughout all Greece, and among many great foreign peoples too. I'll add that you're also rich, though that seems to be the one thing you take least pride in. On all these grounds you've held yourself high and beaten your lovers, and they, being weaker, were beaten — and this hasn't escaped you. That's exactly why I know you're wondering what I have in mind that keeps me from giving up this love, and what hope I'm relying on to stay when the others have fled. ALCIBIADES: And maybe, Socrates, you don't realize you've beaten me to it by only a little. I was actually planning to come to you first and ask this very thing — what do you want, and what hope are you looking toward, that you keep bothering me, always turning up so attentively wherever I am? I really am curious what your business is, and I'd love to find out. SOCRATES: Then you'll listen to me eagerly, it seems, if — as you say — you really want to know what I have in mind, and I can speak as to someone who will listen and wait it out. ALCIBIADES: Certainly — go on and speak. SOCRATES: Look, then — it wouldn't be strange if, just as I started with difficulty, I also stopped with difficulty. ALCIBIADES: Speak, my good man — I'll listen.
SOCRATES: I suppose I must speak, then. It's a hard thing to approach a man who's no less a lover of himself than his admirers are, but still I must dare to tell you what I have in mind. Alcibiades, if I saw that you were content with what I've just described, and thought you should live out your life with just that, I'd have given up this love long ago — or so I persuade myself. But as it is, I'll accuse you of holding quite different ambitions, and from this you'll see that I've kept my mind fixed on you the whole time. I think that if some god said to you, 'Alcibiades, would you rather live having what you now have, or die at once if you're not going to be allowed to acquire something greater?' — I think you'd choose to die. But let me tell you what hope it actually is that you're living on now. You believe that as soon as you come forward before the Athenian assembly — which will happen in just a few days — you'll show the Athenians that you deserve honor beyond anyone who's ever lived, Pericles included, and that having shown this, you'll have the greatest power in the city; and if you're the greatest here, you'll be greatest among the other Greeks too, and not only among Greeks but among the foreign peoples who share this same continent with us. And if that same god then told you that you must hold power only here in Europe, and would not be allowed to cross into Asia or take a hand in affairs there, I think you still wouldn't be willing to live on those terms alone, unless you could fill just about every human being with your name and your power. I think you consider no one worth mentioning except Cyrus and Xerxes. That you hold this hope, I know for certain — I'm not guessing. Now perhaps you'll say, since you know I'm telling the truth, 'Well, Socrates, what does that have to do with the point you said you'd make, about why you won't leave me alone?' I'll tell you, dear son of Cleinias and Deinomache. Bringing any of these plans of yours to completion is impossible without me. I believe I have that much power over your affairs and over you — which is exactly why I think the god has kept me from talking to you until now, and I've been waiting for the moment he would allow it. For just as you have hopes of showing the city that you're worth everything to it, and once you've shown that, of gaining power immediately, so I hope to gain the greatest power with you by showing that I'm worth everything to you, and that no guardian, no relative, no one else is capable of handing you the power you desire — except me, together with the god. When you were younger, and not yet so full of that hope, the god, I think, wouldn't let me speak to you, so that I wouldn't be speaking in vain. But now he's let me go — now you'll listen to me.
ALCIBIADES: You seem far stranger to me now, Socrates, now that you've started speaking, than when you followed me in silence — though even then you looked strange enough. So, whether I actually have these ambitions or not, you seem to have already decided, and even if I deny it, that won't do anything to persuade you otherwise. Fine. But suppose I really do have these thoughts in mind — how will it happen through you, and not otherwise? Can you say? SOCRATES: Are you asking whether I can give some long speech, of the kind you're used to hearing? That's not my way. But I think I could show you that this is so, if you're willing to help me with just one small thing. ALCIBIADES: If it's not some difficult service you mean, I'm willing. SOCRATES: Does answering questions seem difficult to you? ALCIBIADES: Not difficult. SOCRATES: Then answer. ALCIBIADES: Ask. SOCRATES: I'll ask you, then, as someone who holds the views I say you hold. ALCIBIADES: Let it be so, if you like, so I can also see what you're going to say. SOCRATES: Come then — you intend, as I claim, to come forward and advise the Athenians before long. Now, suppose that just as you were about to step up to the speaker's platform, I took hold of you and asked: Alcibiades, since the Athenians are deliberating about some matter, why are you standing up to advise them? Is it because you know better about it than they do? What would you answer? ALCIBIADES: I'd say, I suppose, that it's about things I know better than they do. SOCRATES: So on matters where you happen to have knowledge, you're a good adviser. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And you only know what you've learned from others or found out yourself? ALCIBIADES: What else could there be? SOCRATES: Is there any way you could ever have learned or discovered something without being willing either to learn it or to look for it yourself? ALCIBIADES: There isn't. SOCRATES: And would you have been willing to look for or learn something you thought you already knew? ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: So there was a time when you didn't think you knew the things you now happen to know? ALCIBIADES: There must have been. SOCRATES: Well, I have a fair idea myself of what you've learned — tell me if I've missed anything. As I recall, you learned letters, and lyre-playing, and wrestling — you never wanted to learn flute-playing. Those are the things you know, unless you've been learning something without my noticing — though I don't think so, since you never leave the house, night or day, without my knowing. ALCIBIADES: No, I haven't gone to any teachers besides those.
SOCRATES: So then, when the Athenians deliberate about how to write correctly, will you stand up then to advise them? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: Or when it's about notes on the lyre? ALCIBIADES: Not at all. SOCRATES: And they're certainly not in the habit of deliberating about wrestling holds in the assembly either. ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Then what will they be deliberating about when you stand up? Surely not about building. ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Because a builder will advise them better than you on that. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And not when they deliberate about prophecy either? ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: Because a seer, again, knows better about that than you. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Whether he's small or tall, handsome or ugly, well-born or not. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Because advice belongs, I think, to the one who knows about each thing, not to the one who's rich. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And whether the one giving advice is poor or rich will make no difference at all to the Athenians when they deliberate about health in the city — they'll look for the adviser to be a doctor. ALCIBIADES: Naturally. SOCRATES: So when will you stand up as someone about to give correct advice? What will they be considering then? ALCIBIADES: When it's about their own affairs, Socrates. SOCRATES: You mean about shipbuilding — what kind of ships they ought to build? ALCIBIADES: No, not that, Socrates. SOCRATES: Because you don't know shipbuilding, I suppose. Is that the reason, or something else? ALCIBIADES: No, that's the reason. SOCRATES: Then what sort of 'their own affairs' do you mean, when they deliberate? ALCIBIADES: I mean about war, Socrates, or peace, or other matters of the city. SOCRATES: Do you mean when they deliberate about whom to make peace with, and whom to make war on, and how? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And shouldn't it be with whoever is better to make peace with? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And at whatever time is better? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And for as long as is better? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Now if the Athenians were deliberating about whom they should wrestle with, and whom to box against bare-handed, and how — would you give better advice than the trainer? ALCIBIADES: The trainer, surely. SOCRATES: Can you say what the trainer would look to in advising whom one should wrestle with and whom not, and when, and in what way? I mean something like this: should one wrestle with those it's better to wrestle with, or not? ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that many too, whenever it's better? ALCIBIADES: That many. SOCRATES: And at whatever moment it's better? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But surely someone singing also has to play the lyre at some point to match the song, and to keep step? ALCIBIADES: Yes, he has to. SOCRATES: So at the moment when it's better? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And to that same degree—as much as is better? ALCIBIADES: I agree. SOCRATES: Well then—since you used the word 'better' for both cases, playing the lyre to match the song and wrestling—what do you call the 'better' involved in lyre-playing, the way I call the one in wrestling 'athletic'? What do you call that one? ALCIBIADES: I don't follow. SOCRATES: Well, try to copy me. I answered, remember, with 'whatever is correct all the way through'—and what's correct, surely, is whatever conforms to the skill in question. Isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And the skill was athletics? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And I said the 'better' thing in wrestling was the athletic thing. ALCIBIADES: You did. SOCRATES: And rightly so? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: Now it's your turn—since speaking well would surely suit you too—tell me first, what is the skill that governs playing the lyre and singing and keeping step correctly? What is the whole of it called? Can't you say yet? ALCIBIADES: No, I can't. SOCRATES: Try it this way, then. Who are the goddesses whose skill this is? ALCIBIADES: Do you mean the Muses, Socrates? SOCRATES: I do. Now look—what name does the skill take from them? ALCIBIADES: I think you mean music. SOCRATES: That's what I mean. So what is it that happens correctly according to this skill? Just as over there I told you what happens correctly according to the skill, athletics—so here, what do you say? How does it happen? ALCIBIADES: 'Musically,' I'd say. SOCRATES: Well put. Now then—the 'better' involved in making war, and the 'better' involved in keeping peace—what do you name that better thing? Just as in the other cases you named the better thing on each side—'more musical' for one, 'more athletic' for the other—try to name the better thing here too. ALCIBIADES: I really can't manage it.
SOCRATES: But surely it would be shameful if someone heard you discussing and advising about food—saying that this is better than that, and better now, and by this much—and then asked, 'What do you mean by better, Alcibiades?'—and about that you could say 'the more healthful,' even though you don't claim to be a doctor. But about the matter you do claim to have expert knowledge of, and will stand up and advise on as one who knows—about that, it seems, if you were asked and couldn't answer, wouldn't you be ashamed? Won't it look shameful? ALCIBIADES: Very much so. SOCRATES: Then consider, and try hard to say, what the 'better' in keeping peace points toward, and the 'better' in making war on whoever needs to be fought. ALCIBIADES: But no matter how I consider it, I can't think of it. SOCRATES: Don't you at least know that whenever we go to war, we do so making accusations against each other about how we've been treated, and that we name the thing itself as we go into it? ALCIBIADES: I do—that it's because we're being cheated, somehow, or coerced, or robbed. SOCRATES: Hold on—suffering each of these in what way? Try to say what the difference is between one way and another. ALCIBIADES: Do you mean, Socrates, the difference between justly and unjustly? SOCRATES: Exactly that. ALCIBIADES: Well, that's a difference of the whole and entire kind. SOCRATES: Well then—which side would you advise the Athenians to make war on, those doing wrong or those doing what's just? ALCIBIADES: That's an awkward question—even if someone actually thought one ought to make war on people acting justly, he wouldn't admit it. SOCRATES: Because it isn't lawful, it seems. ALCIBIADES: No, and it doesn't seem honorable either. SOCRATES: So it's with an eye to this that you'll frame your arguments too—the just? ALCIBIADES: I have to. SOCRATES: So isn't it just this—what I was asking a moment ago, the 'better' with respect to making war or not, and against whom one should and shouldn't, and when and when not—that turns out to be the more just thing? Or not? ALCIBIADES: It appears so. SOCRATES: How then, my dear Alcibiades? Has it escaped your own notice that you don't know this—or has it escaped mine, that you've been learning it, going to some teacher who taught you to distinguish the more just from the more unjust? And who is this person? Tell me too, so I can enroll myself as his student along with you. ALCIBIADES: You're mocking me, Socrates. SOCRATES: No, by Zeus the god of friendship, who belongs to both of us, and whom I'd least of all swear falsely by—if you really have someone, tell me who. ALCIBIADES: And what if I don't? Don't you think I could know about just and unjust things some other way? SOCRATES: Yes—if you'd discovered it yourself. ALCIBIADES: But don't you think I could discover it? SOCRATES: I certainly do, if you went looking for it. ALCIBIADES: Well, don't you think I would have gone looking? SOCRATES: I do—if you'd thought you didn't know. ALCIBIADES: But wasn't there a time when that was exactly my situation?
SOCRATES: Well put. Can you then name the time when you thought you didn't know what's just and unjust? Come now—last year, were you searching, and did you think you didn't know? Or did you think you knew? Answer truly, so our conversation isn't wasted. ALCIBIADES: Well, I thought I knew. SOCRATES: And the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that—wasn't it the same? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: But before that you were a child, weren't you? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, back then I know perfectly well you thought you knew. ALCIBIADES: How do you know that so well? SOCRATES: I often heard you, as a boy, at the schoolmaster's and elsewhere, whenever you played knucklebones or some other game—not talking as someone at a loss about just and unjust things, but quite loudly and confidently declaring of whichever boy it happened to be that he was wicked and unjust and behaving unjustly. Am I not telling the truth? ALCIBIADES: But what was I supposed to do, Socrates, whenever someone was treating me unjustly? SOCRATES: And if you happened not to know at the time whether you were being treated unjustly or not, is that what you're saying—what should you do then? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, I certainly wasn't ignorant—I knew clearly that I was being wronged. SOCRATES: So you thought—even as a child, it seems—that you understood what's just and unjust. ALCIBIADES: I did—and I did understand it. SOCRATES: At what point had you discovered this? Surely not at the time when you thought you knew it. ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: So when do you think you were ignorant of it? Look carefully—you won't find that time. ALCIBIADES: By Zeus, Socrates, I really can't say. SOCRATES: So it wasn't by discovery that you know it. ALCIBIADES: It doesn't look that way, no. SOCRATES: But just now you said you didn't know it by learning it either. And if you neither discovered it nor learned it, how do you know it, and from where? ALCIBIADES: Well, maybe I answered you wrongly on that point—claiming I knew it through discovering it myself. SOCRATES: Then how did it actually happen? ALCIBIADES: I learned it, I suppose, the way everyone else does. SOCRATES: We're back to the same question again. From whom? Tell me that too. ALCIBIADES: From the many. SOCRATES: You're taking refuge in poor teachers, appealing to 'the many.' ALCIBIADES: What, then? Aren't they capable of teaching this? SOCRATES: Not even how to play checkers properly, and I'd think that's a lesser matter than justice. What about it—don't you think so too? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So they're incapable of teaching the lesser things, but capable of teaching the more serious ones? ALCIBIADES: I think so, anyway—there are plenty of other, more serious things they're capable of teaching, beyond checkers. SOCRATES: What sort of things?
ALCIBIADES: Well, for instance, speaking Greek—that's something I learned from them, and I couldn't name any teacher of my own for it; I trace it back to the very people you say aren't serious teachers. SOCRATES: But, my noble friend, of that subject the many are indeed good teachers, and they might justly be praised for teaching it. ALCIBIADES: Why is that? SOCRATES: Because they possess what good teachers of anything need to possess. ALCIBIADES: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: Don't you know that anyone who is going to teach anything at all must first know it themselves? Or not? ALCIBIADES: How could it be otherwise? SOCRATES: And that those who know agree with one another, and don't disagree? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And on matters where people disagree, would you say they know those things? ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: Then how could they be teachers of those matters? ALCIBIADES: In no way at all. SOCRATES: Well then—do the many seem to you to disagree about what a stone is, or what wood is? And if you ask anyone, don't they agree with each other, and reach for the same thing whenever they want to pick up a stone or a piece of wood? Likewise with everything of that sort—and this, I gather, is more or less what you mean by 'knowing how to speak Greek.' Or not? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So on these matters, as we said, they agree with one another and each with himself privately, and publicly the cities don't dispute with one another, some saying one thing and some another? ALCIBIADES: No, they don't. SOCRATES: So it's reasonable that they'd be good teachers of these things at least. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So if we wanted to make someone knowledgeable about them, we'd be right to send him to be taught by these many people? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But what if we wanted to know not merely what kind of things men are, or what kind horses are, but which of them are fast runners and which aren't—are the many still capable of teaching that? ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: And is it sufficient proof to you that they don't know this, and aren't reliable teachers of it, that they don't agree with one another about it? ALCIBIADES: It is, to me. SOCRATES: And what if we wanted to know not merely what kind of things men are, but which are healthy and which are sickly—would the many be adequate teachers for us there? ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: And it would be proof to you that they're bad teachers of this, if you saw them disagreeing? ALCIBIADES: It would.
SOCRATES: Well then—what about now? On matters of just and unjust people and actions, do the many seem to you to agree with themselves, or with each other? ALCIBIADES: Least of all, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: And what about it—do they disagree about these things more than about anything else? ALCIBIADES: Far more. SOCRATES: Now, I don't suppose you've ever seen or heard of people disagreeing so violently about what's healthy and what isn't that they came to blows and killed one another over it. ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: But over just and unjust things, I know for a fact that you have—and if you haven't seen it yourself, you've at least heard of it, from many others and from Homer too; for you've heard the Odyssey and the Iliad. ALCIBIADES: Of course I have, Socrates. SOCRATES: And these are poems about a dispute over just and unjust things? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And it was this very dispute that produced the battles and the deaths, both for the Achaeans and for the Trojans on the other side, and for Penelope's suitors against Odysseus. ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: And I think the same is true of the Athenians and Spartans and Boeotians who died at Tanagra, and later at Coronea—where your own father Cleinias lost his life—the dispute over nothing else but justice and injustice produced those deaths and battles. Isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So shall we say these people knew the very things about which they disagree so violently that, contesting each other, they destroy themselves to the last extreme? ALCIBIADES: It doesn't look that way. SOCRATES: So you appeal, as teachers, to people you yourself admit don't know? ALCIBIADES: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then how likely is it that you know what's just and unjust, when you wander so uncertainly about it, and evidently neither learned it from anyone nor discovered it yourself? ALCIBIADES: Given what you're saying, it's not likely. SOCRATES: You see again how badly you've put that, Alcibiades? ALCIBIADES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: That you say it's I who am saying this. ALCIBIADES: What, then? Aren't you the one saying I know nothing about just and unjust things? SOCRATES: No, I'm not. ALCIBIADES: Then who is? SOCRATES: You are. ALCIBIADES: How so? SOCRATES: You'll see it this way. If I ask you which is greater, one or two, you'll say two? ALCIBIADES: I will. SOCRATES: By how much? ALCIBIADES: By one. SOCRATES: So which of us is it who says two is greater than one by one? ALCIBIADES: I am. SOCRATES: Wasn't it I who asked, and you who answered? ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: In what we've just said, do I seem to be the one speaking — the one asking the questions — or you, the one answering? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: And if I ask what letters spell Socrates, and you tell me, which of us is speaking? ALCIBIADES: I am. SOCRATES: Come then, tell me in general: when a question is asked and answered, which of the two is speaking — the one who asks, or the one who answers? ALCIBIADES: The one who answers, it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: And wasn't I the one asking, all the way through, just now? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you were the one answering? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then — which of us said what was said? ALCIBIADES: It appears, Socrates, going by what we've agreed, that I did. SOCRATES: And wasn't it said, about just and unjust things, that Alcibiades, the handsome son of Cleinias, doesn't know them but thinks he does, and is about to go into the assembly and advise the Athenians on matters he knows nothing about? Wasn't that what was said? ALCIBIADES: It appears so. SOCRATES: Then Euripides' line applies to you, Alcibiades: it seems you've heard this from yourself, not from me — I'm not the one saying it, you are, and you're blaming me for nothing. And you're quite right to say it — for you have in mind, my excellent friend, to attempt a mad undertaking: to teach what you don't know, having neglected to learn it. ALCIBIADES: I think, Socrates, that the Athenians and the rest of the Greeks rarely deliberate over which things are more just or more unjust — they think such matters are obvious, and so, setting them aside, they consider instead which course will be advantageous if acted on. For I don't think the just and the advantageous are the same thing — many have profited by committing great injustices, and others, I think, have gained nothing by acting justly. SOCRATES: Well then — even granting that the just and the advantageous are, as it happens, different things, surely you don't imagine you know what's advantageous for people, and why? ALCIBIADES: What's stopping me, Socrates — unless you're now going to ask me from whom I learned it, or how I discovered it myself.
SOCRATES: Here's what you're doing. If you say something that isn't quite right, and it happens to be possible to demonstrate this by the very same argument as before, you act as though you need to hear something entirely new — different proofs — as if the old ones were worn-out tools you can no longer wear, and nothing will satisfy you unless someone brings you evidence clean and untouched. But I'll let your evasive preambles go and ask all the same, from where you've come to know what's advantageous, and who your teacher is, and I'll ask all those earlier questions in a single question: isn't it clear you'll end up in the same place, and won't be able to show either that you found out what's advantageous on your own, or that you learned it? And since you're too fastidious to enjoy tasting that same argument again, I'll let that one go — whether or not you know what's advantageous for Athens. But this — whether the just and the advantageous are the same thing, or different — why haven't you shown that? If you like, question me the way I've been questioning you; or else, work through it yourself in your own speech. ALCIBIADES: But I don't know, Socrates, whether I'd be able to work through it in front of you. SOCRATES: Well, my good man, think of me as the assembly, as the people — there too you'll have to persuade one man at a time. Isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't the same person able to persuade one man alone and many together about whatever he happens to know — just as the schoolteacher persuades both one person and many about letters? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And won't the same man persuade one person and many about number as well? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And this will be the one who knows — the arithmetician? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And won't you too be able to persuade one person of exactly what you can persuade many of? ALCIBIADES: Likely so. SOCRATES: And these are clearly the things you know. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So is there really any difference between the speaker in the assembly and the one in a private conversation like this, except that one persuades a crowd all at once of the same things, and the other persuades one person at a time? ALCIBIADES: It seems so. SOCRATES: Come now, then, since it appears the same person can persuade both many and one, practice on me, and try to show that the just is sometimes not advantageous. ALCIBIADES: You're insufferable, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, it's out of this very insufferableness that I'm about to persuade you of the opposite of what you refuse to be persuaded of by me. ALCIBIADES: Go on, then. SOCRATES: Just answer what I ask. ALCIBIADES: No — you speak instead. SOCRATES: What? Don't you want, more than anything, to be persuaded? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Then if you yourself say that things are so, wouldn't you be most persuaded of all? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: Then answer — and if you don't hear from your own mouth that the just and the advantageous are the same, don't trust anyone else who says so either. ALCIBIADES: Fair enough — I'll answer. I don't think I'll come to any harm by it.
SOCRATES: You're quite the prophet. Now tell me: do you say that some just things are advantageous, and others not? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about this — that some of them are noble, and some not? ALCIBIADES: What do you mean by that question? SOCRATES: Has it ever seemed to you that someone was doing something shameful, yet just? ALCIBIADES: No, not to me. SOCRATES: So all just acts are also noble? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about noble things in turn — are all of them good, or are some good and some not? ALCIBIADES: I do think, Socrates, that some noble things are bad. SOCRATES: And some shameful things good? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you mean something like this — that many men, in war, went to help a comrade or kinsman and were wounded and died, while others, who didn't go to help when they should have, came away unharmed? ALCIBIADES: Exactly. SOCRATES: And you call that kind of help noble, in terms of the attempt to save those who needed saving — and that's courage, isn't it? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: But bad, in terms of the deaths and wounds? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't courage one thing, and death another? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So helping one's friends isn't noble and bad in the same respect? ALCIBIADES: It doesn't appear so. SOCRATES: Then consider whether, wherever a thing is noble, it's also good, just as it was in this case. You agreed that the help was noble in respect of the courage involved — so consider this very thing, courage itself: is it good or bad? Consider it this way: which would you choose to have for yourself, good things or bad things? ALCIBIADES: Good things. SOCRATES: And the greatest goods most of all? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you'd least of all choose to be deprived of such things? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Then what do you say about courage? At what price would you accept being deprived of it? ALCIBIADES: I wouldn't even accept living, if I were a coward. SOCRATES: So cowardice seems to you the worst of evils. ALCIBIADES: It does to me. SOCRATES: Equal to being dead, it seems. ALCIBIADES: I say so. SOCRATES: And life and courage are the most opposed things to death and cowardice? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you'd want the one most of all for yourself, and the other least of all? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Is it because you hold the one to be best, and the other worst? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So you hold courage to be among the best things, and death among the worst. ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: So helping one's friends in war, insofar as it's noble, you called noble because it's an instance of a good thing — courage? ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: But bad, insofar as it's an instance of a bad thing — death? ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then isn't it right to call each action in this way: if, insofar as it produces something bad, you call it bad, then insofar as it produces something good, it must be called good? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: And insofar as it's good, isn't it noble — and insofar as it's bad, shameful? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So when you say that helping friends in war is both noble and bad, you're saying nothing different from calling it both good and bad. ALCIBIADES: I think you're right, Socrates. SOCRATES: So nothing noble, insofar as it is noble, is bad — and nothing shameful, insofar as it is shameful, is good. ALCIBIADES: It doesn't appear so. SOCRATES: Now consider it this way too. Whoever acts nobly — doesn't he also act well? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And those who act well — aren't they happy? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And happy through possessing good things? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And they gain these by acting well and nobly? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So acting well is good? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And isn't faring well noble? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So once again the noble and the good have turned out, for us, to be the same thing. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then whatever we find to be noble, we'll find, on this same reasoning, to be good as well. ALCIBIADES: Necessarily. SOCRATES: And what about this — are good things advantageous, or not? ALCIBIADES: Advantageous. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, how we agreed about just things? ALCIBIADES: I believe we agreed that those who do just things must necessarily do noble things. SOCRATES: And that those who do noble things do good things? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And that good things are advantageous? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then just things, Alcibiades, are advantageous. ALCIBIADES: So it seems. SOCRATES: Well then — isn't it you who's been saying all this, and I only the one asking? ALCIBIADES: I appear to be, it seems. SOCRATES: So if someone stands up to advise either the Athenians or the people of Peparethus, thinking he knows what's just and unjust, and says that just things are sometimes bad, wouldn't you laugh at him — seeing that you yourself say the just and the advantageous are the same thing? ALCIBIADES: But by the gods, Socrates, I honestly don't know what I'm saying anymore — I seem to be in some strange condition. One moment one thing seems true to me as you question me, and the next moment something else. SOCRATES: And do you really not know, my friend, what this experience is? ALCIBIADES: I certainly don't. SOCRATES: Well, do you think, if someone asked you whether you have two eyes or three, and two hands or four, or something else of that sort, you'd give different answers at different times, or always the same ones?
ALCIBIADES: I'm starting to worry about myself now, but I think I'd say the same thing each time. SOCRATES: And isn't that because you know? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: So on whatever matters you unwillingly give contradictory answers, it's clear that on those matters you don't know. ALCIBIADES: Likely so. SOCRATES: And you say you wander back and forth in your answers about just and unjust things, noble and shameful things, bad and good things, advantageous and disadvantageous things? Then isn't it clear that this wandering happens because you don't know about them? ALCIBIADES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: Is this how it works, then — whenever someone doesn't know something, his soul must wander about that thing? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then — do you know how you'd go up into the sky? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, I don't. SOCRATES: And does your judgment about it waver back and forth? ALCIBIADES: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: Do you know the reason, or shall I tell you? ALCIBIADES: Tell me. SOCRATES: It's because, my friend, though you don't know it, you don't imagine that you do. ALCIBIADES: What do you mean by that now? SOCRATES: Look at it together with me. Things you don't know, but recognize that you don't know — do you waver about such things? Take the preparation of a dish — you know, presumably, that you don't know that? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well then, do you form your own opinions about how it should be prepared, and waver about it, or do you hand it over to someone who knows? ALCIBIADES: The latter. SOCRATES: And if you were sailing on a ship, would you have opinions about whether the tiller should be pulled in or pushed out, and waver about it since you don't know, or would you hand it over to the helmsman and keep quiet? ALCIBIADES: To the helmsman. SOCRATES: So you don't waver about things you don't know, as long as you know that you don't know them? ALCIBIADES: It seems not. SOCRATES: Do you see, then, that mistakes in action come from this very ignorance — the ignorance of thinking you know when you don't? ALCIBIADES: What do you mean by that, again? SOCRATES: We set about doing something, I take it, whenever we think we know what we're doing? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: But whenever people don't think they know, don't they hand the matter over to others? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: So people of that kind — those who don't know but hand things over to others — live free of mistakes, because of that very habit of entrusting such things to others? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then who are the ones who make mistakes? Surely not those who know. ALCIBIADES: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Since neither those who know, nor those among the ignorant who at least know that they don't know, are left over -- isn't the only group remaining those who don't know but think they do? ALCIBIADES: Yes, that's the group. SOCRATES: So this is the ignorance that causes wrongdoing, the shameful kind of stupidity? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And when it concerns the most important things, it's at its ugliest and most destructive? ALCIBIADES: By far. SOCRATES: Well then -- can you name anything more important than what is just, noble, good, and advantageous? ALCIBIADES: No, I can't. SOCRATES: And isn't it precisely in these matters that you admit you're at sea? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And if you're at sea, isn't it clear from what we've said that you don't merely fail to know the most important things -- you don't even know that you don't know them, and think you do? ALCIBIADES: It looks that way. SOCRATES: Good grief, Alcibiades, what a condition you're in! I hesitate even to name it, but since we're alone, it must be said. You're living with ignorance, my friend -- the worst kind there is, as your own words convict you and you convict yourself. That's exactly why you're rushing into politics before you've been educated for it. And you're not the only one this has happened to -- so has most everyone who manages the affairs of this city, except for a few, and perhaps your guardian Pericles. ALCIBIADES: Well, Socrates, they do say he didn't become wise on his own, but by keeping company with many wise men -- Pythoclides and Anaxagoras. And even now, at his age, he keeps Damon around for that very reason. SOCRATES: Really? Have you ever seen a wise man unable to make someone else wise in the same thing he knows? Take the man who taught you your letters -- he was skilled himself, and he made you skilled, and anyone else he wanted to. Isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And you, having learned from him, could make someone else skilled too? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: The same with the lyre teacher and the trainer? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Because surely this is fine proof that people who know something really do know it -- when they're able to produce someone else who knows it too. ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: Well then, can you say who Pericles made wise -- starting with his own sons? ALCIBIADES: What if Pericles's two sons just turned out slow-witted, Socrates? SOCRATES: Then take Cleinias, your brother. ALCIBIADES: And what would you say about Cleinias -- a man out of his mind? SOCRATES: Well then, since Cleinias is out of his mind, and Pericles's two sons turned out slow, what should we blame for your own condition, that he lets you go on this way? ALCIBIADES: I suppose I'm to blame, for not paying attention.
SOCRATES: Then name someone else -- any other Athenian, or foreigner, slave or free -- who is credited with having become wiser through keeping company with Pericles, the way I can point to Pythodorus son of Isolochus and Callias son of Calliades, who became wise and distinguished through their association with Zeno, each having paid him a hundred minas. ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, I can't. SOCRATES: Very well. So what do you intend for yourself -- to leave things as they are, or to take some care over it? ALCIBIADES: We should decide together, Socrates. And in fact, hearing you say this, I find myself agreeing: it seems to me that the men running this city, except for a few, are uneducated. SOCRATES: And so what follows from that? ALCIBIADES: If they were educated, then anyone attempting to compete with them would need to learn and train first, the way one does before facing athletes. But since even they have come to city affairs as amateurs, why should I need to train and burden myself with learning? I know very well that in natural ability alone I'll far surpass them. SOCRATES: Good grief, my excellent friend, what a thing to say! As if that were worthy of your looks and everything else you have going for you! ALCIBIADES: What exactly do you mean by that, Socrates, and why say it? SOCRATES: I'm upset, both on your behalf and on behalf of my own love for you. ALCIBIADES: Why? SOCRATES: That you should think your contest is with the men here. ALCIBIADES: Then with whom? SOCRATES: That's worth asking, for a man who thinks himself so high-minded. ALCIBIADES: What do you mean? Isn't my contest with these men? SOCRATES: Suppose you intended to pilot a warship into battle -- would it be enough for you to be the best helmsman among your own crew? Or would you think that necessary, sure, but keep your eye fixed on your true opponents rather than, as you're doing now, on your fellow crewmen -- whom you need to surpass so thoroughly that you wouldn't even think of competing with them, but rather have them, humbled, fighting alongside you against the enemy -- if indeed you intend to accomplish some genuinely fine deed worthy of yourself and of the city? ALCIBIADES: Well, that is what I intend. SOCRATES: Then it's quite something for you to be satisfied with being better than the soldiers, instead of looking to the enemy's commanders to see whether you've ever surpassed them -- studying them, training against them.
ALCIBIADES: Who do you mean by these, Socrates? SOCRATES: Don't you know our city is forever at war with the Spartans and the Great King? ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So if you intend to be the leader of this city, wouldn't you be right to think your contest lies against the kings of Sparta and of Persia? ALCIBIADES: You may well be speaking the truth. SOCRATES: No, my good man -- rather, you ought to be looking to Midias the quail-fancier, and others of that sort, who attempt to manage the city's business while still carrying, as the women would put it, the servile hair on their souls, from a lack of culture they haven't yet shed, still speaking with a foreign accent, come to flatter the city rather than to rule it. It's toward these men you should look, and neglect yourself accordingly -- neither learning what needs to be learned, nor training in what needs training -- when you're about to enter so vast a contest, all the while showing up fully prepared for city business! ALCIBIADES: Well, Socrates, I think you're right, but I also think the Spartan generals and the Persian king are no different from anyone else. SOCRATES: But my excellent friend, look at what kind of opinion this is that you hold. ALCIBIADES: Concerning what? SOCRATES: First -- which way do you think you'd take better care of yourself: fearing them and believing them formidable, or not? ALCIBIADES: Clearly, if I believed them formidable. SOCRATES: And do you think you'd be harmed at all by taking care of yourself? ALCIBIADES: Not at all -- I'd gain a great deal instead. SOCRATES: So this belief of yours has this one great flaw already. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: Now for the second point -- that it's also false. Consider it from what's likely. ALCIBIADES: How so? SOCRATES: Is it more likely that better natures arise in noble families, or not? ALCIBIADES: Clearly among the noble. SOCRATES: And that those who are well-born, if also well-raised, come to full excellence? ALCIBIADES: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Let's then examine our situation against theirs, setting them side by side -- first, whether the kings of Sparta and Persia seem to be of lesser stock. Don't we know that the one line descends from Heracles, the other from Achaemenes, and that both the family of Heracles and that of Achaemenes trace back to Perseus, son of Zeus?
ALCIBIADES: And ours too, Socrates, traces back to Eurysaces, and Eurysaces's back to Zeus. SOCRATES: And ours too, noble Alcibiades, traces back to Daedalus, and Daedalus back to Hephaestus, son of Zeus. But their lines, starting from themselves, run back through king after king all the way to Zeus -- some kings of Argos and Sparta continually, the others of Persia forever, and often of Asia besides, as even now. We ourselves, though, are private citizens, and so were our fathers. And if you had to display your ancestors and Eurysaces's homeland Salamis, or Aegina, home of the still earlier Aeacus, before Artaxerxes son of Xerxes -- imagine how much laughter you'd earn! No, watch out that we aren't outmatched by these men both in the grandeur of lineage and in upbringing generally. Or haven't you noticed how great the advantages of the Spartan kings are -- whose wives are publicly guarded by the ephors, so that so far as possible it never goes unnoticed if the king is born of someone other than a descendant of Heracles? The Persian king so far surpasses this that no one even suspects a king could be born of anyone but himself; so the king's wife is guarded by nothing but fear. And when the eldest son is born, the one who will hold the throne, first everyone in the king's domain holds festival, and afterward, every year on that same day, the whole of Asia sacrifices and celebrates the king's birthday; whereas when one of us is born, as the comic poet says, not even the neighbors much notice, Alcibiades. After this the child is raised, not by some cheap nurse-woman, but by eunuchs judged the best among those around the king; among their other duties is caring for the newborn, and especially contriving that he become as handsome as possible, by reshaping and straightening his limbs -- and doing this earns them great honor. When the boys turn seven, they go to the horses and to their trainers, and begin to go out hunting. At twice seven years, the boy is taken over by those they call the royal tutors; these are four men chosen as the best among the Persians of mature age -- the wisest, the most just, the most self-controlled, and the most courageous.
SOCRATES: Of these, one teaches him the magianism of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes -- which is the worship proper to the gods -- and he also teaches the arts of kingship; the most just one teaches him to speak the truth all his life long; the most self-controlled teaches him to be ruled by none of the pleasures, so that he grows accustomed to being free and truly a king, ruling first the things within himself rather than being enslaved to them; and the most courageous makes him fearless and free of dread, on the ground that to feel fear is to be a slave. But for you, Alcibiades, Pericles set over you as tutor the most useless of his household slaves due to old age, Zopyrus the Thracian. I could go on describing the rest of your rivals' upbringing and education, if it weren't a long business, and if what I've said weren't already enough to show the rest that follows from it. But your own birth, Alcibiades, and upbringing and education -- or that of any other Athenian, so to speak -- concerns nobody at all, unless it happens to be one of your lovers. And if in turn you care to look at wealth and luxury -- clothes with trailing robes, perfumed ointments, crowds of attendants following about, and all the rest of Persian softness -- you'd be ashamed of yourself, once you noticed how far short of it you fall. And if in turn you're willing to look at self-control and orderliness, ease and adaptability, greatness of spirit, discipline, courage, endurance, love of hard work, love of victory, and ambition for honor -- all as the Spartans practice them -- you'd think yourself a mere child next to all of that. And if wealth is something you do care about, and you think yourself somebody on that account, let's not leave that unspoken either, in case you come to see where you actually stand. If you're willing to look at Spartan wealth, you'll find that what we have here falls far short of what they have there. As for land -- both their own and Messenia's -- no one here could rival them in extent or quality, nor in the ownership of slaves, whether the rest or the helots specifically, nor indeed in horses, nor in all the other livestock grazing throughout Messenia. But let all that go -- there isn't as much gold and silver in private hands among all the Greeks combined as there is in Sparta alone; for many generations now it has been flowing in from all the Greeks, and often from foreigners too, and never flows back out anywhere -- exactly like the fable Aesop tells of the fox speaking to the lion: the tracks of the money going into Sparta are plain to see, but no one could ever spot tracks coming back out.
SOCRATES: So you should know well that the Persians are richest in gold and silver of all people, including the Greeks, and their king is richest of all. Enormous sums flow in to their kings from taxes of this kind, and beyond that there is the royal tribute, no small amount, which the Spartans pay to their own kings. Now the wealth of the Spartans, great as it looks against Greek fortunes, is nothing against the Persian king's. I once heard from a trustworthy man, one of those who had traveled up to the King, that he passed through a very large and fertile stretch of land, nearly a day's journey across, which the local people call the Queen's Girdle. There was another region called her Veil, and many other fine, rich places set aside for the Queen's wardrobe, each named for the piece of adornment it supports. So I imagine that if someone told the King's mother, Xerxes' wife Amestris, that the son of Deinomache intends to take the field against her son -- a woman whose jewelry alone is worth perhaps fifty minas, if that much, while her son's estate at Erchia doesn't even run to three hundred acres -- she would be astonished at what on earth this Alcibiades could be relying on to think of contending with Artaxerxes. And I imagine she would say that the only thing a man could possibly rely on for such an attempt is diligence and wisdom -- since among the Greeks those are the only things worth mentioning. But if she learned that this Alcibiades is undertaking it while not even twenty years old yet, and utterly uneducated besides, and that when his lover tells him he must first learn, take care of himself, and train before going to contend with the King, he refuses, and says what he already has is enough -- I think she would be amazed, and would ask: what in the world does the boy rely on? And if we said: on his beauty, his stature, his lineage, his wealth, and his natural gifts of soul, she would think us mad, Alcibiades, comparing all that to what they have.
SOCRATES: And I think even Lampido, daughter of Leotychidas, wife of Archidamus, and mother of Agis -- all of them kings -- would be no less astonished, looking at what her own family possesses, to learn that you mean to contend with her son so poorly prepared as you are. Isn't it shameful, though, if the wives of our enemies think more clearly about what sort of men ought to challenge them than we think about ourselves? Well, my friend, trust me and trust the inscription at Delphi: know yourself. These are our real rivals -- not the ones you imagine. There is no one else we could ever surpass except by diligence and skill. If you fall short of them, you will fall short of becoming famous among both Greeks and foreigners -- which I think you desire more than anyone has ever desired anything. ALCIBIADES: So what kind of care must I take, Socrates? Can you show me? You seem more than anyone to be speaking the truth. SOCRATES: Yes -- but this calls for shared deliberation, as to how we might both become as good as possible. I don't mean that you need education while I don't; there's nothing separating me from you except one thing. ALCIBIADES: What's that? SOCRATES: My guardian is better and wiser than your Pericles. ALCIBIADES: Who is that, Socrates? SOCRATES: A god, Alcibiades -- the one who wouldn't let me speak with you before today. Trusting in him, I say that you will come to distinction through no one but me. ALCIBIADES: You're joking, Socrates. SOCRATES: Perhaps -- but I'm speaking the truth, that we need care, all people do, but the two of us especially, urgently. ALCIBIADES: You're not wrong about me. SOCRATES: Nor am I wrong about myself. ALCIBIADES: So what should we do? SOCRATES: We mustn't shrink back or grow faint, my friend. ALCIBIADES: That wouldn't suit us, Socrates. SOCRATES: No -- so we must examine the matter together. Tell me: we say we want to become as good as possible -- yes? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Good at what? ALCIBIADES: Clearly, at what good men are good at. SOCRATES: Good at what, exactly? ALCIBIADES: Clearly, at conducting affairs. SOCRATES: What kind? Horsemanship, say? ALCIBIADES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then we'd have to go to horsemen for that? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Or do you mean seamanship? ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: Then we'd go to sailors for that? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then what do you mean? What affairs, conducted by whom? ALCIBIADES: The ones the best and finest Athenians conduct.
SOCRATES: And by 'the best and finest' do you mean the sensible ones or the senseless ones? ALCIBIADES: The sensible ones. SOCRATES: So whatever a person is sensible at, that's what he's good at? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And whatever he's senseless at, he's bad at? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Now, is a cobbler sensible at making shoes? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So he's good at that? ALCIBIADES: Good. SOCRATES: But isn't the cobbler senseless at making cloaks? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So he's bad at that? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then by this reasoning the same man is both bad and good. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Do you really mean that good men can also be bad? ALCIBIADES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then whom exactly do you mean by the good? ALCIBIADES: I mean those capable of ruling in the city. SOCRATES: Not ruling over horses, surely? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Over people, then? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Sick people? ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: People on a voyage? ALCIBIADES: No, I don't mean that. SOCRATES: People harvesting? ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: People doing nothing, or people doing something? ALCIBIADES: Doing something, I mean. SOCRATES: What sort? Try to make it clear to me too. ALCIBIADES: I mean people who deal with one another and make use of each other, the way we live together in our cities. SOCRATES: So you mean ruling over people who make use of other people? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Ruling boatswains who make use of rowers? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: That's the pilot's skill, isn't it? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Or do you mean ruling over flute-players, who lead singers and make use of a chorus? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: That's a chorus-master's skill, in turn. ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then what on earth do you mean by ruling people who make use of other people? ALCIBIADES: I mean ruling, within the city, over those who share in citizenship and deal with one another. SOCRATES: What skill is this, then? Suppose I asked you again as before: what skill enables one to rule people who share in seafaring? ALCIBIADES: Piloting. SOCRATES: And what knowledge enables one to rule people who share in singing, as we just said? ALCIBIADES: The very one you just mentioned -- chorus-training. SOCRATES: Well then -- what do you call the knowledge that rules people who share in citizenship? ALCIBIADES: Good judgment, Socrates, I'd say. SOCRATES: Really? Is the pilots' skill a kind of poor judgment? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: It's good judgment, then?
ALCIBIADES: So it seems to me -- good judgment aimed at keeping the passengers safe. SOCRATES: Well put. Now, this good judgment you speak of -- what is it aimed at? ALCIBIADES: At governing the city better and keeping it safe. SOCRATES: And what is present or absent when the city is governed and kept safe better? Suppose you asked me: what is present or absent that makes a body better governed and kept safe? I'd say: health present, disease absent. Don't you think the same? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And if you asked me again: what presence makes eyes better? I'd likewise say: sight present, blindness absent. And ears, when deafness is absent and hearing is present, become better and better cared for. ALCIBIADES: Right. SOCRATES: Well then -- what presence or absence makes a city better, better cared for, and better governed? ALCIBIADES: It seems to me, Socrates, when friendship arises among the citizens toward one another, and hatred and factional strife are absent. SOCRATES: By friendship do you mean agreement or disagreement? ALCIBIADES: Agreement. SOCRATES: Through what skill do cities agree about numbers? ALCIBIADES: Through arithmetic. SOCRATES: And private individuals -- isn't it through the same skill? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And each person with himself? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Through what skill does each person agree with himself about which is longer, a handspan or a cubit? Isn't it through the art of measurement? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And don't private individuals agree with one another the same way, and cities too? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And about weight, isn't it the same? ALCIBIADES: I agree. SOCRATES: But this agreement you speak of -- what is it, and about what, and what skill produces it? And is it the same for a city as for a private person, both with himself and with another? ALCIBIADES: It's likely to be. SOCRATES: What is it, then? Don't tire of answering -- press on and tell me. ALCIBIADES: I suppose I mean friendship and agreement of the sort a father has toward a son whom he loves, and a mother, and a brother toward a brother, and a wife toward a husband. SOCRATES: Do you think, Alcibiades, that a man could agree with a woman about wool-working, if he doesn't understand it and she does? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: Nor does he need to -- that's a woman's skill. ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And could a woman agree with a man about soldiery, without having learned it? ALCIBIADES: No indeed. SOCRATES: That, I suppose you'd say, is a man's skill in turn. ALCIBIADES: I would. SOCRATES: So by your account, some subjects belong to women, others to men. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: Then in these matters at least there is no agreement between women and men. ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: Nor friendship either, if friendship was agreement. ALCIBIADES: Apparently not. SOCRATES: So insofar as women do their own tasks, they aren't loved by men on that account. ALCIBIADES: It seems not. SOCRATES: Nor are men loved by women on account of doing their own tasks. ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: Then cities aren't well run on this basis either, when each group does its own tasks? ALCIBIADES: I do think they are, Socrates. SOCRATES: What do you mean, when the friendship we said had to be present for cities to be well run is absent? ALCIBIADES: But it seems to me that friendship does arise among them precisely on this basis, that each group does its own tasks. SOCRATES: That's not what you said a moment ago. Now what are you saying -- that friendship arises where agreement is absent? Or can agreement arise about matters where some know them and others don't? ALCIBIADES: Impossible. SOCRATES: And when each group does its own tasks, are they acting justly or unjustly? ALCIBIADES: Justly, of course. SOCRATES: And when citizens in a city act justly, doesn't friendship arise among them? ALCIBIADES: It seems necessary again, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then what do you mean by this friendship or agreement about which we need to become wise and well-judging, in order to be good men? I can't grasp either what it is or in whom it resides -- sometimes it appears present in the same people, sometimes not, going by what you say. ALCIBIADES: But by the gods, Socrates, I don't even know myself what I'm saying -- it seems I've long been unaware, without noticing, of being in a most shameful state. SOCRATES: Well, you should take heart. If you had noticed this at fifty, it would be hard for you to attend to yourself; but as it is, you're just the age at which one ought to notice it. ALCIBIADES: And once someone notices it, Socrates, what should he do? SOCRATES: Answer the questions put to him, Alcibiades. If you do that, then, god willing -- if my prophetic sense is to be trusted at all -- both you and I will be better off. ALCIBIADES: It will be so, at least as far as my answering goes.
SOCRATES: Come then, what is it to take care of oneself—since we might easily miss the mark and think we're caring for ourselves when we're not—and when exactly does a person do this? Is it when he cares for what belongs to him that he's also caring for himself? ALCIBIADES: That's how it seems to me, anyway. SOCRATES: Well then, when does a person care for his feet? Isn't it when he cares for whatever belongs to the feet? ALCIBIADES: I don't follow. SOCRATES: Do you call anything the property of the hand? For instance, would you say a ring belongs to any part of a person other than a finger? ALCIBIADES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: And a shoe belongs to the foot the same way? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And clothes and bedding belong to the rest of the body in the same way? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So when we care for our shoes, are we then caring for our feet? ALCIBIADES: I still don't quite follow, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, Alcibiades, do you call caring for something correctly by some name? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: So when someone makes a thing better, do you call that correct care? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: What skill, then, makes shoes better? ALCIBIADES: Shoemaking. SOCRATES: So it's by shoemaking that we care for shoes? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: But do we care for the foot by shoemaking too? Or by whatever skill makes feet better? ALCIBIADES: By that other skill. SOCRATES: And isn't it the same skill that makes feet better as makes the rest of the body better? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: And isn't that skill gymnastics? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it's by gymnastics that we care for the foot, and by shoemaking for what belongs to the foot? ALCIBIADES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And by gymnastics for the hands, and by ring-engraving for what belongs to the hand? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And by gymnastics for the body, and by weaving and the other crafts for what belongs to the body? ALCIBIADES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: So it's by one skill that we care for the thing itself, and by another that we care for what belongs to it. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then when you care for what's yours, you aren't caring for yourself. ALCIBIADES: Not at all. SOCRATES: Because, it seems, the skill by which one would care for oneself is not the same as the one for caring for what belongs to oneself. ALCIBIADES: It doesn't appear to be. SOCRATES: Come then, by what skill could we care for ourselves? ALCIBIADES: I can't say. SOCRATES: But at least this much we've agreed—that it's not a skill by which we'd make any of our belongings better, but one by which we'd make ourselves better? ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: Now, could we ever have known what skill makes a shoe better without knowing what a shoe is? ALCIBIADES: Impossible. SOCRATES: Nor what skill makes rings better, if we're ignorant of what a ring is. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: Well then—what skill makes a person better? Could we ever know that while being ignorant of what we ourselves actually are?
ALCIBIADES: Impossible. SOCRATES: So is it in fact easy to know oneself, and was whoever set up that inscription in the temple at Delphi some ordinary fellow, or is it something difficult, not for just anyone? ALCIBIADES: To me, Socrates, it's often seemed like anyone could do it, and often seemed extremely difficult. SOCRATES: But Alcibiades, whether it's easy or not, this much holds for us regardless: if we know it, we might quickly know how to care for ourselves, but if we don't know it, we never could. ALCIBIADES: That's so. SOCRATES: Come then, in what way might the thing itself be discovered? For that way we might quickly find out what we ourselves actually are, whereas remaining ignorant of this we're presumably unable to. ALCIBIADES: You're right. SOCRATES: So hold on, for god's sake. Who are you talking with right now? Anyone but me? ALCIBIADES: Yes, you. SOCRATES: And I with you? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So it's Socrates who is doing the talking? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And Alcibiades who is listening? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And Socrates converses using speech? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And conversing and using speech you'd call the same thing, I suppose? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: But isn't the user distinct from what he uses? ALCIBIADES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Take a shoemaker—he cuts with a knife and an awl and other tools, doesn't he? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the one who cuts and uses tools is distinct from the tools he uses in cutting? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And in the same way, would what the harpist plays with be distinct from the harpist himself? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: This, then, is what I was just asking—whether the user always seems distinct from what he uses. ALCIBIADES: It does seem so. SOCRATES: So what shall we say of the shoemaker—does he cut only with his tools, or with his hands too? ALCIBIADES: With his hands too. SOCRATES: So he uses those as well? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And does he also use his eyes in shoemaking? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And we agree the user is distinct from what he uses? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So the shoemaker and the harpist are distinct from the hands and eyes they work with? ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And doesn't a person use his whole body too? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the user was distinct from what he uses? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So a person is distinct from his own body? ALCIBIADES: It seems so. SOCRATES: Then what on earth is the person? ALCIBIADES: I can't say. SOCRATES: You can say this much at least—that it's whatever uses the body. ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: And does anything use it other than the soul? ALCIBIADES: Nothing else. SOCRATES: Ruling it, then? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And here's something I don't think anyone could think otherwise about. ALCIBIADES: What's that? SOCRATES: That a person must be one of three things. ALCIBIADES: Which three? SOCRATES: Soul, or body, or the two together as one whole. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: But we agreed that whatever rules the body is the person. ALCIBIADES: We did. SOCRATES: So does the body rule itself? ALCIBIADES: Not at all. SOCRATES: For we said it is ruled. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then this couldn't be what we're looking for. ALCIBIADES: It doesn't seem to be. SOCRATES: Well, does the combination of both rule the body, and is this then the person? ALCIBIADES: Perhaps so. SOCRATES: Least of all possibilities. For if one of the two isn't ruling along with it, there's no way the combination could rule at all. ALCIBIADES: Right. SOCRATES: And since neither the body, nor the combination of both, is the person, what's left, I think, is either that the person is nothing at all, or, if it is something, that it turns out to be nothing other than the soul. ALCIBIADES: Exactly so. SOCRATES: Do you need it demonstrated to you still more clearly that the soul is the person? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus—it seems sufficient to me as it is. SOCRATES: And if it's not exact but only roughly adequate, that's enough for us; we'll know it exactly when we've worked out something we passed over just now because it needed lengthy examination. ALCIBIADES: What's that? SOCRATES: What was just now put something like this—that first we ought to examine the very thing itself; but instead of the thing itself, we've examined what each particular thing is. And perhaps that will be enough—for surely we could say nothing has more authority over us than the soul. ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: So isn't it right to think of it this way—that you and I are conversing with each other, using speech, soul to soul? ALCIBIADES: Quite so. SOCRATES: This, then, is exactly what we said a little earlier—that Socrates converses with Alcibiades using speech, addressing his words not to your face, it seems, but to Alcibiades himself—and that is the soul. ALCIBIADES: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: So the one who commands us to know ourselves is telling us to come to know our soul.
ALCIBIADES: So it seems. SOCRATES: So whoever comes to know something belonging to the body has come to know his own belongings, but not himself. ALCIBIADES: That's right. SOCRATES: So no doctor knows himself, insofar as he's a doctor, nor does any trainer, insofar as he's a trainer. ALCIBIADES: It doesn't seem so. SOCRATES: So farmers and other craftsmen are far indeed from knowing themselves. For it seems they don't even know their own belongings, but something still further removed than their belongings, given the skills they practice—for they know only the things that serve to tend the body. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: So if self-knowledge is temperance, none of these people is temperate in virtue of his craft. ALCIBIADES: I don't think so. SOCRATES: And that's exactly why these crafts are considered menial and unfit for study by a good man. ALCIBIADES: Quite so. SOCRATES: So again, whoever tends the body tends his belongings, but not himself? ALCIBIADES: It looks that way. SOCRATES: And whoever tends money tends neither himself nor his belongings, but something still further removed from himself? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: So the businessman is no longer even attending to his own affairs. ALCIBIADES: Right. SOCRATES: So if someone has become a lover of Alcibiades' body, he wasn't in love with Alcibiades but with something belonging to Alcibiades. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: But whoever loves your soul? ALCIBIADES: That must follow from the argument. SOCRATES: So the one who loves your body, once it stops blooming, goes away and leaves? ALCIBIADES: So it seems. SOCRATES: But the one who loves the soul doesn't leave, so long as it's moving toward what's better? ALCIBIADES: That's likely. SOCRATES: So I am the one who doesn't leave but stays on as your body fades, while the others have gone off. ALCIBIADES: And you do well in that, Socrates—please don't leave. SOCRATES: Then be eager to become as fine as possible. ALCIBIADES: I will make the effort. SOCRATES: For this is how things stand with you: Alcibiades, son of Cleinias, has had, it seems, no lover—nor has one now—except a single one, and a dear one at that, Socrates, son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: And didn't you say I only just barely got to you first, when you would otherwise have come to me first, wanting to find out why I alone don't go away? ALCIBIADES: Yes, that's how it was.
SOCRATES: Well, the reason is this: I alone was your lover, while the others were lovers of your belongings. And your belongings are fading with your youth, while you yourself are just beginning to bloom. And now, if you aren't corrupted by the Athenian people and made uglier, I will never abandon you. This is exactly what I fear most—that you'll become a lover of the people and be corrupted by it. Many good men among the Athenians have already suffered this fate. For the people of great-hearted Erechtheus wear a handsome face—but one must see it stripped bare. So be on guard against the very danger I'm describing. ALCIBIADES: Which danger is that? SOCRATES: Train first, blessed one, and learn what you need to learn before going into public affairs, and not before, so that you go armed with a remedy and suffer nothing terrible. ALCIBIADES: I think you're right, Socrates. But try to explain in what way we might take care of ourselves. SOCRATES: Well, we've made this much progress so far—what we are has been reasonably well agreed upon—and we were worried that, missing that mark, we might unknowingly be caring for something else instead of ourselves. ALCIBIADES: That's so. SOCRATES: And after that, that it's the soul we must care for, and it's to this that we must look. ALCIBIADES: Clearly. SOCRATES: And the care of bodies and money must be handed over to others. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: So in what way might we know the soul most clearly? Since knowing this, it seems, we'll also come to know ourselves. Good heavens—are we failing to grasp what that Delphic inscription we just mentioned is well saying? ALCIBIADES: What do you have in mind by that, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you what I suspect this inscription means and is advising us. There isn't likely to be much of a parallel for it, except in the case of sight. ALCIBIADES: What do you mean by that? SOCRATES: Consider it with me. If it addressed one of our eyes as though it were a person, and advised, 'see yourself,' how would we understand what it was urging? Wouldn't it be to look at that in which the eye, by looking, would see itself? ALCIBIADES: Clearly. SOCRATES: So let's think what, among existing things, we could look at and see both that thing and ourselves at the same time. ALCIBIADES: Clearly, Socrates, mirrors and things like that. SOCRATES: You're right. And isn't there something of that sort present in the eye with which we see? ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Have you noticed that when someone looks into an eye, his face appears in the eye facing him, as if in a mirror — the thing we call the pupil, since it is a kind of image of the one looking in? ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So an eye that looks at an eye, and looks at that particular part of it which is best and by which it sees, would in this way see itself. ALCIBIADES: So it seems. SOCRATES: But if it looks at anything else belonging to a person, or at anything else that exists, except the thing it happens to resemble, it will not see itself. ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So if an eye is going to see itself, it must look at an eye, and specifically at that region of the eye where an eye's excellence happens to reside — and this, I take it, is sight? ALCIBIADES: Just so. SOCRATES: Well then, dear Alcibiades, if a soul is going to know itself, must it not also look at a soul, and especially at that region of itself where a soul's excellence, wisdom, comes to be — and at whatever else resembles that? ALCIBIADES: I think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Can we say that anything about the soul is more godlike than this — the part concerned with knowing and understanding? ALCIBIADES: We cannot. SOCRATES: So this part of it resembles the divine, and whoever looks at that, and comes to know everything divine — god and understanding — would in this way come to know himself best of all. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now, just as mirrors can be clearer, purer, and brighter than the mirror in the eye, isn't god also clearer and brighter than the best part of our own soul? ALCIBIADES: It does seem so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So by looking toward god we would be using the finest mirror there is for human affairs, to see the excellence of the soul, and in this way we would see and know ourselves best. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And didn't we agree that knowing oneself is soundness of mind? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So if we do not know ourselves and lack soundness of mind, could we know what is bad and good for us? ALCIBIADES: How could that happen, Socrates? SOCRATES: I imagine it seems impossible to you that someone who doesn't know Alcibiades could know that something belongs to Alcibiades, precisely because it is his. ALCIBIADES: Impossible indeed, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Nor then could he know that what is ours is ours, if he doesn't even know us ourselves? ALCIBIADES: How could he? SOCRATES: And if he doesn't even know what is ours, he can't know what belongs to what is ours either? ALCIBIADES: It seems not. SOCRATES: So we weren't quite right just now when we agreed that there are people who don't know themselves, yet know their own affairs, and others who know the affairs of such people. It looks like all of this — knowing oneself, one's own affairs, and the affairs of one's own affairs — belongs to one and the same skill. ALCIBIADES: It looks that way. SOCRATES: And whoever is ignorant of his own affairs would likewise be ignorant of other people's affairs too. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: And if he's ignorant of other people's affairs, he'll be ignorant of the affairs of states as well. ALCIBIADES: Necessarily. SOCRATES: Such a man could never become a statesman, then. ALCIBIADES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Nor even a manager of a household, for that matter.
ALCIBIADES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Nor will he even know what he is doing. ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: And won't the one who doesn't know make mistakes? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And making mistakes, won't he fare badly, both in his own life and in public affairs? ALCIBIADES: How could he not? SOCRATES: And faring badly, isn't he wretched? ALCIBIADES: Very much so. SOCRATES: And what of those for whom he acts? ALCIBIADES: They too. SOCRATES: So it's not possible to be happy unless one is sound of mind and good. ALCIBIADES: It isn't possible. SOCRATES: So bad people are wretched. ALCIBIADES: Very much so. SOCRATES: So it isn't the man who has grown rich who escapes wretchedness, but the man who has grown sound of mind. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: So states have no need of walls, or triremes, or dockyards, Alcibiades, if they mean to be happy — nor of numbers or size, without excellence. ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: So if you intend to manage the city's affairs rightly and well, you must give the citizens a share of excellence. ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: But could anyone give a share of something he doesn't have himself? ALCIBIADES: How could he? SOCRATES: So you yourself must first acquire excellence — and so must anyone who intends not merely to govern and look after himself and his own affairs privately, but the city and the city's affairs. ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So it isn't power or authority you must arrange for yourself, to do whatever you like — nor for the city either — but justice and soundness of mind. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: For by acting justly and soundly, you and the city will act in a way pleasing to the gods. ALCIBIADES: Likely enough. SOCRATES: And, as we said before, you will act looking toward what is divine and bright. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And indeed, looking in that direction, you will see and come to know yourselves and your own good. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And so you will act rightly and well? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: But truly, if you act this way, I am willing to guarantee that you will be happy. ALCIBIADES: You are a reliable guarantor. SOCRATES: But if you act unjustly, looking toward what is godless and dark, then likely enough you will act just as such things suggest, not knowing yourselves. ALCIBIADES: So it seems.
SOCRATES: For consider, dear Alcibiades — when someone has the power to do whatever he wishes, but lacks understanding, what is likely to happen to him, whether a private man or even a city? Take someone sick, who has the power to do as he pleases, but lacks a physician's understanding, and is a tyrant besides, so that no one can rebuke him — what will happen? Won't his body, in all likelihood, be ruined? ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: And on a ship, if someone had the power to do as he saw fit, but was without understanding and the skill of a helmsman, do you see what would happen to him and his shipmates? ALCIBIADES: I do — they would all perish. SOCRATES: And likewise in a city, and in every office and position of power, doesn't faring badly follow wherever excellence is absent? ALCIBIADES: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So it isn't tyranny you should be preparing, my excellent Alcibiades, for yourself or for the city, if you mean to be happy, but excellence. ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: And before one has excellence, it is better for a man — not just a child — to be ruled by someone better than to rule. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And what is better is also finer? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what is finer is more fitting? ALCIBIADES: How could it not be? SOCRATES: So it is fitting for the bad man to be a slave — since that is better for him. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So badness is a slavish thing. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And excellence is a fitting mark of the free. ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So one ought to flee, my friend, from what is slavish. ALCIBIADES: Most certainly, Socrates. SOCRATES: And do you now perceive how you stand — in a manner fitting the free, or not? ALCIBIADES: I think I perceive it only too clearly. SOCRATES: Do you know, then, how you might escape your present condition? Let's not put a name to it, for a man of your promise. ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: How? ALCIBIADES: If you are willing, Socrates. SOCRATES: That's not well said, Alcibiades. ALCIBIADES: Then how should I say it? SOCRATES: That it will happen if god is willing. ALCIBIADES: I say it, then. And besides this I say something more: it looks as though we're about to exchange roles, Socrates — I'll take yours, and you mine. For there's no way I won't be your tutor from this day on, and you'll be tutored by me. SOCRATES: My noble friend, then my love will be no different from a stork's — once it has hatched a winged love in you, it will in turn be cared for by that very love. ALCIBIADES: Well, that is how things stand, and I shall begin from this very point to attend to justice. SOCRATES: I would wish you to keep it up to the end. But I am uneasy — not that I distrust your nature, but because I see the strength of the city, and I fear it may get the better of both you and me.
SOCRATES: Alcibiades, are you on your way to pray to the god? ALCIBIADES: I certainly am, Socrates. SOCRATES: You do look rather grim, staring at the ground, as if you're turning something over in your mind. ALCIBIADES: What would anyone have to turn over, Socrates? SOCRATES: The biggest thing there is to turn over, Alcibiades, in my opinion. Look, by Zeus — don't you think that the gods, when it comes to what we pray for, privately and publicly, sometimes grant some of it and not the rest, and grant it to some people and not others? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then don't you think it takes a great deal of foresight, so that a person doesn't unknowingly pray for great evils while believing they're goods, and the gods happen to be in just the disposition to grant whatever someone happens to be praying for? Take Oedipus, for instance — they say he prayed that his sons divide his inheritance by the sword. He could have prayed for some relief from the troubles he already had, but instead he called down still more on top of them. And so that prayer was fulfilled, and out of it came many other terrible things — what need is there to go through them one by one? ALCIBIADES: But Socrates, the man you're describing was insane. Who in his right mind do you think would dare pray for such things? SOCRATES: Does being insane seem to you the opposite of being sane? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And do you think some people are senseless and some sensible? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: Well then, let's examine who exactly these people are. We've agreed that there are some who are senseless, some sensible, and others who are simply insane. ALCIBIADES: Yes, we've agreed to that. SOCRATES: And further, that some people are healthy? ALCIBIADES: There are. SOCRATES: And others sick?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: And they're not the same people? ALCIBIADES: No. SOCRATES: Is there some third group who are neither one nor the other? ALCIBIADES: No, there isn't. SOCRATES: Because a human being must either be sick or not sick. ALCIBIADES: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: Now then — do you hold the same view about sense and senselessness? ALCIBIADES: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Whether you think it's possible to be either sensible or senseless, or whether there's some third condition in between that makes a person neither sensible nor senseless. ALCIBIADES: No, there isn't. SOCRATES: So one or the other must apply to every person. ALCIBIADES: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: And you remember agreeing that madness is the opposite of sense? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: And also that there's no third condition in between that makes a person neither sensible nor senseless? ALCIBIADES: Yes, I agreed to that. SOCRATES: And surely two things can't both be opposite to one and the same thing? ALCIBIADES: No, they can't. SOCRATES: So senselessness and madness are likely to be the same thing. ALCIBIADES: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then, Alcibiades, we'd be right to say that all senseless people are mad — including, say, some of your own age-mates who happen to be senseless, as some are, and some of your elders too. Look, by Zeus — don't you think that in the city only a few people are sensible, and the majority senseless — the very people you're calling mad? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: Then do you think we'd be happy living as citizens among so many madmen, and not getting beaten and stoned and suffering all the things madmen tend to do — that we wouldn't long ago have paid the price? Look again, my good man — maybe it isn't like that at all. ALCIBIADES: How could it be, then, Socrates? It seems it isn't as I thought. SOCRATES: I don't think so either. We need to look at it from another angle. ALCIBIADES: What angle do you mean? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. We take it that some people are sick — right? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Do you think it's necessary that a sick person have gout, or a fever, or an eye disease — or could someone have none of those and still be sick with some other illness? There are plenty of illnesses, after all, not just those. ALCIBIADES: That seems right to me. SOCRATES: So do you think every illness is an eye disease? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: And is every eye disease an illness? ALCIBIADES: No, not at all — though I'm not sure how to put it.
SOCRATES: But if you pay attention along with me, the two of us searching together may well find the answer. ALCIBIADES: I am paying attention, Socrates, as much as I can. SOCRATES: So we agreed that every eye disease is an illness, but not every illness is an eye disease? ALCIBIADES: We agreed to that. SOCRATES: And rightly so, it seems to me. Take fever — everyone with a fever is sick, but not everyone who's sick has a fever, or gout, or an eye disease, I imagine. Rather, illness is the whole broad category, and the people we call doctors say that its particular workings differ. They don't all produce the same effects in the same way, but each according to its own particular power — yet they're all illnesses nonetheless. In the same way, we take it there are various kinds of craftsmen — right? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Cobblers, carpenters, sculptors, and countless others — what need is there to list them one by one? They each have their own division of the crafts, and all of them are craftsmen, yet not all craftsmen are carpenters, or cobblers, or sculptors — even though those trades taken together make up 'craftsman.' ALCIBIADES: No, they're not. SOCRATES: Well, senselessness is divided up in just the same way. Those who have the largest share of it we call mad, and those with a somewhat smaller share we call foolish or dimwitted. And people who prefer to use the politest possible words call them 'high-minded,' or 'simple,' or others call them 'innocent,' 'inexperienced,' 'green' — you'll find plenty of other names too if you go looking. All of it is senselessness, but it differs, just as we saw one craft differs from another, and one illness from another. What do you think? ALCIBIADES: I think the same. SOCRATES: Then let's go back to where we started. It was right there at the beginning of our discussion that we needed to examine who exactly the senseless and the sensible are. We'd agreed that there are such people — hadn't we? ALCIBIADES: Yes, we agreed to that. SOCRATES: So do you take the sensible to be those who know what one ought to do and say? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: And which are the senseless? Those who know neither? ALCIBIADES: Those. SOCRATES: And those who know neither will end up, without realizing it, both saying and doing things they shouldn't? ALCIBIADES: So it appears.
SOCRATES: It's people like this, Alcibiades, that I meant when I said Oedipus was one of them. You'll find plenty of people today too who aren't driven by anger, as he was, and don't think they're praying for evils, but for goods. He, on the other hand, didn't even mean to pray for what he prayed for, and didn't think he was — while there are others who've had the opposite experience. I think, in fact, that if the god you're on your way to see appeared to you and, before you prayed for anything at all, asked whether it would satisfy you to become tyrant of Athens — and if you thought that too small a thing, not much at all, added the rule of all the Greeks — and if he saw you still thinking you had too little unless you had all of Europe as well, granted you that too, and not only granted it but promised that this very day, the moment you wished it, everyone would know that Alcibiades son of Cleinias is tyrant — I think you'd go away overjoyed, believing you'd won the greatest of goods. ALCIBIADES: I think so too, Socrates — and so would anyone else, if such things happened to him. SOCRATES: And yet you wouldn't want to trade your own life, would you, even for the territory and tyranny of all the Greeks and barbarians together? ALCIBIADES: No, I don't think I would. Why would I, if I weren't going to make any use of it? SOCRATES: And what if you were going to use it badly and harmfully? Not even then? ALCIBIADES: No, not even then. SOCRATES: You see, then, how it isn't safe either to accept whatever's given without discrimination, or to pray to become such a person yourself, if one is likely to be harmed by it, or to lose one's life entirely because of it. We could name many who, having desired tyranny and eagerly pursued it as though winning some great good, were plotted against on account of that very tyranny and stripped of their lives. I imagine you haven't failed to hear of some things that happened only yesterday or the day before — how Archelaus, the tyrant of Macedon, was killed by his own favorite, who was no less in love with the tyranny than he had been with the boy, and murdered his lover expecting to become a happy tyrant himself — only to hold the tyranny three or four days before he too was plotted against by others and met his end.
SOCRATES: And you can see it too among our own citizens — this isn't something we've heard from others, but things we've witnessed ourselves — how many who desired a generalship and won it are, some of them, still exiles from this city today, and others have lost their lives. And those who seem to have fared best, after passing through many dangers and fears — not only during their term as general, but even once they'd come home again — found themselves besieged by their accusers no less than they'd been besieged by the enemy, so that some of them prayed never to have held command at all, rather than to have held it. If the dangers and hardships had actually led somewhere useful, there'd be some sense to it — but as it is, quite the opposite. You'll find the same pattern with children too — people who prayed to have them, and once they came, fell into the greatest misfortunes and griefs. Some, because their children turned out wicked through and through, spent their whole lives in grief; others, whose children turned out well but were then lost through misfortune, ended up no less unlucky than the first group, and would have preferred them never born at all rather than born and lost. And yet, even with these cases and countless others just like them staring us plainly in the face, it's rare to find anyone who'd refuse what's offered, or stop praying once they're on the verge of getting what they prayed for. Most people wouldn't refuse a tyranny if it were offered, or a generalship, or plenty of other things that do more harm than good once you have them — they'd pray to have them if they lacked them. But then, a little while later, they often sing a different tune, unpraying for the very things they first prayed for. So I really do wonder whether people are truly right to blame the gods, saying their troubles come from them, when it's the people themselves who, through their own recklessness — or shall we call it senselessness — bring on pains beyond what's fated for them. At any rate, Alcibiades, that poet seems to have been a wise one who, having some foolish friends, and seeing them doing and praying for things that weren't for the best, though they thought otherwise, composed a single prayer on behalf of all of them together. It goes something like this — 'Zeus our king, grant us what is good, whether we pray for it or not, and turn away what is harmful even if we pray for it.'
SOCRATES: Well, to me the poet seems to speak both well and safely. But if you have something in mind against it, don't keep quiet. ALCIBIADES: It's hard, Socrates, to argue against something so well said. Still, here's what occurs to me: think how much harm ignorance causes people, since it seems we're often unaware, because of it, that we're not only acting badly but even, in the end, praying for the worst things for ourselves. Nobody would think that of himself — everyone believes he's perfectly capable of praying for the best for himself, not the worst. That would be more like a curse than a prayer. SOCRATES: But perhaps, my excellent friend, someone wiser than either of us would say we're not right to blame ignorance so carelessly, unless we add that there's an ignorance of some things, and for some people, that's actually good, just as for others it's bad. ALCIBIADES: What do you mean? Is there really anything, in any condition, that it's better to not know than to know? SOCRATES: It seems so to me. Doesn't it to you? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, it doesn't. SOCRATES: But surely I won't accuse you of this either — of being willing to do to your own mother what they say Orestes did, and Alcmaeon, and anyone else who's done the same sort of thing. ALCIBIADES: Watch your words, Socrates, for god's sake! SOCRATES: It's not the one who says you wouldn't be willing to do that, Alcibiades, whose words need watching — it's much more the one who'd say the opposite, since you think the thing is so terrible it shouldn't even be mentioned so casually. Do you think that if Orestes had actually been sensible and known what was best for him to do, he'd have dared to do any of that? ALCIBIADES: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Nor would anyone else, I think. ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: So ignorance of what's best, and simply not knowing what's best, is a bad thing, it seems. ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: And that holds for him and for everyone else too? ALCIBIADES: I agree.
SOCRATES: Now let's look at this too. Suppose it occurred to you right now, thinking it would be better, to take a dagger and go to the door of Pericles, your guardian and friend, and ask if he's home, wanting to kill him and no one else. And suppose they said he was home — I'm not saying you'd be willing to do any of that, but suppose, as could happen, that it occurred to someone ignorant of what's best that even the worst thing was somehow the best — don't you think that's possible? ALCIBIADES: Certainly. SOCRATES: So if you went inside and saw him, but failed to recognize him and thought he was someone else, would you still dare to kill him? ALCIBIADES: No, by Zeus, I don't think I would. SOCRATES: Because it's surely not just anyone you happened to meet, but that particular man you wanted, isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: So even if you tried again and again, but always failed to recognize Pericles whenever you were about to do it, you'd never succeed. ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: And what about Orestes — do you think he'd ever have attacked his mother if he'd likewise failed to recognize her? ALCIBIADES: I don't think so. SOCRATES: Because he didn't intend to kill just any woman he happened to meet, or anyone's mother, but his own. ALCIBIADES: That's true. SOCRATES: So ignorance of such things is actually better for people in that condition, holding those kinds of beliefs. ALCIBIADES: It appears so. SOCRATES: You see, then, that ignorance of some things, for some people, is somehow a good, not a bad thing, as you thought a moment ago? ALCIBIADES: It seems so. SOCRATES: Now, if you're willing, let's examine what comes next — it might seem strange to you. ALCIBIADES: What in particular, Socrates? SOCRATES: That, so to speak, possessing any of the other sciences, if one possesses it without the knowledge of what's best, is likely to help rarely, but harm the possessor more often. Look at it this way. Doesn't it seem necessary to you that whenever we're about to do or say something, we must first think we know, or actually know, whatever it is we're about to say or do? ALCIBIADES: I think so.
SOCRATES: Now, the public speakers, when they advise us — some on war and peace, others on building walls or constructing harbors — in every case, whatever the city does toward another city or on its own, all of it comes from the advice of speakers, who either actually know how to advise, or think they know. ALCIBIADES: True. SOCRATES: Then look at what follows from this. ALCIBIADES: I'll try. SOCRATES: You call some people sensible, and others senseless? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: And the many senseless, the few sensible? ALCIBIADES: Just so. SOCRATES: And you're looking at something in particular when you say this of both? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Do you call someone sensible who knows how to advise, apart from knowing which course is better and when it's better? ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Nor, I think, anyone who knows how to make war itself, apart from knowing when it's better and for how long it's better. Isn't that so? ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: Nor even someone who knows how to kill a person, or take away his property, or exile him from his homeland, apart from knowing when that's better, and for whom it's better? ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: So whoever knows any of these things — if the knowledge of what's best goes along with it (and that, surely, is the same as the knowledge of what's beneficial, isn't it?) — ALCIBIADES: Yes. SOCRATES: — we'll call sensible, and a competent advisor both to the city and to himself; but whoever lacks that, the opposite. Or how does it seem to you? ALCIBIADES: That's how it seems to me. SOCRATES: And what if someone knows how to ride a horse, or shoot a bow, or again box or wrestle, or any other athletic skill, or anything else we know as a craft — what do you call someone who knows what makes for excellence within that particular craft? Don't you call the one skilled in horsemanship a horseman? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: And the one skilled in boxing a boxer, I suppose, and the one skilled in flute-playing a flute-player, and so on for the rest by the same reasoning? Or some other way? ALCIBIADES: No, that way. SOCRATES: Does it seem necessary to you, then, that someone knowledgeable in these things must also be a sensible man, or shall we say he falls far short of it? ALCIBIADES: Far short indeed, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Then what sort of government do you suppose it would be, made up of good archers and flute-players, and also athletes and other craftsmen, mixed in among them those we just mentioned who know war itself and killing itself, and besides these men of rhetoric puffed up with political self-importance — all of them lacking the knowledge of what's best, of knowing when it's better to make use of each of these skills and against whom?
ALCIBIADES: A poor sort of thing, I'd say, Socrates. SOCRATES: You'd say so, I think, whenever you saw each one of them competing for honor and claiming the largest share of public affairs for that thing at which he happens to be best — I mean, the thing that's best within his own particular craft — while as for what's best for the city and for himself, they've mostly missed it entirely, having trusted in mere opinion, I think, without understanding. Given this state of affairs, wouldn't we be right to say that such a government is full of great confusion and lawlessness? ALCIBIADES: Right indeed, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Didn't it seem necessary to us that, whenever we're about to do or say something, we must first think we know, or actually know, what we're about to do or say? ALCIBIADES: It did. SOCRATES: And if someone does what he knows, or thinks he knows, and benefit goes along with it, we'll turn out well both for the city and for ourselves? ALCIBIADES: Of course. SOCRATES: But if the opposite happens, neither the city nor ourselves will fare well? ALCIBIADES: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Well then — does it still seem the same way to you now, or differently? ALCIBIADES: No, the same way. SOCRATES: Didn't you say you call the many senseless, and the few sensible? ALCIBIADES: I did. SOCRATES: So we're saying again that the many have missed what's best, having trusted, for the most part, in mere opinion without understanding? ALCIBIADES: Yes, we are. SOCRATES: So it's actually to the advantage of the many neither to know anything nor to think they know anything, if indeed they'll be all the more eager to do whatever they know or think they know, and in doing it, be harmed more often than helped. ALCIBIADES: That's very true. SOCRATES: You see, then, when I said that possessing any of the other sciences is likely, if possessed without the knowledge of what's best, to help rarely and harm the possessor more often — wasn't I really speaking rightly? ALCIBIADES: Even if I didn't think so then, I think so now, Socrates.
SOCRATES: So both a city and a soul that intends to live rightly must hold fast to this knowledge, exactly as a sick man clings to a doctor, or one about to sail safely clings to some pilot. For without it, the more brilliantly fortune favors someone — whether in acquiring wealth, or bodily strength, or anything else of that kind — the greater, it seems, the errors that necessarily follow from it. And the man who has acquired what's called wide learning and many skills, but is orphaned of this knowledge, and is led about by each of the others individually — won't he justly meet with a great deal of stormy weather, sailing, as it were, without a pilot on the open sea, running through a course of life that isn't long? So it seems to me that here too what the poet says applies — accusing someone, I believe — that the man knew many things, but knew all of them badly. ALCIBIADES: And how does the poet's saying apply here, Socrates? To me it doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with the argument. SOCRATES: It has everything to do with it. But he's speaking in riddles, my excellent friend, as this poet and nearly all poets tend to do. For poetry as a whole is by nature riddling, and not something just anyone can understand. And beyond being naturally like that, when it falls into the hands of a man who's envious and unwilling to show us his wisdom, but hides it as much as possible, the thing appears extraordinarily hard to grasp — what each of them really means. For surely you don't think Homer, the most divine and wisest of poets, didn't know it was impossible to know something badly — for he's the one who says Margites knew many things, but knew all of them badly. No, he's speaking in riddles, I think, substituting 'badly' for 'bad' and 'knew' for 'to know.' Put together, it falls outside the meter, but what he means is this: that the man knew many things, but it was bad for him to know all of these things. And clearly, if knowing many things was bad for him, he must have been a worthless sort of person, if indeed we should trust what's been said before. ALCIBIADES: Well, it seems so to me, Socrates. I'd have a hard time trusting any other argument, if not even this one. SOCRATES: And you're right to think so. ALCIBIADES: So it seems to me again.
SOCRATES: Well, look here, for Zeus's sake—you see how great and how strange this perplexity is, and I think you've shared in it too. You keep shifting back and forth without ever stopping; whatever seems best to you at one moment, you slip right out of it and no longer think the same thing. So if the god you happen to be on your way to see appeared to you right now, before you'd prayed for anything at all, and asked whether it would satisfy you to get one of the things mentioned at the start, or whether he'd let you make your own prayer instead—what do you suppose would turn out better for you: taking what he offers, or praying for it yourself and hitting the right moment? ALCIBIADES: By the gods, Socrates, I honestly couldn't tell you which. It strikes me as a reckless thing to do, and truly one needing a great deal of caution, so that a person doesn't unknowingly pray for bad things while thinking they're good—and then, after a little while, as you were saying, sing a recantation, unpraying for whatever he first prayed for. SOCRATES: So doesn't the poet I mentioned at the start of our conversation know something more than we do, when he has people ask the gods, even in their prayers, to ward off foolish things? ALCIBIADES: I think so. SOCRATES: Well then, Alcibiades, the Spartans too, whether in admiration of this poet or having worked it out for themselves independently, pray a similar prayer on every occasion, both privately and publicly: they tell the gods to grant them what is fine along with what is good, and nothing more than that would you ever hear from any of them praying. And so, up to the present time, they are as fortunate as any people alive. And if it has happened that they don't get everything they want, that's certainly not because of their prayer—it's up to the gods, I think, whether to grant what someone happens to be praying for, or the opposite. I want to tell you something else too, which I once heard from some older men: how, when a quarrel broke out between the Athenians and the Spartans, it kept happening that our city, whenever a battle occurred, whether by land or sea, always came off badly and could never win. So the Athenians, angry about this and at a loss for some device to turn away their present troubles, decided in council that the best course was to send men to that famous oracle of Ammon and put a question to him—and, further, to ask this too: for what possible reason the gods were giving victory to the Spartans rather than to themselves, when—so they said—'we perform more sacrifices, and finer ones, than any other Greeks, and we've decked out their temples with offerings as no one else has, and every year we've given the gods the most costly and most solemn processions, and we've spent on this more money than all the rest of the Greeks combined.'
SOCRATES: 'But the Spartans,' he said, 'have never once cared about any of this—they're so casual in their attitude toward the gods that they sacrifice maimed animals every single time, and in everything else they honor them not a little more meagerly than we do, even though they own no less wealth than our own city.' When they had said all this and asked what they should do to find relief from their present troubles, the prophet gave no other answer at all—clearly the god wouldn't allow it—but calling the man forward, he said: 'This is what Ammon says to the Athenians: he would rather have the Spartans' reverent silence than all the sacred offerings of all the Greeks put together.' That was all he said, nothing further. Now it seems to me that by 'reverent silence' the god means nothing other than their prayer—for it really is very different from everyone else's. The rest of the Greeks bring forward oxen with gilded horns, or make gifts of offerings to the gods, and pray for whatever comes to mind, whether good or bad; and the gods, hearing them speak such irreverent nonsense, refuse to accept these costly processions and sacrifices of theirs. It seems to me this calls for a great deal of caution and careful thought about what one should and shouldn't say. You'll find similar things said in Homer too. He tells how the Trojans, making camp, 'offered up perfect hecatombs to the immortals'; and the winds carried the savor sweet from the plain up into the sky; but the blessed gods would have none of it, nor did they wish to, for holy Ilium was hateful to them, and Priam, and the people of Priam of the fine ash spear. And so it did them no good at all to sacrifice and offer gifts, since it was in vain, hated as they were by the gods. For I don't think the gods are the sort to be led astray by gifts, like some crooked moneylender. No, we too are talking nonsense when we suppose the Spartans get the better of us that way. It would be a strange thing indeed if the gods looked to our gifts and sacrifices rather than to the soul, and whether a person happens to be devout and just.
SOCRATES: I think they look to that far more than to these costly processions and sacrifices, which nothing stops a person or a city who has committed many wrongs, both against gods and against men, from performing every single year. But the gods, since they can't be bribed, look down on all of this, as the god and his prophet say. It seems, then, that both among gods and among sensible men, justice and wisdom are held in the highest honor above all else; and the only ones who are wise and just are those who know what must be done and said, both toward the gods and toward men. I'd like to hear from you, too, what you now have in mind about all this. ALCIBIADES: Well, Socrates, it seems no different to me than it does to you and to the god—it wouldn't be right for me to cast a vote against the god. SOCRATES: And don't you remember saying you were in great perplexity over how not to catch yourself praying for bad things while thinking they were good? ALCIBIADES: I do. SOCRATES: So you see how unsafe it is for you to go to the god to pray, in case, hearing you say something irreverent, he refuses to accept this sacrifice of yours at all, even if you happen to pray so—and you might even come away with some further harm besides. So it seems to me best to stay quiet for now. As for the Spartans' prayer—out of sheer greatness of soul, which is the finest name one can give to a kind of folly—I don't imagine you'd be willing to use it. So it's necessary to wait until someone teaches you how you must be disposed toward gods and toward men. ALCIBIADES: And when will that time come, Socrates, and who will be the one to teach me? I'd be delighted to see who this person is. SOCRATES: It's the one who cares about you. But it seems to me that, just as Homer says Athena removed the mist from Diomedes' eyes so that he could clearly tell god from man, so too you need someone to remove first the mist that now happens to be over your soul, and only then bring forward the things by which you'll come to know both bad and good. As it stands now, you don't seem to me capable of it. ALCIBIADES: Let him remove it, whether it's the mist or anything else—I'm prepared to refuse nothing that he commands, whoever this man turns out to be, provided that I'm going to become better.
SOCRATES: Well, he certainly has an astonishing eagerness where you're concerned. ALCIBIADES: In that case, I think it's best to put off the sacrifice until then. SOCRATES: And you're right to think so—it's safer than running such a risk. ALCIBIADES: But how shall I put it, Socrates? Look, since you seem to have advised me well, I'll set this garland here on your head. As for the gods, we'll give them garlands and all the customary things once I see that day arrive. And it won't be long in coming, if they're willing. SOCRATES: Well, I accept this too, and I'd gladly see myself receiving anything else you might give me. Just as Euripides has Creon, on seeing Tiresias wearing garlands and hearing that he'd taken them as first-fruits from the enemy on account of his art, say: 'I take your garlands of splendid victory as an omen, for we are caught in a storm, as you know'—so too I take this opinion of yours as an omen for myself. And I think I'm in no smaller a storm than Creon was, and I'd like to come off a splendid victor over your other lovers.
SOCRATES: So what is love of gain? What exactly is it, and who are the people who love gain? COMPANION: To me it seems to be those who think it right to profit from things worth nothing. SOCRATES: Do you mean that they know these things are worth nothing, or that they're ignorant of it? If they're ignorant, then you're calling the gain-lovers foolish. COMPANION: No, I don't mean foolish — I mean unscrupulous and wicked, slaves to profit, people who know perfectly well that the things they dare to profit from are worth nothing, yet who dare to chase gain anyway, out of sheer shamelessness. SOCRATES: So is this the sort of thing you mean by a gain-lover — say, a farmer planting a crop, knowing the plant is worth nothing, who still expects to profit once it's grown? Is that the kind of person you mean? COMPANION: A true gain-lover, Socrates, thinks he ought to profit from absolutely anything. SOCRATES: Don't just answer me carelessly, as though someone had wronged you — pay attention and answer as if I were asking you from the beginning again. Don't you agree that the gain-lover has knowledge of the worth of the thing he expects to profit from? COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: Then who has knowledge of the worth of plants — of the season and the soil in which they're worth planting? Let's throw in a bit of clever language ourselves, the sort skilled speakers dress up their courtroom speeches with. COMPANION: A farmer, I'd think. SOCRATES: And by 'thinking it right to profit,' do you mean anything other than believing one ought to profit? COMPANION: That's what I mean.
SOCRATES: Then don't try to deceive me — a man well along in years — while you're still so young, by answering as you just did with things you don't even believe yourself. Tell me the truth: is there anyone who, being a farmer and knowing that the plant he's planting is worth nothing, still expects to profit from it? COMPANION: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: What about this — a horseman who knows the feed he gives his horse is worthless: do you think he's unaware that he's ruining the horse? COMPANION: Not I. SOCRATES: So he doesn't expect to profit from feed that's worth nothing. COMPANION: No. SOCRATES: What about a helmsman who's fitted his ship with sails and rudder that are worthless — do you think he's unaware that he'll suffer for it, and risk losing himself, his ship, and everything it carries? COMPANION: Not I. SOCRATES: So he doesn't expect to profit from gear that's worth nothing. COMPANION: No, he doesn't. SOCRATES: And a general who knows his army is armed with worthless weapons — does he expect to profit from that, does he think it right to profit? COMPANION: Not at all. SOCRATES: Or a flute-player with worthless flutes, or a lyre-player with a worthless lyre, or an archer with a worthless bow, or anyone else at all — any craftsman, or any other sensible person — with equipment or supplies of any kind that are worthless — does he expect to profit from them? COMPANION: It doesn't look like it. SOCRATES: Then who exactly do you mean by the gain-lovers? Surely not the people we've just gone through — but people who, knowing things are worth nothing, still think they ought to profit from them. But if that's what you mean, my astonishing friend, then there's no such thing as a gain-lover among human beings at all. COMPANION: Well, Socrates, what I want to say is that the gain-lovers are people who, out of sheer insatiability, crave and chase profit from things that are very small, worth little or nothing, in an excessive way. SOCRATES: Surely not knowing that these things are worth nothing, my good man — because we've already refuted ourselves on that point and shown it's impossible. COMPANION: I think so too. SOCRATES: So if they don't know it, clearly they're ignorant, and they believe that things worth nothing are worth a great deal. COMPANION: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then isn't it true that gain-lovers love gain? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And by gain you mean the opposite of loss?
COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: Is there anyone for whom being harmed is a good thing? COMPANION: For no one. SOCRATES: It's a bad thing, then? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So people are harmed by loss. COMPANION: They're harmed. SOCRATES: Loss, then, is a bad thing. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And gain is the opposite of loss. COMPANION: The opposite. SOCRATES: Gain, then, is a good thing. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So you call people who love the good 'gain-lovers.' COMPANION: It seems so. SOCRATES: You're not calling the gain-lovers crazy, then, my friend. But tell me — do you yourself love whatever is good, or not? COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: And is there something good that you don't love, but rather something bad? COMPANION: No, by Zeus, not I. SOCRATES: So you love all good things, presumably. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, ask me the same question — whether I do too. I'll agree that I also love good things. But besides you and me, don't all other people seem to you to love good things and hate bad ones? COMPANION: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: And we agreed that gain is a good thing? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then in this sense, everyone turns out to be a gain-lover — whereas by the way we spoke of it before, no one was a gain-lover. Which account, then, would one use without making a mistake? COMPANION: I think, Socrates, one has to grasp the gain-lover correctly. And the correct way to think of him is as someone who takes trouble over these things and thinks it right to profit from things which decent people wouldn't dare profit from. SOCRATES: But look here, my sweetest friend — we just agreed that profiting is being benefited. COMPANION: What of it? SOCRATES: Because we also agreed to this: that everyone, always, wants good things. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then don't good people also want to have all the gains there are, if they really are good things? COMPANION: Not the gains they expect to be harmed by, Socrates. SOCRATES: By 'harmed,' do you mean 'suffer loss,' or something else? COMPANION: No, I mean suffer loss. SOCRATES: So are people harmed by gain, or by loss? COMPANION: By both — they're harmed by loss, and also by bad gain. SOCRATES: Does it seem to you, then, that a decent, good thing can be bad? COMPANION: Not to me.
SOCRATES: But didn't we agree a little earlier that gain, being bad, is the opposite of loss? COMPANION: I did say that. SOCRATES: And that being the opposite of something bad, it's good? COMPANION: Yes, we agreed to that. SOCRATES: You see, then, you're trying to deceive me, saying the opposite on purpose of what we just agreed. COMPANION: No, by Zeus, Socrates — it's the other way around, you're deceiving me, and I don't know how you keep twisting the argument up and down. SOCRATES: Hush — that would be a poor thing for me to do, disobeying a good and wise man. COMPANION: Who's this? And about what exactly? SOCRATES: A fellow citizen of mine and yours, the son of Peisistratus, of the deme Philaidai — Hipparchus, the eldest and wisest of the sons of Peisistratus. He accomplished many other fine feats of wisdom, and he was the first to bring Homer's poems into this land of ours, compelling the rhapsodes at the Panathenaea to recite them in relay, one picking up where the last left off, just as they still do today. He also sent a fifty-oared ship to fetch Anacreon of Teos and brought him to the city, and he kept Simonides of Ceos constantly by his side, winning him over with great fees and gifts. He did all this because he wanted to educate the citizens, so that he might rule over the best people possible — for he didn't think it right to withhold wisdom from anyone, being the fine and noble man that he was. Once the citizens in the city itself had been educated by him and admired him for his wisdom, he set out, with a further scheme, to educate those in the countryside as well: he set up herms for them along the roads, in the middle of the city and of each of the townships, and then, choosing from his own wisdom — both what he had learned and what he had discovered himself — whatever he judged wisest, he cast it into elegiac verse and inscribed it as his own compositions and displays of wisdom. His purpose was, first, so that his citizens wouldn't admire those wise sayings at Delphi — 'know thyself' and 'nothing too much' and the rest of that sort — but would think Hipparchus's own words wiser still; and second, so that as they walked back and forth reading them and getting a taste of his wisdom, they would keep coming in from the countryside for the rest of their education as well.
SOCRATES: There are two inscriptions on each herm. On the left side is written, in the voice of Hermes himself, that he stands in the middle of the city and the township; on the right side it says — 'This is the monument of Hipparchus: walk on, thinking just thoughts.' There are many other fine verses of his inscribed on other herms too. There's also this one, on the road to Steiria, which says — 'This is the monument of Hipparchus: do not deceive a friend.' Now I, since you're a friend of mine, would surely never dare to deceive you, nor distrust a man of that character — a man whose death cost the Athenians three years of tyranny under his brother Hippias, and you'd hear from everyone of the old generation that those were the only years tyranny ever existed in Athens; the rest of the time the Athenians lived very nearly as they did in the reign of Cronus. And it's said by the more refined sort of people that his death didn't happen for the reason most people think — because of the insult to his sister over carrying the ceremonial basket (that account is simply silly) — but rather that Harmodius had become the beloved of Aristogeiton and had been educated by him, and Aristogeiton took great pride in having educated him, and so came to regard Hipparchus as a rival. At that time it happened that Harmodius himself was in love with one of the young, handsome, well-born men of the day — they say his name, but I don't remember it — and this young man, who had for a while admired Harmodius and Aristogeiton as wise men, later, after spending time with Hipparchus, came to look down on them; and stung with resentment at this slight, the two of them killed Hipparchus. COMPANION: It looks, then, Socrates, as though either you don't consider me a friend, or, if you do, you're not obeying Hipparchus — because I simply cannot bring myself to believe that you aren't deceiving me in these arguments, though I can't say how you're doing it. SOCRATES: Well then, just as in a game of checkers, I'm willing to let you take back any move of our argument you like, so you won't feel deceived. Shall I grant you this — that not all people desire good things? COMPANION: Not that one. SOCRATES: Or that suffering loss and loss itself aren't bad? COMPANION: Not that one either. SOCRATES: Or that gain and profit aren't the opposite of loss and suffering loss?
COMPANION: Not that one either. SOCRATES: Or that, being the opposite of what's bad, profiting isn't good? COMPANION: Not all of it, anyway — grant me that one. SOCRATES: So it seems to you that some gain is good, and some gain is bad. COMPANION: Yes, to me. SOCRATES: Then I grant you this: let there be some gain that's good, and some other gain that's bad. But neither one is gain any more than the other — isn't that so? COMPANION: How do you mean, ask me that? SOCRATES: I'll explain. Is there such a thing as food that's good and food that's bad? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Is one of them any more food than the other, or are they alike in this respect — both of them food — and in that respect there's no difference between the one and the other, in being food, though one of them is good and the other bad? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And likewise with drink and everything else, all the things which, being the same kind of thing, turn out to be sometimes good and sometimes bad — isn't it true that neither one differs from the other in the respect in which they're the same thing? Just as a person, I suppose, is sometimes decent and sometimes wicked. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: But a person, I think, is no more or less a person than another — neither the decent one more of a person than the wicked one, nor the wicked one more than the decent one. COMPANION: True. SOCRATES: So shouldn't we think the same way about gain — that gain is equally gain, whether it's wicked or decent? COMPANION: It must be so. SOCRATES: So the one who has decent gain doesn't gain any more than the one who has wicked gain — neither turns out to be more of a gain, as we've agreed. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Because neither one of them has more or less attaching to it. COMPANION: No, indeed. SOCRATES: How, then, could anyone do or undergo anything more or less with a thing like that, to which neither more nor less attaches? COMPANION: Impossible. SOCRATES: Since, then, both kinds of gain are alike gains and profitable, we need to examine this — what is it you're looking at, the same in both, that makes you call them both gain? It's just as if, when you were just now asking me why I call both good food and bad food alike food, I told you it's because both are dry nourishment for the body — that's why. That's what makes something food, and you'd surely agree with us on that. Wouldn't you? COMPANION: I would.
SOCRATES: And the same style of answer would work for drink too, wouldn't it — that whatever serves as the body's liquid nourishment, whether good or bad, is called by this name, drink. And so with the rest. Try to imitate me and answer that way yourself. You say that good profit and bad profit are both called profit — what is it you see as the same thing in them both, that makes you call this, too, profit? But if you can't answer that yourself, look at it while I put it: do you mean by profit any acquisition a person gets either by spending nothing at all, or by spending less and getting more? COMPANION: Yes, that's what I think I'd call profit. SOCRATES: And do you also mean cases like this — if someone is given a feast, and spends nothing but is well entertained, and comes away with a disease? COMPANION: No, by Zeus, not that. SOCRATES: But if he came away from the feast with good health instead, would he have gained a profit or a loss? COMPANION: A profit. SOCRATES: So this, at least, isn't what profit is — getting hold of just any acquisition whatsoever. COMPANION: No, apparently not. SOCRATES: Is it that it isn't profit if the thing is bad? Or is it that even if someone acquires something good, whatever it is, he still won't have gotten a profit? COMPANION: It looks like he will, if it's something good. SOCRATES: And if it's bad, won't he have gotten a loss? COMPANION: I think so. SOCRATES: Do you see, then, how you're circling right back to the same place? Profit turns out to be good, and loss turns out to be bad. COMPANION: I'm at a loss what to say. SOCRATES: And you're not wrong to be at a loss. Now answer me this too: if someone spends less and gets more, do you say that's profit? COMPANION: I don't mean it that way if the thing is bad — I mean if he spends less gold or silver and gets more back. SOCRATES: Well, that's exactly what I'm about to ask you about. Suppose someone spends half a pound weight of gold and gets back double that in silver — has he gotten a profit or a loss? COMPANION: A loss, surely, Socrates — because instead of gold worth twelve times as much, he ends up with something worth only twice as much. SOCRATES: And yet he's gotten more — isn't double more than half? COMPANION: Not in value, at least — not silver compared to gold. SOCRATES: So it seems this has to be added to the notion of profit — value. At any rate, right now you're saying that the silver, though it's more in quantity than the gold, isn't worth as much, while the gold, though it's less, is worth more. COMPANION: Quite so — that's exactly how it is. SOCRATES: So what has value is profitable, whether it's small or large, and what lacks value brings no profit. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And by 'has value' you mean nothing other than 'is worth acquiring'? COMPANION: Yes, worth acquiring. SOCRATES: And again, by 'worth acquiring' do you mean what's useless, or what's beneficial? COMPANION: What's beneficial, surely.
SOCRATES: And isn't the beneficial good? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So then, bravest of men, hasn't what's profitable turned out, for the third or fourth time now, to be simply the same thing as the good, by our own agreement? COMPANION: So it seems. SOCRATES: Do you remember, then, where this discussion of ours started? COMPANION: I think so. SOCRATES: If not, I'll remind you. You objected to my claim, insisting that good men don't want to profit from every kind of profit, but only from the good kinds, not the bad ones. COMPANION: That's right. SOCRATES: Well, hasn't the argument now forced us to agree that every profit, small or large alike, is good? COMPANION: It has forced me, Socrates — forced, rather than persuaded. SOCRATES: But perhaps it will go on to persuade you too. For now, though, whether you're persuaded or in whatever state you're in, you do at least agree with us that all profits are good, both small and large. COMPANION: Yes, I agree to that. SOCRATES: And you agree that all good men want all good things — don't they? COMPANION: I agree. SOCRATES: But you yourself said that bad men are fond of profits too, both small and large. COMPANION: I did say that. SOCRATES: So by your own account, all men would be lovers of profit, both the good and the bad. COMPANION: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then it isn't right for anyone to reproach another by calling him a lover of profit — since the very person making the accusation turns out to be that sort of person himself.
I went into the school of Dionysius the grammar teacher, and there I saw some of the young men who seemed to be the most respectable in appearance and had the most distinguished fathers, and along with them their lovers. As it happened, two of the boys were arguing, though I couldn't quite make out about what. But it looked like they were arguing about Anaxagoras or Oenopides, since they seemed to be drawing circles and imitating certain angles of inclination with their hands, tilting them and looking very serious about it. Now I was sitting next to the lover of one of them, so I nudged him with my elbow and asked what in the world had these two boys so worked up, and I said, "Surely it must be something great and fine, that they've thrown themselves into it so seriously?" And he said, "Great and fine? Hardly. These two just chatter endlessly about things in the sky and talk nonsense while playing at philosophy." I was surprised by his answer and said, "Young man, do you think philosophizing is shameful? Or why do you speak of it so harshly?" And the other one—who happened to be sitting nearby, being the rival lover—when he heard me ask and the first one answer, said, "It's beneath you, Socrates, to even ask him whether he thinks philosophy is shameful. Don't you know that this fellow has spent his whole life with his neck bent back, stuffing himself, and sleeping? So what did you expect him to answer except that philosophy is shameful?" Now of these two lovers, this one had spent his time on music, and the other, whom he was insulting, on athletics. And it seemed to me best to let the one go—the one being questioned—since he himself made no claim to expertise in arguments but only in practical matters, and instead to question further the one who claimed to be wiser, so that I might get some benefit from him if I could. So I said, "I put the question to both of you in common. But if you think you could answer better than he did, I'll ask you the very same thing I asked him: does it seem to you that philosophizing is a fine thing or not?"
While we were saying more or less this, the two boys, having overheard us, fell silent, and having stopped their own dispute, became listeners to ours. Now I don't know what happened to the lovers, but as for myself, I was struck dumb—I'm always struck that way by the young and the beautiful. Still, the other man seemed no less anxious than I was; nevertheless he did answer me, and quite ambitiously too. "Look, Socrates," he said, "if I ever thought philosophizing was shameful, I wouldn't consider myself a human being, nor anyone else who felt that way"—pointing at his rival as he said this, and speaking in a loud voice so that his darling could hear him clearly. And I said, "So philosophizing seems to you a fine thing?" "Absolutely," he said. "Well then," I said, "do you think it's possible to know whether any given thing is fine or shameful, when one doesn't even know from the start what it is?" "No," he said. "Then you know," I said, "what philosophizing is?" "Certainly," he said. "So what is it?" I asked. "What else could it be but what Solon says? For Solon said somewhere—'I grow old always learning many things'—and I think it's the same way for anyone who's going to be a philosopher: he must always be learning something, whether younger or older, so that he learns as much as possible in his life." At first this struck me as saying something worthwhile, but then, thinking it over, I asked him whether he considered philosophy to be the same as learning many things. And he said, "Absolutely." "But do you think philosophy is only fine, or also good?" I asked. "Good too," he said, "very much so." "Then do you see this as something particular to philosophy, or does it seem to you to hold in other cases as well? For instance, do you think a love of athletics is not only fine but also good—or not?" And he said, quite ironically, two things: "As for this fellow here, let me say neither; but to you, Socrates, I admit it's both fine and good, since I think that's the right view." So I asked, "Then do you also think that working hard in the gymnasium is the same thing as loving athletics?" And he said, "Certainly, just as I think that learning many things is the same as philosophizing." And I said, "Do you think those who love athletics desire anything other than this: that it will make their bodies fit?" "That's it," he said. "And does a great deal of exertion," I said, "make the body fit?"
"How could someone get their body into good condition from just a little exertion?" he said. And it seemed to me the moment had come to bring in the lover of athletics, so he could help me with his experience in gymnastics. So I asked him, "And why are you so silent with us, my good man, while he's saying all this? Do you too think people's bodies get fit from a great deal of exertion, or from a moderate amount?" "For my part, Socrates," he said, "I would have thought even a pig could grasp what's being said here—that moderate exertion makes bodies fit. So why wouldn't it be so, when we can see a man who's sleepless, unfed, has a stiff neck from disuse, and is thin from worry?" And when he said this, the boys were delighted and laughed, and the other one blushed. And I said, "Well then? Do you now agree that it's neither a great deal nor a small amount of exertion that makes people's bodies fit, but the moderate amount? Or will you fight the two of us on this point?" And he said, "Against this fellow here, I'd gladly do battle, and I'm quite confident I could hold up the position I set out, even if I'd set out an even weaker one—since there's nothing to it anyway. But with you, Socrates, I have no wish to argue against my own opinion just for the sake of winning; I agree that it's not a great deal but a moderate amount of exercise that produces good condition in people." "And what about food? Moderate or abundant?" I asked. And he agreed about food too. And I went on pressing him to agree that all the other things concerning the body are most beneficial in moderate amounts, not great or small ones—and he agreed that it was the moderate amount. "And what," I said, "about things concerning the soul? Do moderate or immoderate amounts of what's brought to it do good?" "The moderate," he said. "Then isn't one of the things brought to the soul learning itself?" He agreed. "And so it's the moderate amount of this too that benefits, not a great deal?" He agreed. "Then who could we rightly ask, to find out what sort of moderate exertion and food is right for the body?" We agreed, the three of us, that it would be a doctor or a trainer. "And who, about the sowing of seed, could tell us how much is moderate?" And we agreed that this too would be the farmer. "And who, if we ask about the planting and sowing of learning in the soul, could we rightly ask how much and what kind is moderate?"
At this point we were all utterly at a loss. So I teased them a bit and asked, "Would you like us, since we're stuck, to ask these boys here? Or are we perhaps ashamed, like Homer said of the suitors, who didn't think any other man was worthy to string the bow?" Since they seemed discouraged by the discussion, I tried a different approach and said, "What sort of subjects, then, do we guess are the ones a philosopher must learn, since it clearly isn't all of them, nor even many?" So the wiser of the two spoke up and said that the finest and most fitting subjects of learning were those from which a person would gain the greatest reputation for philosophy; and he would gain the greatest reputation if he appeared to have expertise in all the crafts, or failing that, in as many as possible, and especially the most worthwhile ones, learning from them what is fitting for a free man to learn—that is, what belongs to understanding, not to manual skill. "So do you mean something like this," I said, "as in carpentry? There you could hire a carpenter for five or six minas, but you couldn't get a master architect for even ten thousand drachmas—and even across all of Greece there'd be very few of them. Is that the sort of thing you mean?" And having heard me, he agreed that this was indeed what he meant. So I asked him whether it wasn't impossible for the same person to learn even just two crafts thoroughly in this way, let alone many great ones. And he said, "Don't take me to mean, Socrates, that the philosopher must know each of the crafts as precisely as the man who actually practices it, but rather as befits a free and educated man—able to follow what's said by the craftsman better than the ordinary bystander, and to contribute his own judgment, so that he comes across as the most graceful and the wisest of those present whenever crafts are being discussed or practiced." And I, still unsure what exactly he meant, said, "Do I understand you rightly? It seems to me you mean the philosopher is like the pentathletes are in relation to runners or wrestlers in competition. For those athletes fall short of the specialists when it comes to the specialists' own events, and come in second to them, but they're first among all other athletes and beat them."
"Perhaps you mean something like that," I went on, "and that philosophizing produces in those who pursue it a similar result: falling short of the leaders in understanding of the crafts, but coming out ahead of everyone else by taking second place, and so the man who has philosophized becomes a sort of all-around runner-up in everything. That's the kind of thing you seem to be pointing to." "You seem to me to have grasped the matter about the philosopher quite well, Socrates," he said, "by comparing him to the pentathlete. For he's exactly the sort of man who is slave to no single pursuit, nor has worked hard at precision in anything, so that through devotion to any one thing he'd fall behind in all the others, as the craftsmen do, but instead has a moderate grasp of everything." After this answer, wanting to know clearly what he meant, I asked him whether he thought good men were useful or useless. "Useful, surely, Socrates," he said. "Then if the good are useful, are the worthless useless?" He agreed. "Well then? Do you consider philosophical men useful or not?" And he agreed they were useful, and in fact said he thought them the most useful of all. "Come, then, let's find out whether what you say is true—where and for what are these all-around runners-up useful to us? For clearly, compared with each man who has mastery of a craft, the philosopher is inferior." He agreed. "Come then," I said, "if you happened to fall ill yourself, or one of your friends whom you care about greatly, would you, wanting to regain health, bring that all-around philosopher into your house, or would you get the doctor?" "Both, I'd say," he answered. "Don't tell me both," I said, "but which one more, and which one first." "No one," he said, "would dispute that it's the doctor, both more and first." "And what about this: on a ship in a storm, to which of the two would you rather entrust yourself and your belongings—the helmsman or the philosopher?" "The helmsman, for my part." "And so it is with everything else in the same way: as long as there's a craftsman for the job, the philosopher is not useful?" "So it appears," he said. "So right now the philosopher turns out to be useless to us? For we always have craftsmen at hand; and we agreed that the good are useful, and the worthless useless." He was forced to agree. "What then comes next? Shall I ask you something, or is it too rude a question to ask?—Ask whatever you like."
"All I'm after," I said, "is getting us to agree with what's already been said. Here's how it stands. We agreed that philosophy is admirable, and that we ourselves are philosophers; that philosophers are good, and the good are useful, while the worthless are useless. And again, we agreed that philosophers, so long as the craftsmen exist, are useless — and the craftsmen will always exist. Isn't that what we agreed?" "Certainly," he said. "So it seems, by your own account, that if practicing philosophy means having expert knowledge of the crafts in the way you describe, then we're worthless and useless, for as long as there are crafts among human beings. But, my friend, perhaps that isn't how things stand, and that isn't what practicing philosophy is — busying oneself over the crafts, and living as some officious, prying, overlearned person — but something else, since I used to think this very thing was actually a reproach, and that people devoted to the crafts were called vulgar. We'll see more clearly whether I'm right if you answer this: who knows how to discipline horses correctly? Isn't it whoever can make them best?" "Whoever can make them best." "And dogs — isn't it those who know how to make them best who also know how to discipline them correctly?" "Yes." "So the same skill both makes them best and disciplines them correctly?" "It seems so to me," he said. "And again: is it the same skill that makes them best and disciplines them correctly, that also recognizes the good ones and the bad ones — or a different one?" "The same," he said. "Will you agree, then, that this holds for human beings too — that whatever makes people best is also what disciplines them correctly and discerns the good from the worthless?" "Certainly," he said. "And whatever knows one, knows many, and whatever knows many, knows one?" "Yes." "And this holds for horses and for everything else in the same way?" "I agree." "So what is the knowledge that correctly disciplines those in our cities who behave lawlessly and break the laws? Isn't it the judicial art?" "Yes." "And do you call this anything other than justice?" "No, this very thing." "So whatever it is by which people discipline correctly, is that also what lets them recognize the good and the worthless?" "The same." "And whoever knows one will come to know many?" "Yes." "And whoever is ignorant of many is also ignorant of one?" "I agree." "So if a horse were ignorant of good and bad horses, it would also be ignorant of what sort it itself is?" "I agree." "And if an ox were ignorant of good and bad oxen, it would be ignorant of what sort it itself is?" "Yes," he said. "And likewise for a dog?" He agreed.
"Well then — when a human being is ignorant of good and worthless human beings, isn't he ignorant of whether he himself is good or worthless, since he too is a human being?" He conceded this. "And is being ignorant of oneself being sound-minded, or not being sound-minded?" "Not being sound-minded." "So knowing oneself is being sound-minded?" "I agree," he said. "This, it seems, is what the inscription at Delphi is urging — to practice sound-mindedness and justice." "So it seems." "And it's by this same knowledge that we know how to discipline correctly?" "Yes." "So insofar as we know how to discipline correctly, that is justice; and insofar as we discern both ourselves and others, that is sound-mindedness?" "So it seems," he said. "Then justice and sound-mindedness are the same thing?" "It appears so." "And indeed cities too are well governed this way, whenever wrongdoers pay the penalty." "True," he said. "So this same thing is also statesmanship." He agreed. "And when one man governs a city correctly, isn't the name for him tyrant, and also king?" "Yes." "So he governs by the royal art and the tyrannical art?" "Just so." "And are these the very same skills as the ones before?" "They appear to be." "And when one man manages a household correctly, what is his name? Isn't it householder and master?" "Yes." "And does he manage the household well by justice, or by some other skill?" "By justice." "So it seems, then, that king, tyrant, statesman, householder, master, the sound-minded man, and the just man are one and the same. And there is one single skill — the royal, the tyrannical, the political, the masterly, the household-managing, justice, and sound-mindedness." "So it appears," he said. "Now then — is it shameful for the philosopher, whenever a doctor says something about the sick, to be unable either to follow what's said or to contribute anything about what's said or done — and likewise whenever any other craftsman speaks — while it's not shameful, when a judge or a king or any of those we've just gone through speaks, to be unable either to follow or to contribute anything on those matters?" "How could it not be shameful, Socrates, to have nothing to contribute on such important affairs?" "So should we say, then, that on these matters too the philosopher must be a pentathlete and a runner-up — coming in second to everyone else in this, and remaining useless as long as anyone surpasses him — or rather that, first, he must not hand over the management of his own household to another, nor settle for second place in that, but must himself discipline it, judging correctly, if his own household is to be well managed?" He conceded this to me.
"And then, of course, whether his friends entrust their disputes to him, or the city assigns him some case to decide or judge, isn't it shameful, my friend, for him to appear second or third in these matters, rather than taking the lead?" "I think so." "So we're far, it seems, my excellent friend, from thinking that practicing philosophy is the same as being widely learned or busying oneself with the crafts." When I had said this, the clever one fell silent, ashamed at what had been said before, while the simple one said that was indeed how things were; and the others praised what had been said.
DEMODOCUS: Socrates, I wanted to have a word with you privately, if you have the time. And even if you're rather busy, do make time for me anyway. SOCRATES: As it happens I'm free anyway, and especially for you. If there's something you want to say, go ahead. DEMODOCUS: Would you like us to step out of the way, over there into the Portico of Zeus the Liberator? SOCRATES: Whatever you think best. DEMODOCUS: Let's go, then. Socrates, I think all growing things are alike in this respect, both the plants that spring from the earth and living creatures in general, including man. With plants, at least, those of us who work the land find it easy enough to do everything that comes before planting, and the planting itself. But once the thing planted is alive, after that the care of what has grown becomes a long, hard, and troublesome business. It seems to me the same holds for human beings, and I judge the rest of the world by my own affairs. This son of mine here — whether we should call it planting or begetting — was the easiest thing in the world for me, but raising him has been difficult, and I'm constantly afraid for him. There would be a great deal to say about it, but what frightens me most right now is his present desire — it isn't an ignoble one, but it's dangerous. He has set his heart, Socrates, so he tells me, on becoming wise. I suspect some of his age-mates and fellow demesmen who go down into the city have been repeating certain talk that unsettles him, talk he has come to admire, and for some time now he has been pestering me, insisting that I look after him and pay money to some sophist who will make him wise. It isn't the money I mind so much — it's that I think he's rushing toward no small danger.
DEMODOCUS: Up to now I've held him back by talking him out of it. But since I can no longer manage that, I think the best course is to give in to him, so that he doesn't go off keeping company with someone without my knowledge and get corrupted. So I've come here for exactly this reason, to find one of these men who have a reputation as sophists and put him in his company. And you've turned up just at the right moment — you're the very person I most wanted to consult before doing anything about this. So if you have any advice to give, based on what you've heard from me, you may give it, and indeed you should. SOCRATES: Well, Demodocus, they do say that advice is a sacred thing. And if any advice is sacred, this kind you're now asking for would be — for there's nothing about which a person could deliberate more godlike than about the upbringing of himself and of those who belong to him. So first let's agree, you and I, on just what we take this thing to be that we're deliberating about, so that it doesn't happen that I understand one thing by it and you another, and then somewhere along in our conversation we notice we've been ridiculous — I giving advice and you receiving it — each of us assuming something different. DEMODOCUS: I think you're right, Socrates, and that's how we should proceed. SOCRATES: And I am right — though not entirely; I want to shift the ground a little. It occurs to me that this young man here may not desire the very thing we assume he desires, but something else, in which case we would be even more absurd, deliberating about some other matter altogether. So it seems to me most correct to begin from this very point, asking him thoroughly just what it is he desires. DEMODOCUS: That does seem the best way, as you say. SOCRATES: Tell me then, what is the young man's good name? What should we call him? DEMODOCUS: His name is Theages, Socrates. SOCRATES: A fine name you've given your son, Demodocus, and a fitting one. Now tell us, Theages — you say you desire to become wise, and you're asking your father here to find you the company of some man who will make you wise? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And by wise, do you mean those who have knowledge — knowledge of whatever it is they're knowledgeable about — or those who don't? THEAGES: Those who have knowledge, I mean. SOCRATES: Well then — didn't your father teach you and have you educated in everything the other sons of fine, upstanding fathers here are educated in — letters, and the lyre, and wrestling, and the rest of athletic training? THEAGES: He did.
SOCRATES: Do you think, then, that some further knowledge is still missing, one your father ought to have taken care of on your behalf? THEAGES: I do. SOCRATES: What is it? Tell us too, so we can help you get it. THEAGES: He knows too, Socrates — I've told him many times — but he says this to you deliberately, as if he didn't know what I desire. He fights me the same way on other things too, and won't put me in anyone's company. SOCRATES: Well, whatever you said to him before was said, so to speak, without witnesses. But now make me a witness, and tell me openly what this wisdom is that you desire. Consider: if you desired the skill by which men pilot ships, and I happened to ask you, 'Theages, what skill are you lacking that makes you blame your father for refusing to put you with people who could make you wise in it?' — what would you have answered me? What would you say it was? Wouldn't it be seamanship? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And if you desired to be wise in the skill by which men drive chariots, and blamed your father for it, and I again asked what this skill was, what would you have said it was? Wouldn't it be charioteering? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And this thing you now happen to desire — does it have no name, or does it have one? THEAGES: I think it has one. SOCRATES: Do you know it without knowing its name, or do you know the name too? THEAGES: I know the name too. SOCRATES: What is it, then? Tell me. THEAGES: What else could anyone call it, Socrates, except wisdom? SOCRATES: But isn't charioteering also a kind of wisdom? Or does it seem like ignorance to you? THEAGES: Not to me. SOCRATES: It's wisdom, then? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what do we use it for? Isn't it the knowledge by which we know how to control a team of horses? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't seamanship also a wisdom? THEAGES: I think so. SOCRATES: Isn't it the knowledge by which we know how to command ships? THEAGES: That's the one. SOCRATES: And this wisdom you desire — what is it? The knowledge of commanding what? THEAGES: I think — of commanding men. SOCRATES: Sick men, perhaps? THEAGES: No, not that. SOCRATES: That's medicine, isn't it? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: Well, is it the knowledge of commanding singers in choruses? THEAGES: No. SOCRATES: That's music, isn't it? THEAGES: Certainly. SOCRATES: Well, is it the knowledge of commanding those in training? THEAGES: No. SOCRATES: That's gymnastics, isn't it? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: Then commanding people doing what? Try to tell me, the way I've been telling you.
THEAGES: The people in the city, I think. SOCRATES: But aren't the sick also in the city? THEAGES: Yes, but I don't mean only them — I mean the others in the city as well. SOCRATES: Am I catching what skill you mean? You seem to me to be talking not about the knowledge of commanding harvesters, or grape-pickers, or planters, or sowers, or threshers — that's farming, the skill by which we command these people. Right? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: Nor, I take it, the knowledge of commanding all those who saw, drill, plane, and turn wood — you don't mean that either, since that's carpentry. THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: But perhaps you mean the knowledge of commanding all of these — the farmers and carpenters and all craftsmen alike, and private citizens, and women and men together. Is this the wisdom you mean? THEAGES: That's what I've been trying to say all along, Socrates. SOCRATES: Can you tell me, then — did Aegisthus, who killed Agamemnon in Argos, rule over these people you're talking about — craftsmen and private citizens and men and women all together — or over some others? THEAGES: No, over these. SOCRATES: Well then — didn't Peleus son of Aeacus rule over these very same people in Phthia? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And have you heard that Periander son of Cypselus became ruler in Corinth? THEAGES: I have. SOCRATES: Wasn't he ruler over these same people in his own city? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And Archelaus son of Perdiccas, who recently became ruler in Macedonia — don't you think he rules over these same people? THEAGES: I do. SOCRATES: And Hippias son of Peisistratus, who ruled in this city of ours — whom do you think he ruled? Not these same people? THEAGES: Of course he did. SOCRATES: Can you tell me, then, what title Bacis has, and the Sibyl, and our own local prophet Amphilytus? THEAGES: What else could it be, Socrates, but oracle-singers? SOCRATES: Quite right. Now try to answer me in the same way about these others — what title do Hippias and Periander hold, on account of this same kind of rule? THEAGES: I think — tyrants. What else could it be? SOCRATES: So whoever desires to rule over all the people in a city together desires this same rule — the tyrant's rule — and desires to be a tyrant? THEAGES: So it appears. SOCRATES: And isn't this what you say you desire? THEAGES: It seems so, from what I've said.
SOCRATES: You scoundrel! So all this time, desiring to be our tyrant, you've been blaming your father because he wouldn't send you off to some teacher of tyrant-craft? And you, Demodocus — aren't you ashamed, knowing all along what he desires, and having somewhere you could have sent him to become skilled in the very wisdom he wants, and yet you begrudge him it and refuse to send him? But now — you see? — since he's confessed it in my presence, let's take counsel together, you and I, as to whom we might send him to, and through whose company he might become a wise tyrant. DEMODOCUS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, let's take counsel indeed — it seems to me this calls for no ordinary deliberation. SOCRATES: Hold on, my good man. Let's question him thoroughly first. DEMODOCUS: Go ahead and question him, then. SOCRATES: Well then, Theages, what if we made some use of Euripides? For Euripides says somewhere — 'tyrants grow wise by keeping company with the wise.' Now if someone asked Euripides, 'Euripides, wise in what do you mean that tyrants become wise through this company?' — it would be like if he had said, 'farmers grow wise by keeping company with the wise,' and we asked, 'wise in what?' What would he have answered us? Nothing but farming matters, surely? THEAGES: Yes, that. SOCRATES: And what if he had said, 'cooks grow wise by keeping company with the wise,' and we asked, 'wise in what?' What would he have answered? Wouldn't it be cooking? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: And what if he had said, 'wrestlers grow wise by keeping company with the wise,' and we asked, 'wise in what?' Wouldn't he have said wrestling? THEAGES: Yes. SOCRATES: But since he said, 'tyrants grow wise by keeping company with the wise,' and we ask, 'wise in what do you mean, Euripides?' — what would he say? What sort of thing would this be? THEAGES: By Zeus, I really don't know. SOCRATES: Would you like me to tell you? THEAGES: If you would. SOCRATES: It's the very thing Anacreon said Callicrite understood. Or don't you know the song? THEAGES: I do. SOCRATES: Well then — is it some such company you desire too, with a man skilled in the same craft as Callicrite, daughter of Cyane, and who understands tyrant-craft, just as the poet said she did — so that you too might become a tyrant over us and over the city? THEAGES: For a while now, Socrates, you've been mocking me and playing games. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Don't you say you desire this very wisdom, by which you would rule over all the citizens? And in doing that, wouldn't you be nothing other than a tyrant?
THEAGES: I suppose I'd wish to be a tyrant—over all mankind if possible, or as many as possible if not. And I imagine you and everyone else would wish the same—or better yet, to become a god. But that isn't what I said I wanted. SOCRATES: Then what exactly is it you do want? Don't you say you want to rule the citizens? THEAGES: Not by force, not the way tyrants do, but with their consent—the way the other men of distinction in the city do. SOCRATES: You mean like Themistocles, Pericles, Cimon, and the others who've turned out skilled in politics? THEAGES: Yes, exactly those men. SOCRATES: Well now, suppose you wanted to become skilled at horsemanship. Whom would you go to, expecting to become a fine rider? Some people other than those skilled with horses? THEAGES: No, certainly not. SOCRATES: But rather to the very people who are skilled at it, who own horses and are constantly using them—their own and other people's, many of them. THEAGES: Obviously. SOCRATES: And what if you wanted to become skilled with the javelin? Wouldn't you expect to become skilled by going to the javelin-throwers, who own javelins and are constantly using them, many of them, their own and other people's? THEAGES: I think so. SOCRATES: Tell me, then—since you want to become skilled in politics, do you think you'll become skilled by going to anyone other than these politicians, men who are themselves skilled in politics and constantly engage with their own city and many others, dealing with Greek cities and foreign ones alike? Or do you think you'll learn what they know by associating with someone else, rather than with them? THEAGES: Well, Socrates, I've heard the things people say you argue—that the sons of these political men are no better than the sons of shoemakers. And it seems to me you're speaking the plain truth, as far as I can tell. So I'd be a fool to think any of them would hand his own wisdom over to me while failing to benefit his own son, if he were able to benefit anyone at all in this regard. SOCRATES: Well then, best of men, what would you do with yourself if, once you had a son, he gave you this kind of trouble—if he said he wanted to become a good painter, and blamed you, his father, for refusing to spend money on him for that very purpose, yet disdained the practitioners of painting themselves and refused to learn from them? Or the same with flute-players, if he wanted to become a flute-player, or with lyre-players? Would you know what to do with him, or where else to send him, if he refused to learn from these people? THEAGES: No, by Zeus, I wouldn't.
SOCRATES: Well then, are you not now doing this very same thing to your own father, and surprised that he's at a loss what to do with you and where to send you? Since among the fine and good men of Athens, whichever one you like, we can arrange for you to study politics with him—he'll spend time with you for free. And at the same time you won't spend any money, and you'll gain a much better reputation among most people than you would keeping company with anyone else. THEAGES: Well, Socrates, aren't you yourself one of the fine and good men? If you're willing to spend time with me, that's enough—I'm not looking for anyone else. SOCRATES: What are you saying, Theages? DEMODOCUS: Socrates, what he says isn't foolish, and at the same time you'd be doing me a favor. I can't think of any greater stroke of luck than this—that he should be pleased with your company and you willing to spend time with him. I'm honestly embarrassed to say how much I want this. But I ask both of you—you to be willing to spend time with him, and you not to seek out anyone else's company but Socrates'. You would free me from a great many fearful worries. As it is, I'm quite afraid he might run into someone else capable of corrupting him. THEAGES: Don't be afraid on my account any longer, father, if you can persuade him to accept my company. DEMODOCUS: Well said. Socrates, the rest of the conversation is now up to you. I'm ready, to put it briefly, to place myself and everything I have as fully at your disposal as possible, for whatever you might need, if you'll welcome Theages here and do him whatever good you can. SOCRATES: Demodocus, I'm not surprised at your earnestness, if you think he could be helped by me more than by anyone—for I don't know what a sensible person could be more earnest about than his own son's becoming as good as possible. But where you got the idea that I could help your son become a good citizen better than you yourself could, and where he got the idea that I could help him more than you yourself could—that I find quite surprising. You, after all, are older than I am, you've already held many offices in Athens, including the highest ones, and you're honored by the Anagyrasian people, your fellow demesmen, above practically anyone, and by the rest of the city no less. Neither of you sees anything like that in me.
SOCRATES: Furthermore, if Theages here looks down on the company of politicians and seeks instead men who profess to be able to educate young people, there's Prodicus of Ceos, Gorgias of Leontini, Polus of Acragas, and many others—so skilled that they go from city to city and persuade the noblest and wealthiest of the young men—who could spend time for free with any citizen they like—to abandon that company and join theirs instead, paying a great deal of money for the privilege, and being grateful besides. It would make sense for your son, and for you yourself, to choose one of these men. It wouldn't make sense to choose me—I know none of these blessed and admirable subjects, though I wish I did. In fact I always say that I know practically nothing, except for one small subject: matters of love. But in that subject I claim to be skilled beyond anyone, past or present. THEAGES: You see, father? Socrates doesn't seem at all willing to spend time with me—though for my part I'm ready, if he's willing—he's just joking with us. Because I know some of my age-mates, and some a bit older, who were worth nothing before spending time with him, but after keeping his company, in a very short time, appeared better than everyone they'd previously been worse than. SOCRATES: Do you know what that is, son of Demodocus? THEAGES: Yes, by Zeus, I do—that if you're willing, I too will be able to become like those men. SOCRATES: No, my good fellow, you're missing what it really is. Let me tell you. There is something that has accompanied me since childhood, by some divine allotment—a divine sign. It's a voice, and whenever it occurs, it always warns me against whatever I'm about to do—it never urges me forward. And if any of my friends consults me and the voice occurs, it does the same thing—it turns him away and won't let him act. And I can offer you witnesses of this. You know Charmides here, the son of Glaucon, the one who became so handsome—he once happened to be telling me he intended to train for the footrace at Nemea, and just as he began saying he meant to train, the voice occurred. I tried to stop him and said, 'While you were speaking, the divine voice occurred to me—don't train.' 'Perhaps,' he said, 'it's telling you I won't win. But even if I'm not going to win, I'll still benefit from training this whole time.'
SOCRATES: Having said this, he trained anyway. It's worth finding out from him what came of that training. And if you like, ask Clitomachus, Timarchus's brother, what Timarchus said to him just as he went off to his death, straight against the divine sign—he and Euathlus the runner, who took Timarchus in when he was fleeing. He'll tell you Timarchus said this to him. THEAGES: What did he say? SOCRATES: 'Clitomachus,' he said, 'I am going now to my death, because I refused to obey Socrates.' Now why did Timarchus say this? I'll explain. When Timarchus and Philemon, son of Philemonides, rose from the drinking party intending to kill Nicias, son of Heroscamander, only the two of them knew of the plot. But as Timarchus rose, he said to me, 'What do you say, Socrates? You all keep drinking—I need to step out for a moment. I'll be back shortly, if things go well.' And the voice occurred to me, and I said to him, 'Don't get up on any account—the usual divine sign has occurred to me.' And he held back. After a while he tried to get up again, and said, 'I'm off now, Socrates.' Again the voice occurred. So again I forced him to hold back. The third time, wanting to slip past me, he got up without saying anything to me, having watched for a moment when my attention was elsewhere—and so he went off, and carried through the act that led to his going to his death. This is why he said to his brother what I've just told you—that he was going to his death because he had disobeyed me. And you'll hear plenty more, about the events in Sicily, of what I used to say about the corruption of the army there. What's past you can hear from those who witnessed it—but you can test the sign right now, to see whether it really means anything. When the fair Sannio was setting out on campaign, the sign occurred to me—and now he's off with Thrasyllus, marching straight for Ephesus and Ionia. So I expect he'll either die, or come close to it, and I'm quite afraid for the rest of the expedition as well. I've told you all this to show that this power of the divine sign extends fully to the interactions of those who spend time with me. For many it opposes outright, and there's no way for them to benefit from being with me—so I simply can't spend time with such people. For many others it doesn't prevent our being together, but they get no benefit from it at all. But those whose company the divine power assists—these are the ones you've noticed; they make progress quickly, right away.
SOCRATES: And of those who do make progress, some retain the benefit firmly and permanently, while many others, for as long as they're with me, make astonishing progress—but as soon as they leave my company, they're no different from anyone else again. This is what once happened to Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, son of the great Aristides. While spending time with me he made enormous progress in a short while. Then he went off on a military campaign and sailed away, and when he came back he found Thucydides, son of Melesias, son of Thucydides, spending time with me. Thucydides had had a rather hostile exchange with me the day before over some argument. So when Aristides saw me, after greeting me and talking of other things, he said, 'Socrates, I hear Thucydides puts on airs with you and gets angry, as if he were somebody.' 'Yes,' I said, 'that's how it is.' 'What, then,' he said, 'doesn't he know what a wretched creature he was before he came to know you?' 'It doesn't seem so, by the gods,' I said. 'But you know,' he said, 'I myself am in a ridiculous state, Socrates.' 'How so?' I said. 'Because,' he said, 'before I sailed away, I was able to converse with anyone at all and hold my own in argument with anybody, so much that I sought out the company of the most refined people—but now it's the opposite: I avoid anyone I notice is well-educated, I'm so ashamed of my own poor state.' 'Did this power desert you suddenly,' I asked, 'or gradually?' 'Gradually,' he said. 'And when it was present in you,' I said, 'did it come to you through learning something from me, or in some other way?' 'I'll tell you, Socrates,' he said, 'something hard to believe, by the gods, but true. I never learned a single thing from you, as you yourself know. But I made progress whenever I was with you, even if I were only in the same house, not the same room—but more so when I was in the same room. And it seemed to me I made far more progress when, being in the same room, I watched you as you spoke, rather than looking elsewhere. And I made the most progress of all, by far, when I sat right beside you, touching you and holding on to you. But now,' he said, 'that whole condition has drained away.' So this, Theages, is the nature of our companionship: if it's pleasing to the god, you'll make great progress, and quickly—if not, you won't. So consider whether it might be safer for you to be educated by one of those men who have the benefit they give to others firmly in their own control, rather than by me, who can only offer whatever happens to come about.
THEAGES: Well, Socrates, here's what I think we should do — let's spend time together and put this divine sign of yours to the test. If it allows it, all the better. But if not, we'll decide on the spot what to do next — whether to keep company with someone else instead, or try to win over the very divine force that comes to you, with prayers and sacrifices and whatever else the seers recommend. DEMODOCUS: Don't argue with the boy about this any further, Socrates — Theages is right. SOCRATES: Well, if you both think this is the way to do it, then let's do it this way.
We had come back the evening before from the camp at Potidaea, and since I'd been away so long, I was glad to head straight for my usual haunts. I went into Taureas' wrestling school, across from the shrine of Basile, and found a good many people there, some I didn't know, but most of them familiar faces. When they saw me come in unannounced, they called out greetings from all over the room. Chaerephon, being the wild soul he is, jumped up from the middle of the crowd and ran over, grabbed my hand, and said, "Socrates, how did you make it out of the battle alive?" A battle had just taken place at Potidaea shortly before we left, and the news of it had only just reached people here. I answered him, "Just as you see, I'm here." "Well," he said, "the report that reached us was that the fighting was very fierce and that many of our friends died in it." "That report is pretty much true," I said. "Were you there for the battle?" he asked. "I was." "Come sit down, then," he said, "and tell us the whole thing — we haven't heard all the details clearly yet." And with that he sat me down next to Critias, son of Callaeschrus. So I sat and greeted Critias and the others, and told them the news from the camp, answering whatever anyone asked, and different people asked about different things. When we'd had our fill of that, I turned around and started asking them about things here — how philosophy stood these days, and about the young men, whether any had come to stand out for wisdom or beauty or both.
Just then Critias glanced toward the door and saw some young men coming in, quarreling with each other, and a crowd trailing behind them. "As for the beautiful ones, Socrates," he said, "you're about to find out for yourself. These men coming in are the advance guard and lovers of the one who's considered the most beautiful of the moment, and it looks to me like he himself is already close behind, on his way in." "Who is he," I said, "and whose son?" "You know him," he said, "though he wasn't yet old enough to count before you left — Charmides, son of Glaucon, my uncle's boy, my own cousin." "I certainly do know him, by Zeus," I said. "Even as a boy he was nothing ordinary, and by now I'd guess he's quite grown into a young man." "You'll see for yourself in a moment," he said, "how tall he's grown and what he looks like now." And just as he said this, Charmides walked in. Now, my friend, I'm no judge of such things — I'm simply a blank slate when it comes to beauty, since practically everyone at that age looks beautiful to me — but even so, that young man struck me then as astonishing, both in stature and in looks, and everyone else in the room seemed to me to be in love with him too, judging by how stunned and flustered they all were the moment he walked in. And plenty of other admirers were following along behind him as well. Our own reaction, we grown men, was less remarkable — but I noticed how the boys behaved: not one of them looked anywhere else, not even the youngest, but they all gazed at him as if he were a statue. And Chaerephon called over to me, "What do you think of the young man, Socrates? Isn't he good-looking?" "Extraordinarily so," I said. "Yet," he said, "if he were willing to strip, you'd think he had no face at all, his body is so perfect." The others all agreed with Chaerephon on this. "By Heracles," I said, "you're describing a man beyond resisting — if only he happens to have one small thing besides." "What's that?" said Critias. "If his soul," I said, "turns out to be well made too. And surely it ought to be, Critias, given that he comes from your family." "Oh," he said, "he's quite fine and good in that respect too." "Then why not," I said, "strip that part of him bare too, and take a look at it before his looks? He's surely old enough now to want to talk."
"Very much so," said Critias, "since as it happens he's a philosopher, and — in his own view as much as others' — quite the poet too." "That fine trait, dear Critias," I said, "has come down to your family a long way, from your kinship with Solon. But why not call the young man over and show him to me? Even if he were younger still, there'd be nothing shameful in his talking with us in your presence, since you're both his guardian and his cousin." "Well said," he replied, "let's call him over." And turning to his attendant, he said, "Boy, call Charmides, and tell him I want him to meet a doctor about that ailment he was telling me about the other day, the one he said he was suffering from." Then Critias said to me, "Just recently he's been complaining of a heaviness in his head when he gets up in the morning. So why not pretend to him that you know some cure for headaches?" "No reason at all," I said, "just let him come." "He'll come," he said. And so it happened. He came, and it caused a great deal of laughter, since each of us sitting there started shoving his neighbor aside in a hurry, trying to make room next to himself, until we'd made one man at the end get up entirely and knocked another one sideways off his seat. In the end he came and sat down between me and Critias. At that point, my friend, I found myself at a loss, and all the confidence I'd had before — the ease with which I'd expected to talk with him — was knocked right out of me. Once Critias mentioned that I was the one who knew the cure, he fixed his eyes on me in the strangest way and looked ready to ask me something, and everyone in the wrestling school crowded around us in a circle — and it was then, my noble friend, that I saw what was inside his cloak, and I caught fire, and I was no longer myself, and I decided that Cydias was the wisest man alive on matters of love, since he said, giving advice about a beautiful boy to someone else, to be careful not to come as a fawn before a lion and end up as its share of meat — for I felt I'd been caught by just such a creature myself. Still, when he asked me whether I knew the cure for the head, I managed, with some difficulty, to answer that I did. "Well, what is it?" he said. And I told him that the remedy itself was a certain leaf, but there was also a charm to go with the remedy, and if someone recited the charm at the same time as using it, the remedy would make him perfectly well — but without the charm, the leaf was no use at all.
"In that case," he said, "I'll take down the charm from you." "Only if you persuade me to give it," I said, "or even if you don't?" He laughed. "If I persuade you, Socrates." "All right," I said. "And you know my name precisely?" "I should," he said, "if I'm not mistaken — you're talked about quite a bit among us who are your age, and I remember even as a boy seeing you in Critias' company here." "Good of you to say so," I said, "because now I'll speak to you more openly about what this charm really is. A moment ago I was at a loss for how to show you its power. It's the kind of thing, Charmides, that can't just cure the head on its own — the way, as perhaps you've heard from good doctors, when someone comes to them with sore eyes, they'll tell you it's no use trying to treat the eyes alone, but that the head must be treated at the same time, if the eyes are to be well. And likewise, to think one could ever treat the head by itself, apart from the whole body, would be great folly. It's on this principle that they turn to regimens for the whole body together with the part, and try to treat and heal the part along with the whole. Or haven't you noticed that this is what they say, and how it actually is?" "I have," he said. "So this strikes you as well said, and you accept the argument?" "Absolutely," he said. Hearing him agree with this cheered me up, and little by little my confidence began to gather itself again, and I felt myself catching fire once more. So I said: "Well, Charmides, that's exactly how this charm works too. I learned it out there on campaign from one of the Thracian physicians of Zalmoxis, who are said to be able to make people immortal. This Thracian told me that what the Greek doctors say, the very things I just described, is all well and good — but Zalmoxis, our king, he said, who is a god, says that just as one shouldn't try to cure the eyes without the head, or the head without the body, so too the body should not be treated without the soul — and that this is exactly why so many diseases escape the Greek doctors, because they neglect the whole that they ought to be caring for, and if that whole isn't well, it's impossible for the part to be well.
For everything, he said, springs from the soul, both the bad and the good, for the body and for the whole person, and flows out from there just as it does from the head to the eyes. So it's that source above all that must be treated first and foremost, if the head and the rest of the body are to be well. And the soul, my good man, he said, is treated with certain charms, and these charms are beautiful words — and it's from words like these that self-control is born in souls, and once self-control has come to be present, it's then easy to bring about health for the head and for the rest of the body as well. So when he taught me the remedy and the charms, he said, "See to it that no one talks you into treating his head with this remedy who hasn't first offered you his soul to be treated by the charm." "For that," he said, "is exactly the mistake people make these days, that some try to be doctors of one without the other, self-control and health." And he charged me very strictly that no one, however rich, however noble, however handsome, should ever talk me into doing otherwise. Now I have sworn an oath to him, and I'm bound to obey it — so I will obey, and if you're willing, in keeping with the stranger's instructions, to offer your soul first, to be charmed by the Thracian's charms, I'll apply the remedy to your head. Otherwise, dear Charmides, there's nothing we could do for you." When Critias heard me say this, he said, "Well, Socrates, this headache would turn out to be a real windfall for the young man, if it forces his mind to grow better on account of his head. I'll tell you this too — Charmides is thought to stand out among boys his age not only in looks, but in this very thing you say you have the charm for — you say it's self-control, don't you?" "Certainly," I said. "Then you should know," he said, "that he's considered by far the most self-controlled of the young men here now, and in everything else too, for his age, second to none." "And it's only right, Charmides," I said, "that you should stand out from the rest in all such things — for I don't think anyone else here could easily point to two houses in Athens that, joined together, could reasonably have produced a finer or better offspring than the one you sprang from."
"Your father's house, that of Critias son of Dropides, has come down to us praised by Anacreon and Solon and many other poets as excelling in beauty and virtue and all the rest that people call happiness. And the same goes for your mother's side: of your uncle Pyrilampes, no man on the mainland is said to have seemed finer or more imposing, whenever he came as an envoy to the Great King or to any other ruler of the mainland. That whole family is in no way inferior to the other. Born of such stock, it stands to reason you should be first in everything. As for your outward form, dear son of Glaucon, I think you fall short of none of those before you. But if you are also well enough endowed by nature in self-control and the rest, as our friend here says, then, dear Charmides, I said, your mother bore a blessed son indeed. Here is how things stand: if self-control is already present in you, as Critias here claims, and you are adequately self-controlled, then you have no need at all of Zalmoxis's charms or those of Abaris the Hyperborean — you could simply be given the medicine for the head straightaway. But if you seem still to be lacking in this, then the charm must be spoken before the medicine is given. So tell me yourself: do you agree with him and say that you already have a sufficient share of self-control, or that you lack it?" Charmides blushed, and looked even more handsome for it — for the blush suited his youth — and then answered, not without spirit, that it was not easy at the moment either to agree or to deny what was being asked. "For if I say I am not self-controlled," he said, "that would be a strange thing to say against myself, and at the same time I would be showing Critias here, and many others who think I am self-controlled, to be liars, as his own account implies. But if I say I am, and praise myself, that will probably seem tiresome." "So I don't know what to answer you." And I said that what he said seemed reasonable to me, Charmides. "And it seems to me," I said, "that we ought to look into this together — whether you possess what I'm asking about or not — so that you aren't forced to say what you don't want to, and so that I, in turn, don't rush into the doctoring without due consideration." "So if it's agreeable to you, I'm willing to examine it with you; if not, we'll let it go." "But it's most agreeable of all," he said, "so as far as that goes, examine it in whatever way you yourself think best." "Well then," I said, "this is how it seems to me best to look into the matter."
"Clearly, if self-control is present in you, you have some opinion about it. For it must, if it is really in you, produce some perception, from which you would form some belief about what it is and what sort of thing self-control is. Or don't you think so?" "I do think so," he said. "And this thing you believe," I said, "since you know how to speak Greek, you could surely say what it seems to you to be?" "Perhaps," he said. "So that we may guess whether it is present in you or not, tell me," I said, "what you say self-control is, in your own opinion." At first he hesitated and was not at all willing to answer; but then he said that self-control seemed to him to be doing everything in an orderly and quiet way — walking in the streets quietly, and conversing quietly, and doing everything else the same way. "In short," he said, "it seems to me to be a kind of quietness, this thing you're asking about." "Well now," I said, "are you right? People do say, Charmides, that quiet people are self-controlled; let's see whether they're saying something. Tell me, isn't self-control one of the fine things?" "Certainly," he said. "Now which is finer, in a writing lesson, to write similar letters quickly or quietly?" "Quickly." "And to read — quickly or slowly?" "Quickly." "And surely playing the lyre quickly, and wrestling sharply, is far finer than doing it quietly and slowly?" "Yes." "And what about boxing and the pancration? Isn't it the same?" "Certainly." "And running and jumping and all the works of the body — aren't the quick and sharp ones fine, and the slow, labored, quiet ones shameful?" "It appears so." "So it appears to us," I said, "that as far as the body goes, it's not the quiet but the quickest and sharpest that is finest. Isn't that so?" "Certainly." "And self-control was something fine?" "Yes." "So as far as the body is concerned, it would not be quietness but quickness that is more self-controlled, since self-control is fine." "It seems so," he said. "Well then," I said, "is quickness at learning finer than slowness at learning?" "Quickness." "And quickness at learning is learning quickly, and slowness at learning is learning quietly and slowly?" "Yes." "And to teach another — isn't it finer to do it quickly and vigorously rather than quietly and slowly?" "Yes." "And what about recollecting and remembering — is it finer to do it quietly and slowly, or vigorously and quickly?" "Vigorously," he said, "and quickly."
"And isn't quick-wittedness a kind of sharpness of the soul, not quietness?" "True." "And isn't grasping what's said, whether in a writing lesson or a music lesson or anywhere else, finest when done not as quietly as possible but as quickly as possible?" "Yes." "And surely in the soul's inquiries and in deliberation, it's not the quietest person — the one who deliberates and discovers only with difficulty — who seems worthy of praise, as I see it, but the one who does this most easily and quickly." "That's so," he said. "So in everything, Charmides," I said, "both what concerns the soul and what concerns the body, the things marked by speed and sharpness appear finer to us than those marked by slowness and quietness?" "It looks that way," he said. "Then self-control would not be a kind of quietness, nor would the self-controlled life be a quiet one, on this argument at least, since it must be fine, being self-controlled. For there are only two possibilities: either nowhere, or in very few cases, have quiet actions in life turned out finer than quick and vigorous ones. But even if, at best, quiet actions turn out to be no less fine than vigorous and quick ones, still self-control would not be, on this basis either, acting quietly any more than acting vigorously and quickly — not in walking, not in speaking, not anywhere else — nor would the quiet life be more orderly, and so more self-controlled, than the unquiet one, since in our argument self-control was assumed to be one of the fine things, and quick things have turned out no less fine than quiet ones." "You seem to me to have spoken correctly, Socrates," he said. "Well then, Charmides," I said, "pay closer attention still, look into yourself, consider what sort of person self-control's presence makes you, and what kind of thing it must be to produce such an effect — put all this together and tell me plainly and bravely what it seems to you to be." He paused, and after examining the matter within himself quite manfully, said: "Well, it seems to me that self-control makes a person feel shame, and makes him prone to blushing, and that self-control is just what modesty is." "Very well," I said, "didn't you just now agree that self-control is a fine thing?" "Certainly," he said. "And aren't self-controlled men also good men?" "Yes." "Could something be good, then, that doesn't make men good?" "Certainly not." "So it's not only fine, but good as well."
"So it seems to me too." "Well then," I said, "don't you trust Homer to speak well when he says: 'modesty is no good companion for a needy man'?" "I do," he said. "So it seems modesty is both not good and good." "So it appears." "But self-control is good, if indeed it makes good those in whom it is present, and not bad." "Well, that does seem to be how it is, as you say." "Then self-control couldn't be modesty, if self-control really is good, while modesty is no more good than bad." "But this much seems right to me, Socrates," he said. "Now consider this other thing about self-control. I just recalled something I once heard someone say — that self-control might be doing one's own business. Consider, then, whether the person who says that seems to you to be speaking rightly." And I said, "You scoundrel, did you hear this from Critias here, or from some other of the wise?" "It must have been someone else," said Critias, "since certainly not from me." "But what difference does it make, Socrates," said Charmides, "who I heard it from?" "None," I said, "for what we must consider is surely not who said it, but whether what is said is true or not." "Now you speak rightly," he said. "By Zeus, yes," I said. "But whether we shall actually discover how the matter stands, I would be surprised — for it seems to be a kind of riddle." "Why so?" he said. "Because surely," I said, "whoever said self-control was doing one's own business did not mean it in the sense the words themselves suggest. Or do you think a writing-teacher does nothing when he writes or reads?" "I do think he does something — indeed I think so," he said. "Does it seem to you the writing-teacher writes and reads only his own name, or teaches you children to do so, or did you write your enemies' names no less than your own and your friends' names?" "No less." "So were you meddling and being un-self-controlled in doing this?" "Not at all." "And yet you were not doing your own business, if indeed writing and reading are a kind of doing." "But surely they are." "And surely healing, my friend, and building, and weaving, and producing any product whatever by any craft, is surely a kind of doing." "Certainly."
"Well then," I said, "do you think a city would be well governed by a law that ordered each person to weave and wash his own cloak, and make his own shoes, and his own oil-flask and scraper, and everything else on the same principle — not touching what belongs to others, but each working at and doing only his own?" "It doesn't seem so to me," he said. "And yet," I said, "a city governed with self-control would surely be well governed." "Of course," he said. "So doing that sort of thing, and doing one's own business in that way, would not be self-control." "It appears not." "So the man who said self-control was doing one's own business was speaking in riddles, it seems, as I said just now — for surely he wasn't so simple-minded. Or did you hear this from some fool, Charmides?" "Far from it," he said, "since he seemed to be quite wise indeed." "Then it's all the more likely, it seems to me, that he was posing it as a riddle, on the grounds that it's hard to know what 'doing one's own business' really means." "Perhaps," he said. "So what could 'doing one's own business' possibly mean? Can you say?" "By Zeus, I don't know," he said, "but perhaps there's nothing to stop even the one who said it from not knowing what he meant." And as he said this he laughed quietly and glanced at Critias. Critias had for some time clearly been on edge, full of eagerness to make a good showing before Charmides and those present, and had barely restrained himself before; now he could hold back no longer. It seems to me most certainly true, what I had suspected — that Charmides had heard this answer about self-control from Critias. Charmides, not wanting to give an account of it himself but to make Critias answer for it, was trying to stir him up, showing that he himself had been refuted. But Critias would not stand for it; he seemed to me to be angered at him, the way a poet gets angry at an actor mishandling his poems. So he looked straight at him and said, "Do you really think, Charmides, that if you don't know what the man meant who said self-control was doing one's own business, that he himself didn't know either?" "But, my excellent Critias," I said, "it's no wonder that he, being as young as he is, doesn't know; but you, presumably, ought to know, given both your age and your diligence. So if you agree that this is what self-control is, and accept the argument, I would much rather examine with you whether what was said is true or not." "I do agree entirely," he said, "and I accept it." "You do well to do so," I said. "Now tell me — do you also agree with what I was just asking, that all craftsmen produce something?" "I do."
Do you think people who behave with sound-mindedness do only their own work, or the work of others too? — The work of others too. So they're being sound-minded even when they're not doing only their own work? — Why not? he said. Nothing stops that, as far as I'm concerned, I said, but watch out — it stops the man who first laid down that sound-mindedness is doing one's own work, and then says nothing stops people who do the work of others from also being sound-minded. Well, he said, I have granted this much, that people who do the work of others are sound-minded, if I granted it of those who make things for others. Tell me, I said, don't you call making and doing the same thing? Not at all, he said — nor working and making the same thing either. I learned that from Hesiod, who said that no work is a disgrace. Do you think, if he'd called the kind of things you were just now talking about 'works' and 'working,' he would have said it's no disgrace to anyone to cobble shoes, or sell pickled fish, or sit in a brothel? You shouldn't think that, Socrates — no, I believe he too took making to be different from doing and working, and held that a product can sometimes be a disgrace, when it isn't done nobly, but a work is never any disgrace at all; for he called the things done nobly and beneficially 'works,' and such makings and doings 'workings.' And we should say he considered only such things as these to be one's own, and everything harmful to belong to another; so that we must think Hesiod, and anyone else with sense, calls the man who does his own work sound-minded. Critias, I said, right from the start of your speech I more or less understood your argument, that you meant by 'one's own' and 'what belongs to oneself' good things, and by 'makings' of good things, doings. In fact I've heard countless distinctions of names from Prodicus. But I'll grant you the right to set the names however you like — only make clear which thing you're applying the name to, whatever you say. So now, once more, define it from the beginning more clearly. Is it the doing — or making, or however you'd like to name it — of good things that you say sound-mindedness is? — Yes, I do, he said. So the man who does bad things isn't sound-minded, but the one who does good things is? — Doesn't that seem so to you too, my good man? he said. Let it be, I said — let's not examine what seems so to me yet, but what you're now saying. — Well, I for my part, he said, say that the man who does not good things but bad is not sound-minded, while the man who does good things and not bad is sound-minded; I define sound-mindedness for you plainly as the doing of good things.
And perhaps there's nothing to stop you from speaking the truth; but here's what surprises me, I said — that you think sound-minded people don't know that they are sound-minded. — No, I don't think that, he said. Didn't you say a little earlier, I said, that nothing stops craftsmen from being sound-minded even while making things for others? — Yes, I said that, he said — but what of it? — Nothing; but tell me, do you think some doctor, in making someone healthy, does something beneficial both to himself and to the one he's treating? — I do. So the one who does this does what's needed? — Yes. And the one who does what's needed is sound-minded? — Sound-minded indeed. Then must the doctor also know when he's healing beneficially and when not? And must every craftsman know when he's about to profit from the work he's doing and when not? — Perhaps not. So sometimes, I said, having acted either beneficially or harmfully, the doctor doesn't know how he acted — and yet if he acted beneficially, by your account, he acted with sound-mindedness. Isn't that what you said? — I did. So it seems, sometimes, having acted beneficially, he acts with sound-mindedness and is sound-minded, but doesn't know himself that he's sound-minded? — But that, Socrates, he said, could never happen; if you think this follows of necessity from what I've agreed to earlier, I'd rather take back some of that than ever admit that a man who doesn't know himself is sound-minded. For I hold, more or less, that this very thing is sound-mindedness — knowing oneself — and I agree with the one who set up that inscription at Delphi. For that's how the inscription seems to me to have been set up — as a greeting from the god to those entering, in place of 'welcome,' since that greeting isn't right, and people shouldn't urge that on one another, but rather sound-mindedness. So the god addresses those entering the temple somewhat differently than men do, as the one who dedicated it, I think, intended — and he says to whoever is entering, nothing else than 'Be sound-minded,' he says.
And he says it rather riddlingly, like a seer; for 'Know yourself' and 'Be sound-minded' are, as the letters say and I agree, the very same thing — though someone might well think them different, which is just what I think happened to those who dedicated the later inscriptions too, 'Nothing in excess' and 'A pledge, and ruin is at hand.' For they too thought that 'Know yourself' was a piece of advice, rather than the god's greeting to those entering; and then, so that they too might dedicate no less useful advice, they wrote these and set them up. Now the reason I'm saying all this, Socrates, is this: I concede you everything said before — perhaps you were saying something more correct about it, perhaps I was, but nothing in what we said was at all clear — but now I'm willing to give you an account of this, if you don't agree that sound-mindedness is knowing oneself. — But, Critias, I said, you're approaching me as though I claimed to know the answers to what I'm asking, and as though, if I wished, I would agree with you; but it isn't so — rather I'm always investigating along with you whatever is proposed, because I myself don't know. So once I've examined it, I'm willing to say whether I agree or not. But wait until I've examined it. — Examine away, then, he said. — And indeed, I said, I am examining. For if sound-mindedness really is a kind of knowing, clearly it would be a knowledge, and of something — or not? — It is, he said, of oneself. And isn't medicine, I said, a knowledge of what's healthy? — Certainly. Now if you were to ask me — medicine, being a knowledge of what's healthy, what is it useful to us for, and what does it produce? — I'd say no small benefit; for it produces health for us, a noble product, if you accept that. — I do. And if you were to ask me about house-building, a knowledge of building, what I say it produces, I'd say houses; and likewise for the other arts. So you too, concerning sound-mindedness, since you say it's a knowledge of oneself, must be able to say, if asked, Critias, sound-mindedness, being a knowledge of oneself, what noble product does it produce for us, worthy of its name? Come, tell me. — But, Socrates, he said, you're not searching correctly. For this knowledge isn't naturally like the other knowledges, nor are the others like one another — but you're conducting your inquiry as if they were alike.
Tell me, he said, what work of this kind does the art of calculation or geometry have, such as a house belongs to house-building, or a cloak to weaving, or other such products, which one could point to in many other arts? Can you show me any such product of these? You won't be able to. — And I said that he spoke truly; but this I can show you — of what each of these knowledges is a knowledge, which happens to be something other than the knowledge itself. Calculation, for instance, is of the even and the odd, of how they stand in quantity to themselves and to each other — isn't that so? — Certainly, he said. So the odd and the even are something other than calculation itself? — Of course. And again, weighing is a weighing of the heavier and the lighter weight; but the heavy and the light are something other than weighing itself. Do you agree? — I do. Tell me, then, what is sound-mindedness a knowledge of, which happens to be something other than sound-mindedness itself? — This is just it, Socrates, he said — this is exactly what you've come hunting for, the thing by which sound-mindedness differs from all the other knowledges; but you're looking for some resemblance between it and the others. That's not how it is — rather, all the other knowledges are knowledges of something else, not of themselves, whereas this one alone is a knowledge both of the other knowledges and of itself. And this hasn't escaped you by any means — no, I think what you just said you weren't doing, you're doing: you're trying to refute me, leaving aside what the argument is actually about. — What a thing to think I'm doing, I said — as if, however much I refute you, I'm refuting for any other reason than the one for which I'd examine even myself, out of fear that I might unknowingly think I know something when I don't. And that's just what I claim I'm doing now — examining the argument mostly for my own sake, though perhaps for the sake of my friends too. Or don't you think it a good common to nearly all people, that each of the things that are should become clear as it really is? — I do indeed, Socrates, he said. Take heart, then, blessed man, I said, and answer what's asked however it appears to you, and let it go whether it's Critias or Socrates who's being refuted; just pay attention to the argument itself and watch how it turns out once it's tested. — All right, he said, I'll do that — you seem to me to ask fairly. Tell me, then, I said, what do you say about sound-mindedness? — I say, then, he said, that alone among the other knowledges, it is a knowledge both of itself and of the other knowledges. So it would also be a knowledge of the absence of knowledge, I said, if it's a knowledge of knowledge? — Certainly, he said.
So the sound-minded man alone will know himself, and will be able to examine what he actually knows and what he doesn't, and will likewise be able to inspect others, to see what someone knows and thinks he knows, if he really knows it, and again what he thinks he knows but doesn't — no one else will be able to do this. And this is just what being sound-minded is, and sound-mindedness, and knowing oneself — knowing what one knows and what one doesn't know. Is that what you mean? — I do, he said. Once more, then, I said, for the third time, as if to our savior, let's examine from the start, first whether it's possible for this to exist or not — knowing what one knows and what one doesn't know, that one knows it and that one doesn't — and then, if it's entirely possible, what benefit it would be to us to know it. — Well, we must examine it, he said. Come then, Critias, I said, examine it, and see if you turn out to have more resources on this than I do — for I'm at a loss. Shall I tell you where I'm at a loss? — By all means, he said. Isn't it the case, I said, that all this would come down to there being some one knowledge, which is a knowledge of nothing else but itself and the other knowledges, and moreover of the absence of knowledge too? — Certainly. See how strange a thing we're attempting to say, my friend; for if you examine this same thing in other cases, it will seem to you, I think, impossible. — How so, and where? — In cases like these. Consider whether it seems to you that there's some kind of sight which, while it's not a sight of the things the other sights are sights of, is a sight of itself and the other sights, and likewise of non-sights, and which sees no color at all, being a sight, but only itself and the other sights — does such a thing seem to you to exist? — By Zeus, not to me. And what of hearing, which hears no sound at all, but hears itself and the other kinds of hearing, and non-hearings? — Not that either. In short, consider concerning all the senses whether any seems to you to be a sense of the senses and of itself, but perceives none of the things the other senses perceive. — Not to me. But does desire seem to you to be of any such kind — one that is a desire for no pleasure, but for itself and the other desires? — No indeed. Nor, I think, is there a wish that wishes for no good thing, but wishes for itself and the other wishes. — No, indeed not. And would you say there's some love that happens to be a love of nothing beautiful, but of itself and the other loves? — No, he said, I would not.
"Have you ever noticed a fear that fears itself and fears other fears, yet fears none of the dreadful things it should?" "I have not noticed that," he said. "Or an opinion of opinions, an opinion of itself, but which has no opinion at all about the things the other opinions are about?" "Not at all." "But we do say there's some kind of knowledge — one that isn't knowledge of any particular subject, but is knowledge of itself and of the other knowledges?" "Yes, we do say that." "Isn't that strange, if it really exists? Let's not insist yet that it doesn't exist — let's still examine whether it does." "You're right." "Well then: this knowledge is knowledge of something, and has a certain power such that it's knowledge of something — right?" "Certainly." "After all, we say the greater has a certain power such that it's greater than something?" "It does." "So greater than something smaller, if it's to be greater at all." "Necessarily." "So if we found something greater which was greater than the other greater things and also greater than itself, but not greater than the things the others are greater than, surely it would have to be true of it — if it's really greater than itself — that it's also smaller than itself. Isn't that so?" "That's absolutely necessary, Socrates," he said. "And likewise, if something is double the other doubles and also double itself, then, since it's half of itself and of the others, it would be double of a half — since nothing is double of anything but a half." "True." "And a thing that's more than itself won't also be less; a thing heavier than itself, lighter; a thing older than itself, younger — and so with everything else: whatever has its own power directed at itself must also have the very nature that its power is directed toward. Take what I mean this way: hearing, we say, is hearing of nothing but sound — right?" "Yes." "So if it's ever to hear itself, it will have to have a sound of its own to hear — there's no other way it could hear." "Absolutely necessary." "And sight too, my excellent friend, if it's ever to see itself, must have some color — for sight could never see anything colorless." "No, indeed." "So you see, Critias, that of everything we've gone through, some cases appear to us wholly impossible, and in others we have grave doubts that a thing's power could ever be directed at itself. Sizes and quantities and things of that sort are wholly impossible — wouldn't you say?" "Quite so."
"But hearing and sight — and further, motion moving itself, and heat burning itself — and all things of that kind might raise doubt in some people, though perhaps not in others. What we need, my friend, is some great man who can settle this question properly for every case: whether none of the things that exist has a power naturally directed at itself — except knowledge — but always at something else; or whether some things do have this, others don't; and if there are some that are directed at themselves, whether knowledge belongs among them — the very thing we're calling temperance. As for me, I don't trust myself to be able to sort this out. So I can't say for certain either whether it's possible for there to be a knowledge of knowledge, or, granting that it's entirely possible, that I accept this as being what temperance is — not before examining whether, being such a thing, it would benefit us at all or not. For I divine that temperance is something beneficial and good. So you, son of Callaeschrus — since you maintain that temperance is this: knowledge of knowledge, and indeed of the absence of knowledge — first show that what I just described is possible to demonstrate, and then, beyond its being possible, that it's also beneficial. Then perhaps you'll satisfy me that you're right about what temperance is." And Critias, hearing this and seeing me at a loss, seemed — like people who feel the urge to yawn themselves when they see others yawning across from them — to be forced by my perplexity into falling into perplexity himself. Since he had a reputation to keep up on every occasion, he was ashamed before those present, and he neither wanted to concede to me that he was unable to sort out what I had challenged him to sort out, nor did he say anything clear, covering up his confusion. So, to keep our discussion moving forward, I said: "Well, Critias, if you like, let's grant for now that it's possible for there to be a knowledge of knowledge — we can examine later whether that's really so or not. Come then: even granting this is entirely possible, what more does it let one know — namely, which things one knows and which one doesn't? For that, I take it, is what we said self-knowledge and being temperate amounted to. Isn't that so?" "Quite so," he said, "and indeed it does follow, Socrates. For if someone has a knowledge that knows itself, he himself will be of the very sort that what he has is. Just as when someone has speed, he's fast, and when he has beauty, he's beautiful, and when he has knowledge, he's knowing — so when someone has knowledge of knowledge itself, he'll then, surely, be knowing himself." "That's not what I'm disputing," I said — "not whether someone who has that which knows itself will know himself — but rather: what necessity is there for someone who has this to know what he knows and what he doesn't know?"
"Because, Socrates, this is the same thing as that." "Perhaps," I said, "but I'm apparently always the same — I still don't grasp how it's the same thing, knowing that one knows and knowing that one doesn't know." "What do you mean?" he said. "Like this," I said. "Will a knowledge that is knowledge of knowledge be able to distinguish anything more than this: that this is knowledge and that is not knowledge?" "No — just that much." "So then is knowledge and lack of knowledge of what's healthy the same as knowledge and lack of knowledge of what's just?" "Not at all." "No — one, I think, is medicine, another is statesmanship, and the other is nothing but knowledge itself." "Of course." "So if someone doesn't additionally know what's healthy or what's just, but knows only knowledge itself — since that's the only thing he has knowledge of — he might reasonably recognize, both about himself and about others, that he knows something and that he has some knowledge. Right?" "Yes." "But how will he know, by means of that knowledge, what it is that he knows? For he knows what's healthy by medicine, not by temperance; what's harmonious by music, not by temperance; what's a matter of building by the builder's art, not by temperance — and so on for everything. Isn't that so?" "So it appears." "And temperance, if it's only knowledge of knowledges, how will it let him know that he knows what's healthy, or what belongs to building?" "No way." "So the person who lacks that other knowledge won't know what he knows — only that he knows it." "So it seems." "So being temperate, and temperance, would not be this: knowing what one knows and what one doesn't know, but rather, it seems, only knowing that one knows and that one doesn't know." "It looks that way." "So this same person won't be able, either, to test someone else who claims to know something — whether he knows what he claims to know or doesn't know it. He'll only know this much, it seems: that the man has some knowledge — but temperance won't let him recognize of what." "Apparently not." "So he won't be able to distinguish between a man who merely pretends to be a doctor but isn't, and one who truly is — nor between him and anyone else who has knowledge, and one who doesn't. Let's look at it from this angle: if the temperate man, or anyone else, is going to distinguish the true doctor from the false one, won't he go about it like this — he certainly won't discuss medicine with him, since, as we said, the doctor understands nothing but what's healthy and what's diseased." "Yes, that's so." "And about knowledge he knows nothing — we assigned that to temperance alone." "Yes."
"So the man of medicine, as it happens, doesn't know about medicine either, since medicine is a knowledge." "True." "The temperate man will recognize that the doctor has some knowledge; but if he needs to test what sort it is, won't he have to look into something further — namely, its subject matter? Isn't each knowledge defined not only as being knowledge, but as knowledge of something in particular, by having some subject?" "Yes, by that." "And medicine too was defined as different from the other sciences by being knowledge of the healthy and the diseased." "Yes." "So anyone who wants to examine medicine must necessarily examine it in that domain in which it actually lies — not, surely, in things outside it, where it doesn't apply." "No, indeed." "So the one who examines correctly will examine the doctor, as a doctor, in matters of health and disease." "So it seems." "And within that domain — among the things said and done there — he'll examine the things said, whether they're said truly, and the things done, whether they're done correctly." "Necessarily." "Could anyone, then, without medical knowledge, follow either of these?" "No, indeed." "Nor could anyone else at all, it seems, except a doctor — certainly not the temperate man; for then he'd be a doctor in addition to being temperate." "That's so." "So it's all the more certain: if temperance is only knowledge of knowledge and lack of knowledge, it will not be able to distinguish a doctor who knows the matters of his craft from one who doesn't but merely pretends or thinks he does; nor will it be able to distinguish any other knowledgeable person from a non-knowledgeable one in anything else at all — except a fellow practitioner of his own craft, just like other craftsmen do." "So it appears," he said. "Well then, Critias," I said, "what further benefit could we still get from temperance, if it's a thing of this sort? If, as we assumed from the start, the temperate man knew what he knew and what he didn't know — knew of the one that he knows it, and of the other that he doesn't — and were able to examine someone else in the same condition, it would be, we say, an enormous benefit to be temperate; for then we and everyone under our rule would live our lives free of error, both ourselves and those who possessed temperance. For we wouldn't attempt to do the things we didn't know how to do, but would find out those who knew and hand things over to them; nor would we allow others under our rule to do anything except what they were going to do correctly — and that would be precisely what they had knowledge of. And so, thanks to temperance, a household run this way would be well run, and a city well governed, and likewise everything else that temperance ruled over;
for with error removed and rightness in charge, people in that condition would necessarily act well and nobly in every action, and those who act well are happy. Isn't this how we were talking about temperance, Critias — saying what a great good it would be to know what one knows and what one doesn't know?" "Quite so," he said, "that's how we were talking." "But now," I said, "you see that no such knowledge has anywhere turned up to exist." "I see that," he said. "So then," I said, "does the temperance we're now finding — this knowing of knowledge and lack of knowledge — have this much good in it: that whoever has it will learn more easily whatever else he learns, and everything will appear clearer to him, since alongside whatever he's learning he'll also be watching for the presence of knowledge; and he'll examine others better, too, concerning what he himself has learned, whereas those examining without this will do it more feebly and poorly? Is this, my friend, the sort of thing we'll actually get to enjoy from temperance — while we've been looking for something grander, and seeking it to be something greater than it actually is?" "That may well be so," he said. "Perhaps," I said — "and perhaps we've been searching for nothing worthwhile at all. I judge this from the fact that some strange things appear to me about temperance, if it really is of this sort. Let's look, if you're willing: granting that it's possible to have knowledge of knowledge, and not taking away, but granting, that what we assumed from the start — knowing what one knows and what one doesn't know — is what temperance is; even granting all this, let's examine still further whether being of this sort would do us any good at all. For what we were saying a moment ago — that it would be a great good if temperance were of this kind, guiding the management of a household and a city — I don't think we agreed to that correctly, Critias." "How so?" he said. "Because," I said, "we too readily agreed that it would be a great good for mankind if each of us did the things he knew, and handed over to others who knew them the things he didn't know." "Didn't we agree to that correctly?" he said. "I don't think we did," I said. "What you're saying is truly strange, Socrates," he said. "By the Dog," I said, "it seems that way to me too — and just now, looking at it again, I said that strange things were appearing to me, and that I was afraid we weren't examining this correctly."
"Because truly, even if self-control turns out to be exactly this, I still don't see clearly what good it does us." "How so?" he said. "Tell me, so we too can understand what you mean." "I suspect," I said, "that I'm talking nonsense — but still, it's necessary to examine what presents itself and not let it pass carelessly by, if a person cares even a little about himself." "Well said," he replied. "Listen, then," I said, "to my dream, whether it came through the gate of horn or the gate of ivory. Suppose self-control ruled us completely, exactly as we're now defining it — wouldn't everything be done according to knowledge? No pilot who merely claimed to be one, without really being one, could deceive us; no doctor, no general, no one else pretending to know something he doesn't know would go unnoticed. Given that, wouldn't the result be that our bodies would be healthier than they are now, that we'd come through safely at sea and in war, and that all our tools and clothing and footwear and possessions would be skillfully made, because we'd be using genuine craftsmen for everything? And if you like, let's grant that prophecy too is a kind of knowledge of what is going to happen, and that self-control, presiding over it, would turn away the frauds and set up the true seers as our foretellers of the future. Now, granted that the human race were furnished in this way, I follow that it would act and live according to knowledge — since self-control, standing guard, wouldn't let ignorance slip in and work alongside us — but that acting according to knowledge would mean acting well and being happy, that I still can't quite grasp, my dear Critias." "But surely," he said, "you won't easily find some other goal for acting well, if you disqualify acting according to knowledge." "Then teach me one small further point," I said. "Knowledge of what, do you mean? Cutting leather?" "No, by Zeus, not that." "Working bronze?" "Not at all." "Wool, or wood, or anything of that sort?" "No, certainly not." "Then," I said, "we're no longer holding to the claim that the happy person is the one who lives according to knowledge. Because these people who live according to knowledge of such things aren't agreed by you to be happy — it seems you want to limit the happy person to someone living according to knowledge of some particular thing."
"And perhaps you mean the one I mentioned just now — the one who knows everything that's going to happen, the seer. Is that who you mean, or someone else?" "Him, yes," he said, "and someone else too." "Who?" I said. "Could it be someone who, besides the things to come, also knew everything that has happened and everything that now is, and was ignorant of nothing? Let's suppose such a person exists. You couldn't, I think, name anyone living with more knowledge than he." "No, certainly not." "There's still one more thing I want, though — which of his branches of knowledge makes him happy? Or do they all do so equally?" "Not equally at all," he said. "Then which one most of all? By knowing what, among the things that are, have been, and will be?" "Is it, perhaps, the knowledge of playing checkers?" "What checkers?" he said. "Well, is it arithmetic?" "Not at all." "Is it the knowledge of health?" "Closer," he said. "And the one I mean most of all," I said, "knowledge of what is it?" "Of good and evil," he said. "You scoundrel!" I said. "All this time you've been dragging me around in circles, hiding the fact that living according to knowledge wasn't what produced acting well and being happy — not even the sum of all the other branches of knowledge together, but only this one, the knowledge concerning good and evil. Because look, Critias — if you want to remove this particular knowledge from the rest, will medicine be any less able to produce health, will shoemaking be any less able to produce shoes, will weaving be any less able to produce clothes, will the pilot's art be any less able to prevent death at sea, or generalship in war?" "No less able," he said. "But, dear Critias, the fine and beneficial performance of each of these tasks will be missing from us if this knowledge is absent." "True." "But this, it seems, is not self-control — rather, self-control is whatever it is whose function is to benefit us. Because it isn't a knowledge of knowledge and ignorance, but of good and evil. So if this other knowledge is the beneficial one, self-control, being something different, wouldn't be the one that's beneficial to us." "Why," he said, "wouldn't it be beneficial too? Even if self-control is above all a knowledge of knowledge, and it presides over the other branches of knowledge, then surely, ruling over this knowledge of the good, it would benefit us." "And would it be this that produces health," I said, "rather than medicine? Would it produce all the other products of the crafts, rather than each craft producing its own particular product? Or haven't we been insisting all along that it's a knowledge only of knowledge and ignorance, and of nothing else? Isn't that so?" "It appears so." "Then it won't be the producer of health?" "No, certainly not."
"Because health belonged to a different craft — didn't it?" "A different one." "Nor, then, of benefit in general, my friend — because we just now assigned that function to a different craft as well. Isn't that right?" "Quite so." "So how will self-control be beneficial, if it's the producer of no benefit at all?" "It doesn't seem possible in any way, Socrates." "You see, then, Critias, how rightly I was afraid all along, and how justly I blamed myself for making no headway in my inquiry about self-control? Because surely, if I'd been of any use for conducting the search properly, that which everyone agrees is the finest of all things wouldn't have turned out useless to us. But as it stands, we're beaten on every front, and we can't discover what in the world it is that the lawgiver had in mind when he gave this thing the name 'self-control.' And yet we've granted many points in the argument that don't actually follow for us. We agreed that there could be a knowledge of knowledge, even though the argument didn't allow it or claim it was possible; and further, we agreed that this same knowledge could also recognize the products of the other branches of knowledge — though the argument didn't allow that either — so that the self-controlled person could come out knowing what he knows, that he knows it, and what he doesn't know, that he doesn't know it. This we granted in the most grandiose way possible, without even examining whether it's impossible for someone to know, in any fashion whatsoever, things he doesn't know at all — for our agreement claims he knows these things precisely by not knowing them. And yet, I think, nothing could appear more irrational than that. Still, though our inquiry has found us so easygoing and unrigorous, it's no better able to find the truth — in fact, it has mocked the truth so thoroughly that what we ourselves, agreeing together and molding it with our own hands, had long since set down as self-control, this same thing it has now revealed to us, with great insolence, to be useless. Now for my own part I'm less troubled by this. But on your behalf, Charmides," I said, "I am very troubled indeed, if you, being as fine as you are in body, and beyond that possessing the most self-controlled soul, should get no benefit from this self-control, and it should do nothing for you in the course of your life. And I'm even more troubled on account of the charm I learned from the Thracian, if I went to all that trouble learning something worth nothing at all. Now, I don't really think matters stand that way — rather, I think I'm simply a poor investigator. For self-control, I believe, is a great good, and if you do in fact possess it, you're a blessed man.
But look and see whether you have it, and have no need of the charm at all — because if you do have it, I would advise you instead to consider me a fool, incapable of investigating anything by reasoning, and to consider yourself all the happier the more self-controlled you are." And Charmides said, "But, by Zeus, Socrates, I myself don't know whether I have it or not. How could I know something which, as you say yourselves, you're not even able to discover what it actually is? For my part, though, I'm not entirely convinced by you, and I think, Socrates, that I really do need the charm, and as far as I'm concerned nothing stops you from chanting it over me every day, until you say it's enough." "Very well," said Critias, "Charmides — if you do this, it will be proof to me that you are indeed self-controlled, if you submit yourself to be charmed by Socrates and don't abandon it for anything, great or small." "You can count on me following him and not abandoning it," he said. "It would be terrible of me not to obey you, my guardian, and not to do what you order." "But indeed," he said, "I do order it." "Then I'll do it," he said, "starting from this very day." "Here now," I said, "what are you two plotting to do?" "Nothing," said Charmides, "we've already plotted it." "So you'll use force on me," I said, "without even granting me a hearing?" "You can be sure force will be used," he said, "since this man here is giving the orders. So you, for your part, had better consider what you're going to do about it." "But there's no counsel left to take," I said. "When you set your mind to doing anything at all and use force to get it, no one on earth will be able to stand against you." "Then don't you stand against it either," he said. "I won't stand against it," I said.
LYSIMACHUS: You've now watched the man fight in armor, Nicias and Laches. Melesias here and I didn't tell you at the time why we asked you to watch with us, but we'll tell you now — since we think we ought to speak plainly with you. There are people who laugh at this sort of thing, and if you ask their advice they won't tell you what they actually think, but instead try to guess what you want to hear and say something other than their real opinion. But we took you two along to advise us on this matter precisely because we judged you capable of forming a judgment, and, having formed it, of simply saying what you think.
LYSIMACHUS: So here is the matter I've been making such a long preamble about. We have these two sons here — this one belongs to Melesias, and carries his grandfather's name, Thucydides; and this other one is mine, and he too carries his grandfather's name, my father's — we call him Aristides. Now we've decided we must look after them as carefully as we possibly can, and not do what most people do — once their boys become young men, let them do whatever they like — but instead start right now taking real care of them, as far as we're able. And knowing that you too have sons, we assumed that you, if anyone, would have given thought to how they might be raised to turn out as well as possible. But in case you haven't often turned your mind to this, we want to remind you that it shouldn't be neglected, and to urge you to join us in taking some care for our sons together. You should hear, Nicias and Laches, how we came to this decision, even if it takes a bit longer to tell. Melesias here and I eat our meals together, and our boys join us at table. Now, as I said at the start, we'll speak frankly with you: each of us has many fine deeds of our own father's to tell these young men — all they accomplished in war and in peace, both in managing the affairs of the allies and of this city. But neither of us has any deed of his own to tell. We feel rather ashamed in front of these boys because of this, and we blame our fathers for letting us live soft while we were young men, while they were busy with other people's business. And we point this very thing out to these young men, telling them that if they neglect themselves and don't listen to us, they'll grow up without any name for themselves, but if they take care, they may yet come to deserve the names they carry. They, for their part, say they'll obey. So now we're considering what they should learn or practice to turn out as well as possible. Someone suggested to us this very subject — that it would be a fine thing for a young man to learn to fight in armor. And he praised the man you just watched give his demonstration, and urged us to come see him. So we decided we ought to go watch the man ourselves, and bring you along too, both as fellow spectators and, if you're willing, as advisers and partners in the care of our sons.
LYSIMACHUS: That's what we wanted to share with you. Now it's your turn to advise us — both about this subject, whether you think it should be learned or not, and about anything else, if you have some other course of study or practice to recommend for a young man, and also to say what part you'll take in this partnership. NICIAS: For my part, Lysimachus and Melesias, I approve of your intention and I'm ready to take part — and I think Laches here is too. LACHES: You're right to think so, Nicias. What Lysimachus just said about his own father and Melesias's father seems to me very well put — about them, about us, and indeed about everyone who manages the city's affairs: that this is pretty much what happens to them, just as he says, both concerning their children and everything else — their private affairs get neglected and carelessly handled. That much you put well, Lysimachus. But I'm surprised that you call on us to advise you about the young men's education, and don't call on Socrates here — first because he's a fellow demesman of yours, and second because he's always spending his time wherever there's something of the kind you're looking for, some fine subject of study or practice for the young. LYSIMACHUS: What do you mean, Laches? Has Socrates here taken up some such concern? LACHES: He certainly has, Lysimachus. NICIAS: I could tell you that as well as Laches can — in fact he recently recommended a music teacher for my son, a pupil of Agathocles named Damon, a man of the finest quality — not only in music, but well worth spending time with in every other way, for young men of that age. LYSIMACHUS: Well, Socrates, Nicias, and Laches — people my age don't really know the younger generation anymore, since old age keeps us at home most of the time. But if you, son of Sophroniscus, have any good advice to give your fellow demesman here, you ought to give it. And it's only right that you should — you happen to be a friend of our family from your father's time. Your father and I were always close companions and friends, and he died before we ever had a falling out.
LYSIMACHUS: And just now, hearing these two speak, a memory comes back to me. These young men here, talking with each other at home, often mention Socrates and praise him highly — though I've never asked them whether they meant the son of Sophroniscus. But tell me, boys, is this the Socrates you keep mentioning? BOY: Yes indeed, father, this is him. LYSIMACHUS: Good, by Hera, Socrates — good that you do credit to your father, who was the best of men, especially since from now on what's ours will be at your disposal, and what's yours at ours. LACHES: And what's more, Lysimachus, don't let go of the man. I've seen him elsewhere too, doing credit not only to his father but to his country. He retreated alongside me from Delium, and I tell you, if the others had been willing to be like him, our city would have stood tall and would never have suffered such a fall. LYSIMACHUS: Well, Socrates, that's fine praise indeed — praise you're now receiving from men worth trusting, and on just the matters they're praising you for. So you should know that it makes me glad to hear this, that you have a good reputation, and you should consider me among your warmest well-wishers. You really ought to have come around to see us before now, and thought of us as family, as is only right. But from this day on, now that we've come to know one another, don't do otherwise — associate with us, get to know both us and these younger ones, so that you too may help keep our friendship alive. Well, you'll do that, and we'll remind you of it again ourselves. But about what we started with — what do you say? What's your judgment? Is this subject suitable for the young men to learn, or not — learning to fight in armor? SOCRATES: Well, on that question too, Lysimachus, I'll try to give whatever advice I can, and also to do everything you're asking. But it seems to me only fair that I, being younger than these two and less experienced in the matter, should first hear what they have to say and learn from them — and only if I have something to add beyond what they've said, should I then try to teach and persuade both you and them. Come, Nicias, why doesn't one of you speak? NICIAS: Nothing's stopping me, Socrates. I do think this subject is useful for young men to know, in many ways.
NICIAS: For one thing, it's good that they not spend their free time elsewhere, in the pursuits young men love to fill their leisure with, but in this — which also has the effect of necessarily improving the body, since it's no lesser or easier exercise than any other form of training. And besides, this exercise, like horsemanship, suits a free man especially well; for only those who train with the instruments of war are athletes in the contest we're engaged in and for which we're preparing. Then too, this subject will be of some use in battle itself, when one must fight in formation alongside many others; but its greatest benefit comes when the ranks break up and one must fight alone against one — either attacking someone on the defensive as he pursues, or defending oneself when someone attacks during a retreat. A man who knows this skill couldn't be harmed by a single opponent, and perhaps not even by several, but would have the advantage everywhere in such a case. Moreover, a subject like this stirs a desire for another fine subject as well: anyone who has learned to fight in armor would want to go on and learn about troop formations, and having grasped that and set his ambition on it, he'd press on toward everything concerning generalship. And it's already clear that everything connected with these subjects — all the studies and practices that follow — are fine and well worth a man's learning and practicing, and this subject would lead the way to them. We should add no small addition to this: that this knowledge would make any man considerably bolder and more courageous in war than he would otherwise be on his own. And let's not disdain to mention, even if to some it seems a smaller point, that it also makes a man more graceful just where he most needs to appear graceful — and where, through this very grace, he'll also appear more formidable to his enemies. So, Lysimachus, as I say, it's my view that the young men should be taught this, and I've told you my reasons. But if Laches has something to say against this, I'd be glad to hear it myself. LACHES: Well, Nicias, it's hard to say of any subject of learning that it shouldn't be learned — since knowing everything seems to be a good thing. And so, if this fighting-in-armor is indeed a genuine subject of learning, as its teachers claim and as Nicias describes it, then it should be learned. But if it isn't really a subject of learning at all, and those who promise to teach it are just deceiving people — or if it is a subject of learning, but not a very serious one — then what need would there be to learn it?
LACHES: I say this about it with the following consideration in mind: I think that if there were anything to it, it could not have escaped the notice of the Spartans, who care about nothing else in life except seeking out and practicing whatever will give them an advantage over others in war. And even if it had escaped them, it certainly hasn't escaped the notice of this skill's own teachers — namely, that the Spartans, more than any other Greeks, are devoted to such things, and that anyone honored among them for this would make the most money from everyone else too, just as a tragic poet honored among us would. And that's exactly why anyone who thinks he writes tragedy well doesn't go touring around the outlying towns of Attica putting on shows, but comes straight here and performs for our people — quite reasonably. But as for these men who fight in armor, I notice they treat Sparta as sacred ground they may not so much as set a toe on, and instead go touring all around it, putting on their demonstrations for everyone else instead — especially for people who would themselves admit that many of their own countrymen surpass them in matters of war. Furthermore, Lysimachus, I myself have been present at quite a few of these men's actual performances in real combat, and I've seen what they're like. In fact we can examine this right from the evidence at hand: as if by design, not one man who has made a special study of fighting in armor has ever become distinguished in war. And yet in every other pursuit, the men who become famous come precisely from those who have specially practiced each skill; these men, it seems, have had strikingly bad luck in this one respect compared to everyone else. Take this very Stesilaus, whom you and I watched giving his demonstration before that huge crowd, saying all those grand things about himself — I once saw him elsewhere putting on a demonstration that was genuine, without meaning to be. His ship rammed a merchant vessel he was serving on as a marine, and he fought with a spear fitted with a sickle blade — quite a distinctive weapon, to match how distinctive he was among men. Well, the rest about the man isn't worth telling, but here's how his clever sickle-spear turned out. While he was fighting, it got caught somehow in the ship's rigging and stuck there. Stesilaus pulled and pulled, trying to free it, and couldn't — and meanwhile the ship was sailing right past the other.
LACHES: Well, for a while he ran along the ship's side clinging to the spear. But when the two ships drew apart and the pull of it dragged him along still holding on, he let the spear slide through his hand until he caught hold of the very end of the butt-spike. There was laughter and applause from the crew of the merchant vessel at the figure he cut, and when someone threw a stone that landed at his feet on the deck and he let go of the spear altogether, then even the men on the trireme could no longer contain their laughter, seeing that reaping-hook of a spear dangling from the merchant ship. Now perhaps there's something in it, as Nicias says. But whatever I've come across of it has been of this sort. So, as I said from the start, whether it's a discipline that offers such small benefits, or whether it isn't a discipline at all and people merely claim and pretend that it is, it isn't worth the trouble of learning it. And here's what strikes me: if a coward believed he knew it, he'd only become bolder, and his true nature would show all the more plainly for it; while if a brave man knew it, people would watch him so closely that the smallest slip would bring him great blame — because the pretension to that kind of knowledge invites envy, so that unless a man's excellence is astonishingly far beyond everyone else's, there's no way he could avoid becoming a laughingstock by claiming to have this skill. That, Lysimachus, is the sort of regard I think this discipline deserves. But you should do as I said from the start — don't let Socrates here off the hook, but ask him to tell you what he thinks about the matter before us. LYSIMACHUS: Well, I certainly do ask it of you, Socrates. In fact it seems to me we need someone to settle the matter between these two, so to speak. If the two of them agreed, there'd be less need of that. But as it is, since Laches has taken the opposite side from Nicias, as you see, it would be good to hear from you too which of the two men you side with. SOCRATES: Well now, Lysimachus — whichever opinion the majority of us favor, is that the one you mean to follow? LYSIMACHUS: What else could one do, Socrates? SOCRATES: And would you do the same, Melesias? If you were deliberating about what training your son should undertake for some athletic contest, would you be persuaded by the majority of us, or by whichever one of us happened to have been trained and practiced under a good athletic trainer? MELESIAS: By that one, naturally, Socrates. SOCRATES: So you'd be persuaded by him alone rather than by the four of us together? MELESIAS: Perhaps so. SOCRATES: Because, I take it, what is going to be judged well must be judged by knowledge, not by numbers. MELESIAS: Of course.
SOCRATES: So now too we must first examine this very point — whether any of us has expertise in the thing we're deliberating about, or not. And if one of us does, we should be persuaded by him, though he's only one, and let the rest go; but if none of us does, we should look for someone else. Or do you think it's a small matter that you and Lysimachus are now risking, rather than the greatest possession that happens to belong to you both? For surely, depending on whether your sons turn out good or the opposite, the whole household of the father will be run accordingly, however the children turn out. MELESIAS: True. SOCRATES: So the matter demands a great deal of forethought. MELESIAS: It certainly does. SOCRATES: Well then, how would we go about examining — as I was just saying — if we wanted to find out which of us is the most skilled in athletic contests? Wouldn't it be the one who had learned and practiced it, and for whom there had been good teachers of that very thing? MELESIAS: I think so. SOCRATES: And even before that, shouldn't we ask what exactly this thing is for which we're seeking the teachers? MELESIAS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: Perhaps it will be clearer put this way. It doesn't seem to me that we've agreed from the start on what exactly it is that we're deliberating and inquiring about — which of us is skilled in it and has therefore acquired teachers for it, and which of us hasn't. NICIAS: But Socrates, aren't we examining fighting in arms — whether the young men ought to learn it or not? SOCRATES: Quite so, Nicias. But when someone is considering a medicine for the eyes, whether it should be applied or not, do you think the deliberation at that point concerns the medicine, or the eyes? NICIAS: The eyes. SOCRATES: And likewise when someone considers whether a bit should be put on a horse, and when, he's deliberating then about the horse, not about the bit? NICIAS: True. SOCRATES: So in a word, whenever someone considers something for the sake of something else, the deliberation turns out to concern that other thing for whose sake he was considering it, not the thing he was inquiring about for the sake of that other thing. NICIAS: Necessarily. SOCRATES: So the adviser too must consider whether he is skilled in caring for that very thing for whose sake we are conducting our inquiry. NICIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And now, don't we say we're inquiring about a course of study for the sake of the young men's souls? NICIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then what we must examine is whether any of us is skilled in the care of the soul and capable of caring for it well, and who has had good teachers of it. LACHES: What, Socrates? Haven't you ever seen people become more skilled at some things without teachers than others with teachers? SOCRATES: I have, Laches — people, that is, whom you yourself wouldn't be willing to trust if they claimed to be good craftsmen, unless they could show you some work of their craft well made, and not just one but several.
LACHES: In that you're right. SOCRATES: So we too, Laches and Nicias, must do the same — since Lysimachus and Melesias have called us in for advice about their two sons, wanting their souls to become as excellent as possible — we must, if we claim to have this ability, show them teachers who made us ourselves good men to begin with, having cared for the souls of many young men, and who then are seen to have taught us as well; or if one of us says he has had no teacher for this, then he must at least be able to name and point to some work of his own — which Athenians or foreigners, slave or free, have become acknowledged good men through him. But if none of this applies to us, we should tell them to look for others, and not risk ruining the sons of friends and thereby earning the gravest blame from those closest to us. Now I, Lysimachus and Melesias, will speak first about myself: I have had no teacher in this matter. And yet I have longed for the thing since I was young. But I haven't been able to pay the fees the sophists ask, who are the only ones who professed to be able to make me a fine and good man; and I myself am still, even now, unable to discover the art. But if Nicias or Laches has discovered it or learned it, I wouldn't be surprised — after all, they're wealthier than I am, so they could have learned from others, and they're older too, so they may already have discovered it. They seem to me capable of educating a person; for they'd never have declared themselves so fearlessly about which pursuits are good or bad for a young man, unless they trusted that they knew enough. Now in other respects I trust them; but that the two of them disagree with one another — that surprised me. So this is what I ask of you in return, Lysimachus: just as Laches urged you a moment ago not to let me go but to keep questioning me, so now I urge you not to let go of Laches or Nicias either, but to keep questioning them, saying that Socrates denies having any understanding of the matter and is not capable of judging which of you speaks the truth — for he has been neither a discoverer nor a student of anyone in such things —
SOCRATES: but you, Laches and Nicias, must each tell us who is the most formidable person you have spent time with concerning the upbringing of the young, and whether you know this through having learned it from someone or through having discovered it yourselves; and if you learned it, who was each one's teacher, and who else practices the same craft as they do, so that, if you have no leisure yourselves because of public affairs, we might go to those men and persuade them, with gifts or favors or both, to look after our children and yours, so that they may not disgrace their ancestors by turning out badly. But if you yourselves have been the discoverers of such a thing, give us some example of others you have already looked after and made good men out of poor ones. For if you're only now going to begin educating for the first time, you should consider that you're not risking the experiment on some worthless Carian, but on your own sons and the sons of your friends, and that quite literally, as the proverb says, you'll find yourselves 'learning pottery on a wine-jar.' So tell us which of these things you claim applies and belongs to you, or which does not. Ask them this, Lysimachus, and don't let the men off. LYSIMACHUS: What Socrates says seems well put to me, gentlemen; but whether you're willing to be questioned about such things and to give an account, you yourselves must decide, Nicias and Laches. As for me and Melesias here, it would clearly please us if you were willing to go through in speech everything Socrates asks. Indeed I began by saying from the start that we called you in for advice for this very reason — because we supposed, reasonably enough, that you had given thought to such matters, especially since your sons are nearly the same age as ours and ready to be educated. So if it makes no difference to you, speak up, and consider the matter jointly with Socrates, giving and receiving an account from one another; for he's right about this too, that we're now deliberating about the greatest of our concerns. But see whether you think it right to proceed this way. NICIAS: Lysimachus, it seems to me you truly know Socrates only by his father's name, and haven't been in his company except when he was a boy, if perhaps you happened to be near him among the members of your deme, following his father, at a temple or some other gathering of the deme. But since he's grown older, you clearly haven't yet encountered the man. LYSIMACHUS: What do you mean particularly, Nicias?
NICIAS: You don't seem to know that whoever comes closest to Socrates in conversation, and draws near him in discussion, is bound — even if he began talking about something quite different at first — to be led around and around by the argument until he finds himself giving an account of himself, of the manner in which he now lives and the way he has lived his past life; and once he has fallen into that, Socrates will not let him go until he has thoroughly and properly tested every bit of it. I myself am used to the man, and I know it's inevitable that one suffers this at his hands, and I know very well too that I myself will suffer it. For I enjoy being near him, Lysimachus, and I think there's nothing bad in being reminded of anything we haven't done or aren't doing well, but that a man who doesn't flee from this, but is willing, in the spirit of Solon, to think it worth learning as long as he lives, and doesn't suppose that old age of itself brings him wisdom, is bound to take more forethought for the rest of his life. So there's nothing unfamiliar or unpleasant to me in being tested by Socrates; indeed I knew pretty much all along that with Socrates present, the discussion wouldn't be about the boys but about ourselves. So, as I say, nothing prevents me, for my part, from spending time with Socrates in whatever way he wishes; but see how Laches here feels about such a thing. LACHES: My feeling about discussions, Nicias, is simple — or if you like, not simple but double; for one might think me both a lover of argument and a hater of argument. Whenever I hear a man discussing virtue, or some kind of wisdom, who is truly a man and worthy of the words he speaks, I take extraordinary pleasure in it, seeing at once how well the speaker and what is spoken suit and harmonize with one another. Such a man seems to me altogether a musician, tuned to the finest harmony — not on a lyre or on instruments of play, but truly attuned in his living, making his own life harmonize with his words in his deeds, in the Dorian mode, as it were, and not the Ionian, nor, I think, the Phrygian or the Lydian either, but that mode which alone is truly Greek. Such a man makes me rejoice when he speaks, and makes anyone think me a lover of argument — so eagerly do I welcome what he says. But the man who does the opposite pains me, and the better he seems to speak, the more it pains me, and in turn it makes me seem a hater of argument.
LACHES: I have no experience of Socrates' words, but earlier, it seems, I had experience of his deeds, and there I found him worthy of fine words and complete frankness. So if this holds true of him as well, I am glad to join with the man, and I would most gladly be examined by someone like that, and I wouldn't mind learning from him—in fact I agree with Solon, adding just one thing: as I grow old I'm willing to be taught many things, but only by good men. Let him grant me this, that the teacher himself be good, so that I don't look like a poor learner, learning unwillingly. But if the teacher happens to be younger, or not yet well known, or has some other such mark against him, none of that troubles me. So to you, Socrates, I offer both to teach and to be examined by you on whatever you like, and to learn in turn whatever I happen to know. That is how I have felt about you ever since that day when you shared danger with me and gave proof of the kind of courage a man ought to give who means to give it honestly. So say whatever you please, and don't let our age hold you back at all. SOCRATES: It seems we won't be able to accuse you two of being unwilling to advise and think this through together. LYSIMACHUS: Well, it is our job now, Socrates—I count you as one of us—so look into it in my place, on behalf of the boys, and find out from these two what we need, and give your advice by talking with them. For my part, because of my age, I already forget most of what I mean to ask, and likewise what I hear; and if other talk comes up in between, I don't remember well at all. So you two speak and go through the matter among yourselves as we proposed; I will listen, and having listened, I'll do together with Melesias here whatever seems best to you as well. SOCRATES: We must obey, Nicias and Laches, Lysimachus and Melesias. Now, as for what we just now set out to examine—who our teachers in this sort of education have been, or whom else we have made better—perhaps it wouldn't be a bad thing to question ourselves about such things too. But I think an inquiry of the following kind comes to the same result, and is perhaps even more fundamental. For if we happen to know about anything at all that its presence in something makes that thing better, and further, if we are able to bring it about that this thing is present in that other thing, then clearly we know the very thing itself about which we would be advisers as to how one might most easily and best acquire it. Perhaps you don't follow what I'm saying; but you'll grasp it more easily this way.
SOCRATES: If we happen to know that the presence of sight in eyes makes those eyes better, and further, that we are able to bring it about that sight is present in eyes, then clearly we know what sight itself actually is, and about that we could be advisers as to how one might most easily and best acquire it. For if we didn't even know this much—what sight is, or what hearing is—we would hardly become advisers worth listening to, or doctors either, about eyes or about ears, as to how one might best acquire hearing or sight. LACHES: What you say is true, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, Laches, isn't it exactly for this that these two are now calling us in for advice—in what way virtue, coming to be present in their sons' souls, would make them better? LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Then mustn't we first have this much in hand—knowing what virtue actually is? For if we didn't know at all what virtue happens to be, in what way could we become advisers to anyone about how he might best acquire it? LACHES: In no way, it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: So we say, Laches, that we know what it is. LACHES: We do say that. SOCRATES: Then what we know, surely we could also say what it is. LACHES: Of course. SOCRATES: Well then, my good man, let's not examine virtue as a whole straight off—that's perhaps too big a job—but let's first look at some part of it, to see whether we're adequately equipped to know it; and that way, presumably, our inquiry will be easier. LACHES: Then let's do it that way, Socrates, as you wish. SOCRATES: So which of the parts of virtue should we choose? Isn't it obvious that it should be the one that the training in arms seems to aim at? And that, in most people's view, is courage. Isn't that so? LACHES: Yes, that certainly does seem to be the view. SOCRATES: Then let's first try to say, Laches, what courage actually is; and after that we'll look at how it might come to be present in the young men, so far as it can come to be present through practices and studies. Come, try to say what I mean: what is courage? LACHES: By Zeus, Socrates, that's not hard to say. If a man is willing to stand in the ranks and fight off the enemy without fleeing, you may be sure he is courageous. SOCRATES: Well said, Laches; but perhaps I am to blame, for not asking clearly, so that you answered not what I had in mind when I asked, but something else. LACHES: What do you mean by that, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I'll explain, if I can. The man you're speaking of is courageous, surely—the one who stands in the ranks and fights the enemy. LACHES: I certainly say so. SOCRATES: So do I. But what about this other man, who fights the enemy while fleeing rather than standing his ground? LACHES: Fleeing—how do you mean? SOCRATES: The way the Scythians are said to fight, no less while fleeing than while pursuing; and Homer somewhere, praising the horses of Aeneas, says they knew how to pursue and to flee, this way and that, swift indeed; and he praised Aeneas himself for this very thing, for his knowledge of fear, calling him a 'deviser of fear.' LACHES: And rightly so, Socrates—he was talking about chariots. And what you're describing about the Scythians applies to horsemen: their cavalry fights that way, while the heavy infantry of the Greeks fights as I described. SOCRATES: Except perhaps the Spartans, Laches. They say that at Plataea, when the Spartans came up against the men with the wicker shields, they were unwilling to stand and fight them, but fled; and then, once the Persian ranks broke apart, the Spartans wheeled around and fought like cavalry, and that is how they won the battle there. LACHES: That's true. SOCRATES: So this is what I meant just now when I said I was to blame for your answering badly, because I asked badly. I wanted to learn from you not only about the courageous men in the infantry, but also those in the cavalry and in every form of warfare; and not only those in war, but also those courageous in dangers at sea, and all who are courageous against disease, against poverty, or in political affairs; and further, not only those courageous against pains or fears, but also those skilled at fighting against desires or pleasures, whether by standing firm or by wheeling around—for there are, I think, Laches, people who are courageous in matters of that sort too. LACHES: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So all these people are courageous, but some possess their courage in pleasures, some in pains, some in desires, some in fears; while others, I suppose, possess cowardice in these same situations. LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: What, then, is each of these two things? That's what I was asking. So try again to say first what courage is, being the same thing in all these cases—or do you still not follow what I mean? LACHES: Not entirely.
SOCRATES: What I mean is this: it's as if I asked what speed is, this thing that happens to be present in running, in playing the lyre, in speaking, in learning, and in many other things, and that we more or less possess wherever it's worth mentioning, whether in the actions of hands, legs, mouth and voice, or of the mind. Isn't that how you'd put it too? LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: Well then, if someone asked me, 'Socrates, what do you mean by this thing you call speed in all these cases?' I would tell him that I call speed the capacity to accomplish much in a short time—in speech, in running, and in everything else. LACHES: You'd be right to say so. SOCRATES: Then you try too, Laches, to say what courage is in this same way—what single capacity it is that is the same in pleasure and in pain and in all the cases we just mentioned it as being present in, and that is then called courage. LACHES: Well, it seems to me to be a kind of endurance of the soul, if indeed I must say what runs through all cases as the nature of courage. SOCRATES: But we must, if we're going to answer the question put to us. Now this is how it appears to me: not every kind of endurance, I think, appears to you as courage. My reason for thinking so is this: I'm fairly sure, Laches, that you count courage among the very finest things. LACHES: You may be sure it's among the finest of all. SOCRATES: Then isn't endurance joined with wisdom fine and good? LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: But what about endurance joined with folly? Isn't that, on the contrary, harmful and mischievous? LACHES: Yes. SOCRATES: Will you then say that something is fine when it's mischievous and harmful? LACHES: That wouldn't be right, Socrates. SOCRATES: So you won't agree that this kind of endurance is courage, since it isn't fine, while courage is something fine. LACHES: True. SOCRATES: So on your account, wise endurance would be courage. LACHES: It seems so. SOCRATES: Let's see, then—wise about what? About everything, great and small alike? For instance, if someone endures spending money wisely, knowing that by spending he'll gain more, would you call him courageous? LACHES: No, by Zeus, not I.
SOCRATES: But what if, say, a doctor, with his son suffering from pneumonia or someone else in that condition begging to be given something to drink or eat, doesn't give in but holds firm? LACHES: That's not courage either, not in the least. SOCRATES: But take a man enduring in war and willing to fight, reasoning wisely, knowing that others will come to his aid, that he will be fighting against fewer and weaker men than those he has with him, and moreover that he holds the stronger position—would you say this man, enduring with such wisdom and such preparation, is more courageous than the man in the opposing camp who is willing to stand firm and endure? LACHES: The man in the opposing camp, it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: But surely his endurance is less wise than the other man's. LACHES: True. SOCRATES: So you'll say that the man who endures a cavalry battle with knowledge of horsemanship is less courageous than the one without that knowledge. LACHES: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: And likewise the man who endures with skill at the sling or the bow or some other craft. LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: And those who are willing to climb down into a well and dive and endure at that task without being skilled at it, or at some other such thing—you'll say they are more courageous than those who are skilled at it. LACHES: What else could one say, Socrates? SOCRATES: Nothing, if that's really what one thinks. LACHES: Well, I do think it. SOCRATES: And yet surely, Laches, such men take risks and endure less wisely than those who do the same thing with skill. LACHES: So it appears. SOCRATES: But wasn't reckless daring and endurance shown earlier by us to be shameful, and harmful too? LACHES: Quite so. SOCRATES: While courage was agreed to be something fine. LACHES: Yes, it was agreed. SOCRATES: But now, in turn, we're saying that this shameful thing, unwise endurance, is courage. LACHES: We do seem to be saying that. SOCRATES: Do you think we're speaking well, then? LACHES: No, by Zeus, Socrates, not I. SOCRATES: Then it seems, Laches, that you and I aren't in tune with each other in the Dorian mode, as your own words would have it—our deeds don't harmonize with our arguments. In deed, it seems, someone would say we have a share of courage, but in argument, I think, he would not, if he heard us talking as we are now. LACHES: That's very true. SOCRATES: Well then—does it seem right to you that we should be in this condition? LACHES: Not in the least. SOCRATES: Do you want us, then, to obey what we ourselves have said, at least to this extent? LACHES: To what extent, and obey what exactly?
SOCRATES: The argument tells us to hold our ground. So if you're willing, let's stick with the inquiry and hold firm ourselves, so that courage itself doesn't laugh at us for going after it in a cowardly way — in case, as it happens, sheer endurance turns out to be courage after all. LACHES: I'm ready, Socrates, not to give up early. And yet I'm not used to this kind of discussion. Something like a competitive spirit has taken hold of me over what's been said, and I'm honestly annoyed that I can't put into words what I think I understand. I feel sure I grasp what courage is, but somehow it slipped away from me just now, so that I couldn't pin it down in words and say what it is. SOCRATES: Well, my friend, a good hunter has to keep chasing and not let up. LACHES: Absolutely. SOCRATES: Then would you like us to call in Nicias here to join the hunt, in case he's better equipped than we are? LACHES: I would — why not? SOCRATES: Come then, Nicias, lend a hand to friends caught in a storm of argument and stuck, if you have any power to. You can see how stuck we are. But if you tell us what you take courage to be, you'll free us from our difficulty and also nail down in words what you yourself think. NICIAS: Well, Socrates, it seems to me you two have been defining courage badly for some time now. There's something I've heard you say very well before, and you're not using it. SOCRATES: What's that, Nicias? NICIAS: I've often heard you say that each of us is good at the things we're wise about, and bad at the things we're ignorant of. SOCRATES: That's true, by Zeus, Nicias. NICIAS: Then if the courageous person is good, clearly he's wise. SOCRATES: Did you hear that, Laches? LACHES: I did, and I don't much follow what he means. SOCRATES: But I think I follow — it seems to me the man means courage is a kind of wisdom. LACHES: What kind of wisdom, Socrates? SOCRATES: Isn't that just what you're asking him? LACHES: I am. SOCRATES: Go on then, Nicias, tell him what kind of wisdom courage would be, on your account. It's surely not skill at flute-playing. NICIAS: Not at all. SOCRATES: Nor skill at the lyre, either. NICIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: Then what is it, and knowledge of what? LACHES: You're asking him exactly the right question, Socrates — let him say what he claims it is.
NICIAS: This one, Laches — the knowledge of what is to be feared and what is to be dared, in war and in everything else. LACHES: What a strange thing to say, Socrates. SOCRATES: What made you say that, Laches? LACHES: What made me? Wisdom is one thing, surely, and courage another. SOCRATES: Well, Nicias doesn't say so. LACHES: No, he doesn't, by Zeus — and that's exactly why he's talking nonsense. SOCRATES: Then let's teach him instead of abusing him. NICIAS: No — I think Laches wants to make me look like I'm talking nonsense too, since he just looked that way himself. LACHES: Quite right, Nicias, and I'll try to prove it — you are talking nonsense. Take doctors, for instance: don't they know what's dangerous in illness? Or do you think the courageous know that? Or do you call doctors courageous? NICIAS: Not in the least. LACHES: Nor farmers either, I imagine. And yet farmers surely know what's dangerous in farming, and every other craftsman knows what's dangerous and what's safe in his own trade — but that doesn't make them any more courageous. SOCRATES: What do you think Laches means, Nicias? He does seem to be saying something. NICIAS: He is saying something, yes, but it isn't true. SOCRATES: How so? NICIAS: Because he thinks doctors know more about the sick than just how to say what's healthy and what's diseased. But that's all they know. Whether being healthy is actually more to be feared for someone than being sick — do you think doctors know that, Laches? Or don't you think that for many people it's better not to recover from an illness than to recover? Tell me this: do you claim it's better for everyone to live, and not better for many to be dead? LACHES: Yes, I think that's so. NICIAS: Then do you think the same things are to be feared by those for whom death is a gain as by those for whom life is? LACHES: No, I don't. NICIAS: And do you grant it to doctors, then, or to any other craftsman, to know this — except to the one who has knowledge of what is and isn't to be feared, whom I call courageous? SOCRATES: Do you follow what he's saying, Laches? LACHES: I do — he means that the courageous are prophets. Who else would know for whom it's better to live or to die? But you, Nicias — do you admit to being a prophet, or neither a prophet nor courageous? NICIAS: What, do you now think it's the prophet's job to know what's to be feared and what's to be dared?
NICIAS: The one I mean, my good man, far more than that. A prophet only needs to recognize the signs of what's coming — whether death or disease or loss of property is in store for someone, or victory or defeat in war or some other contest. But whether it's better for a person to suffer these things or not — how is that any more the prophet's business to judge than anyone else's? LACHES: Well, I don't understand what he's trying to say, Socrates. He doesn't make clear whether he means a prophet or a doctor or anyone else at all as the courageous man — unless he means some god. It looks to me like Nicias won't honestly admit he's saying nothing, but keeps twisting this way and that to hide how stuck he is. And yet you and I could have done the same twisting just now, if we'd wanted to avoid looking like we were contradicting ourselves. If we were in a courtroom, there'd be some point to doing that — but here, in a gathering like this, why would anyone dress himself up with empty words for nothing? SOCRATES: I don't think there's any point either, Laches. But let's watch — maybe Nicias thinks he's saying something, and isn't just talking for the sake of talking. Let's find out more clearly from him what he actually means, and if he turns out to be saying something, we'll agree with him; if not, we'll teach him. LACHES: Then you ask him, Socrates, if you want to find out — I think I've heard enough. SOCRATES: Nothing stops me — the questioning will be on behalf of both of us together. LACHES: Very well. SOCRATES: Tell me then, Nicias — or rather tell us both, since Laches and I are sharing this discussion — do you say courage is knowledge of what is to be feared and what is to be dared? NICIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And that this isn't something every man can grasp, since neither a doctor nor a prophet will know it, nor will he be courageous, unless he acquires this very knowledge in addition — isn't that what you were saying? NICIAS: Yes, that's it. SOCRATES: Then, as the proverb says, no pig could really understand this, nor could a pig become courageous. NICIAS: I don't think so. SOCRATES: Clearly then, Nicias, you don't believe even the Crommyonian sow was courageous. And I say this not as a joke, but because I think anyone who says this must refuse to grant courage to any beast — or else concede that some beast is so wise as to know what few human beings know, because it's hard to know, and that a lion or a leopard or some boar could be said to know it. No — whoever sets down courage the way you do must, to be consistent, say that a lion and a deer and a bull and a monkey are all equally suited by nature for courage.
LACHES: By the gods, well said, Socrates! And now answer us truly, Nicias: do you claim these animals — which all of us agree are courageous — are wiser than we are, or are you bold enough to defy everyone and refuse to even call them courageous? NICIAS: No, Laches, I don't call animals courageous, nor anything else that fails to fear what's dangerous out of sheer stupidity — I call that fearless and foolish. Or do you think I call all children courageous too, who fear nothing because they don't know any better? No — I think fearlessness and courage are not the same thing. Very few people, in my view, have a share of courage combined with foresight, while boldness and daring and fearlessness without foresight belong to a great many — men, women, children, and animals alike. So the things you and most people call courageous, I call reckless — courage, to me, is the intelligent kind of thing I'm talking about. LACHES: Look at him, Socrates, dressing himself up so cleverly, as he thinks, with words — while trying to strip the title of courage from those everyone agrees are courageous! NICIAS: Not from you, Laches — don't worry. I say you are wise, and Lamachus too, if the two of you really are courageous, and plenty of other Athenians besides. LACHES: I won't say anything back to that, though I could — I don't want you calling me a true son of Aexone. SOCRATES: No, don't say it, Laches — and I don't think you've even noticed that he picked up this piece of wisdom from our friend Damon, and Damon spends a great deal of time with Prodicus, who's supposed to be the best of the sophists at drawing these fine distinctions between words. LACHES: Yes, Socrates, that sort of hair-splitting suits a sophist better than a man the city thinks fit to lead it. SOCRATES: It's fitting, I suppose, my good man, that whoever presides over the greatest matters should share in the greatest understanding. But I think Nicias deserves a closer look, to see what exactly he has in mind when he applies the name 'courage' this way. LACHES: Then look into it yourself, Socrates. SOCRATES: That's just what I intend to do, my excellent friend — but don't think I'll let you off from sharing in the discussion. Pay attention and think it through with me. LACHES: So be it, if that's how it must be.
SOCRATES: Well, that's how it must be. Now, Nicias, tell us again from the beginning. You know that at the start of our discussion we were examining courage as a part of virtue? NICIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And you answered that it was a part, there being other parts as well, which taken all together are called virtue? NICIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: Do you mean the same things I do by that? I count alongside courage things like moderation and justice and various others of that kind. Don't you? NICIAS: I certainly do. SOCRATES: Good, hold onto that — we agree on it. Now let's look at the matter of what's fearful and what's safe, so that you don't have one thing in mind while we have another. I'll tell you what we think, and if you disagree, you can set us straight. We think that fearful things are the ones that cause dread, and safe things are the ones that don't — and dread is caused not by past or present evils, but by evils expected in the future, since dread is the expectation of a coming evil. Isn't that how it seems to you too, Laches? LACHES: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So there you have our view, Nicias — that fearful things are future evils, and safe things are things not evil, or good, that lie ahead. Do you describe it this way, or some other way? NICIAS: This way. SOCRATES: And you call knowledge of these things courage? NICIAS: Precisely. SOCRATES: Let's examine a third point now, to see whether it agrees with you and with us. NICIAS: What point is that? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. It seems to me and to Laches here that, wherever there is knowledge of something, it isn't one kind of knowledge that tells how something came about in the past, another that tells how it's coming about now, and yet another for how it might best come about and will come about in the future when it hasn't yet happened — rather it's the very same knowledge throughout. Take health, for instance: for all time, it's medicine alone, one single art, that oversees what's happening, what has happened, and what will happen and how. And farming stands the same way regarding what grows from the earth.
SOCRATES: And surely you'd both testify, from your own experience of war, that generalship is the finest kind of foresight — about the future especially — and that it doesn't think it should serve prophecy but rule it, on the ground that it knows better what's happening and what will happen in war. That's how the law sets it up too: not the prophet ruling the general, but the general ruling the prophet. Shall we say that, Laches? LACHES: We'll say it. SOCRATES: Well then — Nicias, do you agree with us that the same knowledge grasps the same things whether future, present, or past? NICIAS: I do — that's how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: And courage, my excellent friend, is knowledge of what's fearsome and what's encouraging, as you say — isn't that so? NICIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And we've agreed that fearsome things are the ones expected to be bad, and encouraging things the ones expected to be good. NICIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the same knowledge covers the same things whether they lie in the future or stand however they stand at any time. NICIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: So courage isn't knowledge only of what's fearsome and encouraging — since it doesn't grasp only future goods and evils, but also present ones, past ones, and things in whatever state they're in, just like the other kinds of knowledge. NICIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then what you've given us, Nicias, is an account of something like a third part of courage — yet we were asking what courage as a whole is. And now, it seems, on your own account, courage turns out to be not just knowledge of the fearsome and the encouraging, but pretty much the knowledge of all goods and evils in every condition — this is what your account now comes to. Is that the shift you're making, or how do you put it, Nicias? NICIAS: That's how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then tell me, my good man — do you think such a person would be missing any part of virtue at all, if he knew all goods, in every way — how they come to be, will come to be, and have come to be — and evils likewise? Do you think this man could be lacking in self-control, or in justice and piety — when it belongs to him alone, among gods and men, to be on guard against what's fearsome and what isn't, and to secure what's good, since he knows how to deal with things rightly? NICIAS: I think you're saying something, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then what you're describing now, Nicias, wouldn't be a part of virtue, but the whole of virtue. NICIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And yet we said courage was one part of virtue. NICIAS: We did say that. SOCRATES: But what's being said now doesn't fit that. NICIAS: It doesn't seem to. SOCRATES: So we haven't discovered, Nicias, what courage is. NICIAS: We don't appear to have.
LACHES: And yet, my dear Nicias, I really thought you'd find it — since you looked down on me when I was answering Socrates. I had great hopes you'd track it down with the wisdom you got from Damon. NICIAS: Very good, Laches — you no longer think it matters at all that you yourself just turned out to know nothing about courage, so long as I turn out to be another one just like you. That's all you're looking at, it seems — and it makes no difference to you, apparently, if you and I both know nothing about the very things a man who thinks himself somebody ought to have knowledge of. You really do seem to me to be doing something all too human — not looking at yourself, but at other people. I think what I've said so far about our subject has been said reasonably enough, and if any of it hasn't been said adequately, I'll set it right later, with Damon's help — whom you seem to find so laughable, though you've never even laid eyes on him — and with the help of others too. And once I've established it firmly, I'll teach you as well, without begrudging it — you seem to me to need the lesson quite badly. LACHES: Yes, you're a clever one, Nicias. All the same, I advise our friends Lysimachus and Melesias here to let you and me alone when it comes to the boys' education, and to hold on to Socrates instead, as I said from the start — not to let him go. If my own sons were of age, I'd do the same. NICIAS: On that much I agree too — if Socrates is willing to look after the young men, no one else need be sought. I'd gladly hand Niceratus over to him myself, if he were willing. But whenever I mention it to him, he keeps recommending other people to me and won't take it on himself. See if he'll listen to you any more readily, Lysimachus. LYSIMACHUS: That's only fair, Nicias, since I'd be willing to do a great deal for him that I wouldn't be willing to do for many others. Well, Socrates, what do you say? Will you listen and join us in the effort to make these young men as good as possible? SOCRATES: It would indeed be a strange thing, Lysimachus, to refuse to join anyone in the effort to become as good as possible. Now if in our discussion just now I had turned out to know the answer while these two didn't, it would be fair to call on me especially for this task. But as it is, we all landed in the same perplexity alike — so which of us should any of us prefer?
SOCRATES: For my own part, I don't think any of us should be preferred. But since that's how things stand, consider whether I have any advice worth offering you. I say, gentlemen — and this goes no further — that all of us together ought to seek out the best teacher we can find, first for ourselves, since we need one, and then for the young men too, sparing neither money nor anything else. But I don't advise letting ourselves stay as we are now. And if anyone will laugh at us for thinking it fitting, at our age, to go and sit at a teacher's feet, then I think we should hold up Homer to them, who said that a needy man ought not to let shame stand in his way. So let's not worry about what anyone will say, and instead make it our joint concern to look after ourselves and the young men together. LYSIMACHUS: I like what you say, Socrates. And I'm willing — old as I am, all the more eagerly — to learn along with the young men. But do this for me: come to my house tomorrow morning, and don't do otherwise, so we can deliberate about this very matter. For now, let's break up our gathering. SOCRATES: I'll do that, Lysimachus, and I'll come to you tomorrow, god willing.
I was walking from the Academy straight to the Lyceum, taking the road just outside the wall, right along it. When I got to the little gate where the spring of Panops is, I ran into Hippothales son of Hieronymus, and Ctesippus of Paeania, and a group of other young men standing together with them. When Hippothales saw me coming he said, "Socrates, where are you off to, and where from?" "From the Academy," I said, "heading straight for the Lyceum." "Come here first," he said, "straight to us. Won't you stop by? It's worth your while." "Where do you mean," I said, "and who is this 'us' you're talking about?" "Here," he said, pointing to an enclosure across from the wall, with a door standing open. "We spend our time there, all of us, and a great many other fine young men besides."
"And what exactly is this place, and what do you do there?" "It's a wrestling school," he said, "newly built. Most of what we do is talk, and we'd be glad to let you in on it." "That's good of you," I said. "And who teaches there?" "Your friend," he said, "and admirer, Miccus." "By Zeus," I said, "he's no mediocre man, but a competent sophist." "Will you come along, then," he said, "so you can see who's there?" "I'd be glad to hear first what I'd be walking in for, and who the handsome one is." "Different people think differently, Socrates." "And you, Hippothales, who is it for you? Tell me that." And at being asked, he blushed. So I said, "Hippothales, son of Hieronymus, don't say another word about whether you're in love with someone or not. I know not only that you're in love, but that you're already far along on that road. In most things I'm a poor, useless sort of man, but somehow this one thing has been given me by a god: I can quickly tell when someone is in love, and who is the one loved." And hearing this he blushed even more. Then Ctesippus said, "How charming, that you blush, Hippothales, and can't bring yourself to tell Socrates the name—when if this man spends even a little time with you, he's going to be worn out hearing you say it over and over. Our ears, Socrates, are deafened, stuffed full of 'Lysis.' And if he's had a bit to drink, we're liable to wake up out of a sound sleep thinking we hear the name Lysis. What he tells us in plain prose is bad enough, but not unbearably bad—but when he sets about drenching us with his poems and prose-pieces, that's another matter. And worse than that, he actually sings to his darling in an extraordinary voice, which we have to sit and endure. And now, when you ask him, he blushes." "This Lysis," I said, "must be quite young, it seems—I gather that from the fact that hearing the name, I didn't recognize it." "That's because they don't really call him by his own name much," he said. "He's still known by his father's name, because his father is so well known. You surely know well enough what the boy looks like—that alone is enough to identify him." "Tell me," I said, "whose son he is." "Democrates," he said, "of Aexone—the eldest son."
"Well then," I said, "Hippothales, what a noble and spirited love you've found for yourself, in every respect. Come now, show me what you show these others, so I can see whether you know what a lover ought to say about his darling, to the boy himself or to others." "Do you put any stock, Socrates," he said, "in what this fellow says?" "Are you denying," I said, "that you're in love with the one he says?" "Not that," he said, "but that I make poems and write about him." "He's not well," said Ctesippus, "he's raving, out of his mind." And I said, "Hippothales, I don't want to hear the verses, or any song you've composed for the young man, but the substance of it, so I can see in what manner you approach your darling." "This fellow, no doubt, will tell you," he said, "he knows it precisely and remembers it, if it's true, as he says, that it's been dinned into him constantly by hearing it from me." "By the gods," said Ctesippus, "that's exactly right. And it's ridiculous, Socrates. For a man who is a lover, and pays more attention to the boy than anyone else, to have nothing of his own to say that any child couldn't say—how is that not ridiculous? What the whole city sings about Democrates and Lysis's grandfather and all the ancestors—their wealth, their horse-breeding, their victories at Pytho and the Isthmus and Nemea with four-horse teams and single horses—these are the things he composes and recites, and on top of that, things even more stale than these. Just the other day he was going through, in some poem, the entertaining of Heracles—how because of their kinship with Heracles their ancestor received him as a guest, being himself born from Zeus and the daughter of the founder of their deme—the sort of thing old women sing—and a great many other things of that kind, Socrates. These are the things he forces us to listen to, reciting and singing them." And hearing this I said, "Ridiculous Hippothales, are you composing and singing a victory hymn for yourself before you've won?" "But it's not for myself, Socrates," he said, "that I compose or sing." "You don't think so," I said. "Then how does it stand?" he said. "More than anything else," I said, "these songs are aimed straight at you."
"If you win over a boy like that, all that's been said and sung will be an ornament to you, and truly a hymn of victory, as for one who has actually won, since you got such a boy for your own. But if he slips away from you, the grander the praises you've spoken of your darling, the grander the good and beautiful things you'll seem to have been deprived of, and the more ridiculous you'll look. So anyone wise in matters of love, my friend, does not praise the one he loves before he has won him, for fear of what the outcome may be. And besides, when handsome boys are praised and puffed up, they get filled with pride and self-importance—don't you think?" "I do," he said. "And the more full of pride they are, the harder they are to catch?" "So it seems." "What kind of hunter, then, do you think a man would be, if by hunting he scared off the game and made it harder to catch?" "A poor one, clearly." "And indeed, to fail to charm with words and songs, but instead to make wild, is a great want of skill—wouldn't you say?" "I think so." "Then take care, Hippothales, not to make yourself liable to all these charges through your poetry. And yet I think you yourself would not be willing to admit that a man who harms himself by his own craft is ever a good practitioner of that craft, if it's harmful to himself." "No, by Zeus," he said, "that would be quite unreasonable. But this is exactly why I'm consulting you, Socrates—and if you have any other advice, tell me what a person might say or do in conversation to become dear to a boy he loves." "That's not easy to say," I said, "but if you'd be willing to get him to come and talk with me, I might perhaps be able to show you what one ought to say to him, instead of the things these fellows say you say and sing." "That's nothing hard," he said. "If you go in with Ctesippus here and sit and talk, I think he'll actually come up to you on his own—he's remarkably fond of listening, Socrates. And besides, since they're celebrating the festival of Hermes, the young men and the boys are all mixed together in the same place—so he'll come up to you. And if not, he's on close terms with Ctesippus, through his cousin Menexenus—Menexenus is in fact his closest companion of all. So let Ctesippus call him over, if he doesn't come up on his own." "That's what we should do," I said. And with that I took Ctesippus and went into the wrestling school, and the others followed behind us. Going in, we found that the boys had just finished a sacrifice, and the business with the offerings was more or less done, and they were all playing at knucklebones, dressed up in their finery. Most of them were playing out in the courtyard, but some were in a corner of the changing room, playing odds-and-evens with a great heap of knucklebones, which they drew out of little baskets. Around these stood others, watching.
Among these was Lysis, standing among the boys and young men, crowned with a garland, and remarkable to look at—worth hearing about not merely as handsome, but as both handsome and good. We withdrew to the opposite side, where it was quiet, and sat down, and talked a little among ourselves. Lysis kept turning around and watching us, and it was plain he wanted to come over. For a while he was at a loss and hesitant to come alone, but then Menexenus, in the middle of playing, came in from the courtyard, and when he saw me and Ctesippus, he came over to sit beside us. And when Lysis saw him, he followed and sat down together with Menexenus. Then the others came up too, and Hippothales as well, once he saw more people gathering—he used them as cover and took a position where he thought Lysis wouldn't notice him, afraid of making himself unwelcome. And standing there like that he listened. I looked at Menexenus and said, "Son of Demophon, which of you two is older?" "We dispute that," he said. "Then you'd also quarrel over which of you is nobler," I said. "Certainly," he said. "And which is more handsome, the same way." They both laughed at that. "I won't ask, though," I said, "which of you is richer, since you're friends. Aren't you?" "Certainly," they both said. "Now, friends are said to hold things in common, so on that point at least there'll be no difference between you, if what you both say about friendship is true." They agreed. I was going on after this to ask which of them was more just and wiser, but at that point someone came up and pulled Menexenus away, saying the trainer was calling him—it seemed he happened to be in the middle of the sacrifice duties. So he went off, and I asked Lysis, "Tell me, Lysis, your father and mother love you very much?" "Very much," he said. "Then they'd want you to be as happy as possible?" "Of course." "Do you think a man is happy who is a slave, and who isn't allowed to do anything he wants?" "No, by Zeus, not I," he said. "Well then, if your father and mother love you and want you to become happy, it's plain that they're eager, in every way, to see that you are happy." "Of course," he said. "So they let you do whatever you want, and never scold you or stop you from doing whatever you desire?" "Yes they do, by Zeus, Socrates—they stop me from a great many things, in fact."
"What do you mean?" I said. "They want you to be happy, and yet they stop you from doing what you want? Tell me this. Suppose you wanted to ride on one of your father's chariots and take the reins yourself, when he's racing—wouldn't they let you? Wouldn't they stop you?" "No, by Zeus," he said, "they wouldn't let me." "Who does drive, then?" "There's a charioteer, in my father's pay." "What do you mean? They trust a hired man more than you to do whatever he wants with the horses, and pay him money for it besides?" "Well, what else?" he said. "But surely they let you take charge of the mule-team, and if you wanted to take the whip and hit them, they'd allow that." "How would they allow it?" he said. "What then?" I said. "Is no one allowed to hit them?" "Yes indeed," he said, "the muleteer is." "A slave, or a free man?" "A slave," he said. "So it seems they think even a slave worth more than you, their own son, and trust their own property to him rather than to you, and let him do what he wants, but stop you? Now tell me this too. Do they let you rule yourself, or don't they even allow that?" "How would they allow that?" he said. "Then who rules you?" "This man here, my attendant." "A slave, surely not?" "Well, what else? He's ours," he said. "How strange," I said, "for a free person to be ruled by a slave. And what does this attendant of yours do, in ruling you?" "He takes me to my teacher, I suppose." "Surely your teachers don't rule you too?" "Certainly they do." "Then your father, quite willingly, sets over you a great many masters and rulers. But now, when you go home to your mother, does she let you do what you want, so that you'll be happy with her, with the wool or the loom, when she's weaving? Surely she doesn't stop you from touching the batten or the shuttle or any of her other weaving tools?" And he laughed and said, "By Zeus, Socrates, not only does she stop me, I'd get a beating if I touched them." "Heracles," I said, "have you done some wrong to your father or mother?" "No, by Zeus, not I," he said.
"But then why do they stop you so severely from being happy and doing whatever you want, and keep you all day long serving one person or another, and in short, doing almost none of the things you actually want? So it seems that all that money does you no good at all—everyone else has more control over it than you do—and your fine body is no use either, since someone else tends and looks after that too. You, Lysis, are in charge of nothing, and you don't do a single thing you want." "Well, I'm not old enough yet, Socrates," he said. "That can't be what's stopping you, son of Democrates—since for at least some things, I think, your father and mother do trust you and don't wait for you to come of age. For instance, whenever they want something read or written for them, you, I imagine, are the first person in the house they call on for that. Isn't that so?" "Certainly," he said. "And in that job you're allowed to write whichever letter you like first and whichever second, and the same goes for reading. And when you pick up the lyre, I imagine neither your father nor your mother stops you from tightening or loosening whichever string you please, or from plucking it and striking it with the pick. Or do they stop you?" "No, they don't." "Then what could possibly explain that, Lysis—why they don't stop you there, but do stop you in the things we mentioned just now?" "Because, I suppose," he said, "I know these things, but not those." "Well then, my excellent friend," I said, "it isn't your age that your father is waiting on before trusting you with everything—it's the day he judges you to think better than he does, that's the day he'll hand over both himself and everything he has to you." "I think so too," he said. "Well then—what about your neighbor? Doesn't the same rule apply to him regarding you as to your father? Do you think he'll trust you to manage his household once he judges you think better than he does about running it, or will he keep watching over it himself?" "He'll trust me, I think." "And what about this—do you think the Athenians won't trust you with their affairs, once they perceive that you have sufficient judgment?" "I do think so." "By Zeus," I said, "then what about the Great King? Would he trust his eldest son, the one who's to inherit the rule of Asia, to throw whatever he likes into the pot while the meat is cooking, or would he trust us instead, if we came to him and showed that we understand the seasoning of a dish better than his son does?" "Us, clearly," he said. "And he wouldn't let his son add even a pinch, while he'd let us throw in fistfuls of salt if we wanted to." "Of course."
"And what if his son had something wrong with his eyes—would the king let him touch his own eyes, if he didn't think him a doctor, or would he stop him?" "He'd stop him." "But if he took us to be skilled in medicine, even if we wanted to pry his eyes open and rub ash into them, I don't think he'd stop us, believing we knew what we were doing." "True." "So he'd trust us with everything else too, more than himself or his son, in every matter where we seemed to him wiser than they are?" "That must be so, Socrates," he said. "That's how it stands, then, dear Lysis: in whatever matters we become wise in, everyone will trust us there—Greeks and foreigners, men and women alike—and we'll do as we please in those matters, and no one will willingly get in our way. We'll be free there and rule over others, and those things will be truly ours—we'll profit from them. But in whatever matters we haven't gained any understanding, no one will trust us to act as we see fit there; instead everyone will obstruct us as much as they can—not just strangers, but even father and mother, and anyone closer to us than they are. In those matters we'll be subject to others, and those things won't be ours at all, since we get no benefit from them. Do you agree that's how it is?" "I agree." "So will anyone be our friend, will anyone love us, in matters where we're useless?" "Certainly not," he said. "Then right now, neither your father nor anyone else loves anyone else, insofar as that person is useless." "It doesn't look like it," he said. "So if you become wise, my boy, everyone will be your friend, everyone will be close to you—since you'll be useful and good. But if not, no one will be your friend, not your father, not your mother, not even your own family. Now, Lysis, can a person think highly of himself in matters where he doesn't yet have any judgment?" "How could he?" he said. "And if you still need a teacher, you don't yet have judgment." "True." "So you're not high-minded either, since you're still without judgment." "By Zeus, Socrates," he said, "I don't think I am." When I heard him say this, I glanced over at Hippothales, and I very nearly made a blunder—it occurred to me to say, "This is how you ought to talk to your darling, Hippothales, cutting him down and humbling him, not puffing him up and spoiling him the way you do."
But then, seeing him in agony, thrown into confusion by what was being said, I remembered that he'd wanted to stand where Lysis wouldn't notice him. So I caught myself and held my tongue. Just then Menexenus came back and sat down beside Lysis, in the seat he'd gotten up from. So Lysis, very much like a boy and very fondly, without Menexenus noticing, said to me quietly, "Socrates, tell Menexenus the same things you've been telling me." And I said, "You can tell him that yourself, Lysis—you were paying close attention the whole time, after all." "Quite so," he said. "Well then," I said, "try to remember it as well as you can, so you can lay it all out clearly for him. And if you forget any part of it, ask me about it again the next time you see me." "I'll do just that, Socrates, very much so, be assured. But say something else to him too, so I can listen as well, until it's time for me to go home." "Well, I ought to do that," I said, "since you're the one asking. But watch out and come to my defense if Menexenus tries to cross-examine me—don't you know he's a fighter?" "Yes, by Zeus," he said, "very much so—that's exactly why I want you to talk with him." "So that I make a fool of myself?" I said. "No, by Zeus," he said, "so that you put him in his place." "How would I manage that?" I said. "It's not easy—the man is formidable, a pupil of Ctesippus. And here he is himself—don't you see him? Ctesippus." "Never mind about that, Socrates," he said. "Go on and talk with him." "I suppose I must," I said. As we were saying this to each other, Ctesippus said, "Why are the two of you feasting all by yourselves, and not sharing the conversation with us?" "Well, we certainly ought to share it," I said. "This fellow here doesn't follow something I'm saying, and claims he thinks Menexenus knows, and tells me to ask him." "Then why don't you ask him?" he said. "I will," I said. "Tell me, Menexenus, whatever I ask you. You see, I've had a longing since I was a child for a certain possession, just as one person longs for one thing and another for something else. Some people want to acquire horses, others dogs, others gold, others honors. As for those things, I'm fairly indifferent, but toward the acquisition of friends I'm downright passionate, and I would rather have a good friend than the finest quail or gamecock in the world—yes, by Zeus, more than a horse or a dog. And, by the Dog, I think I would take a comrade in preference to Darius's gold, and prefer him even to Darius himself—that's how much of a friend-lover I am."
"Now, when I look at the two of you, at you and Lysis, I'm amazed, and I count you lucky, that at your age you're already able to acquire this possession so quickly and so easily—you got him as such a close friend so fast and so completely, and he you in turn. Whereas I'm so far from having this possession myself that I don't even know in what way one person becomes another's friend—and that's exactly what I want to ask you about, since you're experienced in it. So tell me: when someone loves someone, which of the two becomes the friend of which—the one who loves, of the one who is loved, or the one who is loved, of the one who loves? Or does it make no difference?" "It makes no difference, it seems to me," he said. "What do you mean?" I said. "Are both of them then friends of each other, even if only one of the two loves the other?" "Yes, it seems so to me," he said. "But what about this—isn't it possible to love without being loved in return by the one you love?" "It is." "And what about this—is it even possible to be hated while loving? That's what lovers sometimes seem to feel toward their beloveds—loving as intensely as possible, some think they aren't loved back, others even think they're hated. Doesn't that seem true to you?" "Very true," he said. "So in a case like that," I said, "one person loves and the other is loved?" "Yes." "So which of them is the friend of which—is the one who loves a friend of the one who's loved, whether or not he's loved back or even hated, or is the one who's loved a friend of the one who loves? Or is neither, in such a case, a friend of the other, unless both love each other?" "It does seem to be that way, at least." "Then we think differently now than we did before. Before, if one of the two loved, we said both were friends. But now, unless both love, neither is a friend." "It looks that way," he said. "So nothing is a friend to the one who loves it, unless it loves back." "It seems not." "Then neither are men lovers-of-horses, if the horses don't love them back, nor lovers-of-quail, nor lovers-of-dogs, nor lovers-of-wine, nor lovers-of-exercise, nor lovers-of-wisdom, unless wisdom loves them back. Or do people love these things, each their own, yet the things aren't dear to them at all, and the poet is lying who said— 'Blessed is the man whose children are dear to him, and his sure-footed horses, and his hunting dogs, and a host in a foreign land'?" "It doesn't seem so to me," he said. "But does he seem to you to be speaking the truth?" "Yes."
"So it seems, Menexenus, that the thing loved is dear to the one who loves it, whether it loves him back or even hates him. Take newborn children, for instance—some of them not yet capable of loving, others even hating, when they're punished by their mother or father—yet even while hating, at that very moment they're the dearest things in the world to their parents." "Yes, that does seem to be how it is," he said. "Then by this reasoning, it isn't the one who loves who is the friend, but the one who is loved." "So it seems." "And the one who is hated is the enemy, then, not the one who hates." "So it appears." "So many people are loved by their enemies and hated by their friends, and are friends to their enemies and enemies to their friends—if the thing loved is what's dear, rather than the thing that loves. And yet that's quite unreasonable, dear friend—impossible, I think, in fact—for someone to be an enemy to his friend and a friend to his enemy." "What you say does seem true, Socrates," he said. "Well then, if that's impossible, it must be the one who loves who is the friend of the one who is loved." "So it appears." "And in turn the one who hates is the enemy of the one who is hated." "That follows." "Then we'll be forced to agree to the same conclusions as before—that a person is often the friend of someone who isn't his friend, indeed often of an enemy, whenever he loves someone who doesn't love him, or even someone who hates him. And often he's the enemy of someone who isn't his enemy, or even of a friend, whenever he hates someone who doesn't hate him, or even someone who loves him." "It does seem so," he said. "Then what are we to do," I said, "if neither those who love nor those who are loved, nor even those who both love and are loved, are going to count as friends? Are we to say there's some other class of people, besides these, who become friends of one another?" "No, by Zeus, Socrates," he said, "I'm quite at a loss myself." "Can it be, Menexenus," I said, "that we've been going about this the wrong way from the start?" "I think we have, Socrates," said Lysis—and as he said it, he blushed. It seemed to me that the words had slipped out of him against his will, so intently had he been following what was said; and he'd plainly been listening that way the whole time. So, wanting to give Menexenus a rest, and pleased by Lysis's love of the discussion, I turned my remarks toward Lysis instead, and said, "Lysis, I think you're right that if we'd been examining this correctly, we wouldn't have gone so far astray."
"Well, let's not go further down that road—the inquiry looks like rough going that way. Let's go back to the path we turned off from, and look at what the poets say, since they're like fathers and guides to us in wisdom. And they don't speak carelessly when they declare who the friends really are—they say the god himself makes people friends, by drawing them to one another. I think they put it something like this: 'God ever draws like to like, and makes them known to each other.' Or have you never come across those lines?" "I have," he said. "And you've come across the writings of the wisest men too, saying this very thing—that like must always be friend to like? These are the men who discuss and write about nature and the universe." "True," he said. "Well then," I said, "are they right?" "Maybe," he said. "Maybe half right," I said, "maybe wholly right, but we don't understand it. Because it seems to us that the wicked man, the closer he gets to another wicked man and the more he associates with him, the more hostile he becomes. For he does wrong—and people who do wrong and are wronged can't possibly be friends. Isn't that so?" "Yes," he said. "Then on that showing, half of the statement wouldn't be true, if the wicked are alike to one another." "True." "But I think what they mean is that the good are alike to one another and are friends, while the bad—just as is said of them—are never even like themselves, but erratic and unstable. And what's unlike and at variance even with itself could hardly become like or friend to anything else. Don't you think so too?" "I do," he said. "This, then, is what I think they're hinting at, my friend, those who say like is friend to like: that the good man alone is friend to the good man alone, while the bad man never enters into true friendship, whether with a good man or a bad one. Do you agree?" He nodded. "So we now have who the friends are—our argument shows us they're whoever is good." "That certainly seems so," he said. "And to me as well," I said. "And yet something in it troubles me. Come, by Zeus, let's see what I'm suspicious of. The like is friend to the like insofar as it's like, and such a person is useful to his like? Or rather, put it this way: what benefit or what harm could any like thing do to another like thing that it couldn't also do to itself?
Or what could it suffer that it couldn't also suffer at its own hands? How, then, could such things be cherished by one another, having no way to help each other? Is there any way?" "There isn't." "And what isn't cherished, how is it a friend?" "Not at all." "So the like isn't friend to the like after all. But could the good be friend to the good insofar as he's good, not insofar as he's like?" "Perhaps." "Well now, isn't the good man, insofar as he's good, sufficient unto himself to just that extent?" "Yes." "And the sufficient man needs nothing, on account of his sufficiency." "Of course." "And the man who needs nothing wouldn't cherish anything either." "No, he wouldn't." "And what doesn't cherish, doesn't love." "Certainly not." "And what doesn't love isn't a friend." "Apparently not." "Then how will the good ever be friends to the good in the first place, when they neither miss each other in absence—since they're sufficient to themselves even apart—nor have any need of each other when present? What device is there for such men to hold each other in high regard?" "None," he said. "But they couldn't be friends without holding each other in high regard." "True. Now watch, Lysis, how we're being led astray. Aren't we being deceived by something whole and entire?" "How so?" he said. "I once heard someone say—and I'm just now recalling it—that like is most hostile to like, and the good most hostile to the good. And indeed he brought forward Hesiod as witness, saying that potter is angry with potter, and singer with singer, and beggar with beggar—and he said everything else works the same way: the most alike things are necessarily filled to the brim with envy, rivalry, and hatred toward one another, while the most unlike things are filled with friendship. For the poor man, he said, is forced to be friend to the rich, and the weak to the strong, for the sake of help, and the sick man to the doctor, and everyone who doesn't know is forced to cherish and love the one who does know. And he went on to develop the argument even more grandly, saying that far from like needing to be friend to like, quite the opposite is true—the most opposite is friend to the most opposite. For each thing desires its opposite, not its like: the dry desires the wet, the cold the hot, the bitter the sweet, the sharp the blunt, the empty being filled, and the full being emptied, and everything else follows the same pattern.
For nourishment is the opposite acting on the opposite—like gets no benefit at all from like. And really, my friend, the man saying this seemed rather clever—he put it well. What do you two think of it?" "Well put," said Menexenus, "at least on first hearing." "Shall we say, then, that opposite is most friend to opposite?" "Certainly." "Well now," I said, "isn't that strange, Menexenus? Won't those endlessly clever men, the contrarians, pounce on us at once, delighted, and ask whether hatred isn't the very opposite of friendship? What will we answer them? Or must we agree that what they say is true?" "We must." "Will they then ask: is the hostile friend to the friendly, or the friendly to the hostile?" "Neither," he said. "But is the just friend to the unjust, or the moderate to the licentious, or the good to the bad?" "That doesn't seem right to me." "But surely," I said, "if something is friend to something else on the basis of opposition, these must be friends too." "They must." "So neither is like friend to like, nor opposite friend to opposite." "It doesn't look like it. Let's examine this further too, in case what's truly friend is escaping our notice even more—that it's neither of these, but rather what is neither good nor bad becomes friend, in some fashion, to the good." "What do you mean?" he said. "By Zeus," I said, "I don't know—I'm actually growing dizzy myself from the perplexity of the argument, and it may be that, as the old proverb says, the beautiful is what's friend. At any rate it resembles something soft and smooth and sleek—which is perhaps why it so easily slips and slides past us, being such a thing. For I say the good is beautiful. Don't you think so?" "I do." "Well then, I say, prophesying as it were, that what's neither good nor bad is friend to the beautiful and good. And listen to what leads me to this divination. It seems to me there are, as it were, three kinds of things: the good, the bad, and what's neither good nor bad. What do you think?" "The same," he said. "And neither is the good friend to the good, nor the bad to the bad, nor the good to the bad—just as our earlier argument won't allow. So it remains, if anything is friend to anything, that what's neither good nor bad is friend either to the good, or to something of its own kind. For surely nothing could become friend to the bad." "True." "And we also said just now that like isn't friend to like—right?" "Yes." "So the thing that's neither good nor bad won't be friend to its own kind either." "Apparently not."
"So it turns out that what's neither good nor bad becomes friend only to the good, and to nothing else." "So it seems, necessarily." "Well then, my boys," I said, "is what we're now saying leading us well? If we consider a healthy body, for instance, it needs no doctoring or help—it's sufficient as it is, so that no one in health is friend to a doctor on account of health. Right?" "No one." "But the sick man is, I suppose, on account of his disease." "Of course." "Now disease is bad, and medicine is beneficial and good." "Yes." "And the body, considered just as body, is neither good nor bad." "Just so." "But the body is forced by disease to welcome and love medicine." "I think so." "So what's neither bad nor good becomes friend to the good because of the presence of the bad." "So it seems." "And clearly this happens before the thing itself has become bad from the bad it has in it. For surely, once it has actually become bad, it could no longer desire the good and be its friend—we said it's impossible for bad to be friend to good." "Impossible, yes." "Now consider what I'm saying. I mean that some things are the same in kind as whatever is present in them, and some are not. For instance, if someone wants to coat something with some color, the coating is present in the thing coated." "Certainly." "Well, is the coated thing then actually the same color as what's applied to it?" "I don't follow," he said. "Let me put it this way," I said. "If someone were to smear white lead on your hair, which is fair, would it then be white, or only appear so?" "Only appear so," he said. "And yet whiteness would be present in it." "Yes." "But it still wouldn't be white in the least for that—rather, with whiteness present, it would be neither white nor black." "True." "But, my friend, when old age brings that same color upon it, then it becomes like what's present—white by the presence of white." "Of course." "So this is what I'm now asking: when something has a quality present in it, will the thing that has it be like what's present? Or will it be so only if the quality is present in a certain way, and not otherwise?" "The latter is more likely," he said. "So what's neither bad nor good is sometimes, when the bad is present, not yet bad—but there are times when it has already become such." "Certainly." "Now when it's not yet bad though the bad is present, this presence makes it desire the good; but the presence that makes it bad robs it at once of both the desire and the friendship for the good."
"For it's no longer neither bad nor good, but bad—and bad was not friend to good." "No, indeed." "On this account, then, we'd say that those who are already wise no longer love wisdom, whether they're gods or men; nor again do those love wisdom who are so ignorant as to be bad—for no one bad and stupid loves wisdom. There remain, then, those who have this bad thing, ignorance, but are not yet rendered senseless or stupid by it—who still think they don't know what they in fact don't know. This is why those who are neither good nor bad yet love wisdom, while all who are bad don't love it, nor do the good—since neither the opposite of the opposite, nor the like of the like, showed itself to us as friend in our earlier discussion. Or don't you remember?" "We certainly do," they both said. "So now, Lysis and Menexenus," I said, "we've found out, more surely than anything, what the friend is and what it isn't. We say that it—in soul, in body, everywhere—is what's neither bad nor good, and that it's friend to the good through the presence of the bad." They both agreed entirely that this was so. And I myself was thoroughly delighted, like a hunter holding gladly what he'd been hunting. And then, from I don't know where, a most strange suspicion came over me, that what we'd agreed on wasn't true, and at once, troubled, I said: "Well now, Lysis and Menexenus, it looks like we've only gotten rich in a dream." "How do you mean?" said Menexenus. "I'm afraid," I said, "that we've run into some false arguments about the friend, like men putting on airs." "How so?" he said. "Let's look at it this way," I said. "Whoever is a friend—is he a friend to someone, or not?" "He must be," he said. "For no reason at all and on account of nothing, or for the sake of something and on account of something?" "For the sake of something and on account of something." "Is that thing, for whose sake the friend is friend to his friend, itself a friend, or neither friend nor enemy?" "I'm not quite following," he said. "Naturally enough," I said, "but perhaps you'll follow this way—and I think I myself will understand better what I'm saying. We said just now that the sick man is friend to the doctor—right?" "Yes." "So he's friend to the doctor on account of disease, for the sake of health?" "Yes." "And disease is bad?" "Of course." "And what about health?" I said. "Good, bad, or neither?"
"Good," he said. "So we were saying, it seems, that the body—being neither good nor bad—is dear to medicine because of the disease, and the disease is bad, while medicine is good; and medicine took up this friendship for the sake of health, and health is good. Isn't that so?" "Yes." "And is health a friend, or not a friend?" "A friend." "And disease is an enemy?" "Certainly." "So the thing that is neither bad nor good is a friend to the good because of the bad and the hostile, and for the sake of the good and the friendly?" "So it appears." "So it is for the sake of the friend that the friend is a friend to the friend, because of the enemy?" "So it seems." "Well then," I said, "now that we've come this far, boys, let's pay attention, so we aren't deceived. That the friend has become a friend of a friend—I'll let that pass, and that like becomes friend to like, which we say is impossible—but all the same let's examine this, so that what's now being said doesn't trick us. Medicine, we say, is a friend for the sake of health." "Yes." "So health too is a friend?" "Certainly." "And if it's a friend, it's for the sake of something." "Yes." "For the sake of some friend, that is, if it's going to follow the agreement we made before." "Certainly." "So that thing in turn will also be a friend for the sake of a friend?" "Yes." "Then isn't it necessary, going on this way, that we either give up, or arrive at some starting point which will no longer refer us on to another friend, but will reach that which is first a friend, for the sake of which we say all the other things are friends too?" "Necessary." "This, then, is what I mean: I'm afraid that all the other things we said were friends for the sake of that first thing, being like images of it, may be deceiving us, while that first thing is the one that is truly a friend. Let's think of it this way: when someone values something highly—the way a father sometimes prizes his son above all his other possessions—such a man, because he holds his son above everything, would he also value something else highly? For instance, if he perceived that his son had drunk hemlock, would he value wine highly, if he thought wine would save his son?" "Of course," he said. "And wouldn't he also value the vessel the wine was in?" "Certainly." "So at that moment he values a clay cup no more than his own son, nor three cups of wine more than his son?"
"Or rather it's like this: all such earnest concern isn't really directed at these things—the things prepared for the sake of something else—but at that for the sake of which all such things are prepared. It's not that we often say we value gold and silver highly; the truth of the matter isn't really like that at all—rather, what we value above everything is whatever turns out to be that for the sake of which gold and everything else we prepare is prepared. Shall we say it's like that?" "Certainly." "So doesn't the same account apply to the friend too? For all the things we say are friends to us for the sake of some other friend, we're clearly only speaking of them that way in words; but what is really a friend seems likely to be that very thing in which all these so-called friendships end." "That does seem to be the case," he said. "So what is really a friend is not a friend for the sake of some other friend?" "True." "Well, that much is settled, then—that the friend is not a friend for the sake of some friend. But is the good a friend?" "It seems so to me." "So is the good loved because of the bad, and does it work like this: if, of the three things we were just talking about—the good, the bad, and what is neither good nor bad—the bad were removed and ceased to affect anything, neither body nor soul nor any of the other things which we say are in themselves neither bad nor good, would the good then be of any use to us at all, or would it have become useless? For if nothing could harm us any longer, we would need no benefit at all, and so it would become clear that we cherished and loved the good because of the bad, treating the good as a remedy for the bad, and the bad as a disease—and where there's no disease, there's no need of a remedy. Is that the nature of the good, and is that why we love it because of the bad—we who stand between the bad and the good—while it has no use in itself, for its own sake?" "It does seem to be that way," he said. "So the friend we have—the one in which all the other things ended, which we said were friends for the sake of some other friend—resembles none of those things. For those are called friends for the sake of a friend, but what is truly a friend appears to be exactly the opposite of that: it turned out to be a friend to us for the sake of an enemy, and if the enemy were to go away, it seems it would no longer be a friend to us." "It doesn't seem so to me," he said, "at least not as it's being put now."
"Then tell me, by Zeus," I said, "if the bad were destroyed, would there be no more hunger or thirst or anything of that kind? Or would there still be hunger, so long as men and other animals exist, only it wouldn't be harmful? And thirst too, and the other desires, only they wouldn't be bad, since the bad would have perished? Or is the question absurd—what will or won't exist then? Who knows? But this much we do know: even now it's possible to be harmed by being hungry, and it's also possible to be benefited. Isn't that so?" "Certainly." "And so with someone who is thirsty, or has any of the other such desires—it's possible sometimes to desire beneficially, sometimes harmfully, and sometimes neither?" "Very much so." "So if bad things perish, why should things that don't happen to be bad perish along with the bad?" "No reason at all." "So there will still be desires that are neither good nor bad, even if bad things perish." "So it appears." "Now is it possible for someone who desires and loves the thing he desires and loves not to feel affection for it?" "It doesn't seem so to me." "So even with bad things gone, it seems there will still be certain things that are friends." "Yes." "But if the bad were the cause of something being a friend, then once it was gone, one thing could not be a friend to another. For once a cause is removed, surely it's impossible for the thing that depended on that cause to still exist." "Rightly said." "So haven't we agreed that a friend loves something, and for some reason—and we thought, at the time, that it was because of the bad that the thing that is neither good nor bad loves the good?" "True." "But now, it seems, some other cause for loving and being loved has come to light." "So it seems." "Isn't it really, then, as we were just saying—desire is the cause of friendship, and the thing that desires is a friend to whatever it desires, and at whatever moment it desires it, whereas what we said earlier was a friend was some kind of nonsense, like a long poem strung together?" "That does seem likely," he said. "But surely," I said, "the thing that desires, desires whatever it happens to lack. Isn't that so?" "Yes." "And so what lacks is a friend to that which it lacks?" "I think so." "And a thing comes to lack something when something is taken away from it." "Of course." "So it's for what belongs to it, it seems, that erotic longing and friendship and desire turn out to exist, as it appears, Menexenus and Lysis." They both agreed. "So if the two of you are friends to each other, you are in some way naturally akin to one another." "Absolutely," they said.
"And if one person desires another," I said, "boys, or is erotically drawn to him, he would never desire or be drawn to him or love him, unless he happened to be somehow akin to his beloved, either in soul, or in some trait of soul's character, or in ways, or in appearance." "Certainly," said Menexenus; but Lysis fell silent. "Well then," I said. "It has become clear to us that we must, of necessity, love what is naturally akin to us." "So it seems," he said. "So it's necessary that the genuine lover, and not the pretend one, be loved in return by his beloved." Lysis and Menexenus nodded, somewhat reluctantly, while Hippothales, out of sheer delight, kept changing all sorts of colors. And I said, wanting to examine the argument further: if what belongs to us is in any way different from what is like us, we would be saying something, I think, Lysis and Menexenus, about what a friend is; but if being alike and belonging to one another happen to be the same thing, it won't be easy to throw out our earlier argument, that what is alike is useless to what is alike, in respect of that likeness—and it would be absurd to admit that the useless is a friend. Do you want us, then, I said, since we're practically drunk on the argument, to agree and say that what belongs to us is something different from what is like us? "Certainly." "Shall we then say that the good belongs to everyone, while the bad is foreign to it? Or that the bad belongs to the bad, and the good to the good, and to what is neither good nor bad belongs what is neither good nor bad?" They said it seemed to them that each thing belonged to its own kind in that way. "So once again, boys," I said, "we've fallen back into the very arguments about friendship that we threw out at first. For the unjust will be no less a friend to the unjust, and the bad to the bad, than the good is to the good." "So it seems," he said. "But what about this—if we say the good and what belongs to us are the same thing, doesn't it follow that only the good is a friend to the good?" "Certainly." "But surely we also thought we had refuted ourselves on that point—or don't you remember?" "We remember." "So what further use can we make of the argument? Clearly none at all. So I ask, like the clever speakers in the courts, that we go back over everything that's been said. For if neither those who are loved, nor those who love, nor the alike, nor the unalike, nor the good, nor those who belong to one another, nor any of the other things we've gone through—for I myself no longer remember them all, there have been so many—if none of these is a friend, then I no longer have anything to say."
Having said this, I intended to set some other one of the older men in motion; but then, like a couple of guardian spirits, the tutors came up—Menexenus's and Lysis's—bringing the boys' brothers with them, and called and told them to go home, for it was already late. At first we, and the bystanders, tried to drive them off; but since they paid us no attention and only grew more irritated, jabbering in their foreign accents and calling all the more insistently, they seemed to us to have had a bit too much to drink at the Hermaea and to be difficult to deal with—so we gave in and broke up the gathering. Still, just as they were leaving, I said, "Well, Lysis and Menexenus, we've made ourselves ridiculous today—I, an old man, and the two of you as well. For these boys, as they go off, will say that we think we are friends to one another—for I count myself among you—and yet we still haven't been able to discover what a friend actually is."
CRITO: Socrates, who was that man you were talking with yesterday in the Lyceum? There was such a crowd standing around you both that I went up wanting to listen, but couldn't make out anything clearly. Still, I craned my neck and got a glimpse, and it looked to me like some foreigner you were talking with. Who was it? SOCRATES: Which one do you mean, Crito? There wasn't just one — there were two. CRITO: The one I mean was sitting third on your right. Between the two of you was that boy, Axiochus's son. He seemed to me to have grown a great deal, Socrates — hardly any different in age now from our Critobulus. But Critobulus is thin, while this boy is more mature-looking, and handsome and well-built. SOCRATES: That's Euthydemus you're asking about, Crito. The one sitting on my left was his brother, Dionysodorus — he takes part in the discussions too. CRITO: I don't know either of them, Socrates. Some new sophists, it seems. Where are they from, and what's their expertise? SOCRATES: Their family is originally from around Chios, I believe, but they emigrated to Thurii, and then, exiled from there, they've been spending many years now around these parts. As for the expertise you're asking about, Crito, it's amazing — the two of them are simply all-wise. I didn't even realize until now what all-round fighters were. These two are truly complete all-round fighters. It's not like those pankration brothers from Acarnania — those two could only fight with their bodies, but these two are first of all tremendously skilled fighters with the body, and in a form of combat that can master anyone
SOCRATES: — for the two of them are quite expert at fighting in armor, and can make anyone else expert too, if he pays the fee — and beyond that, they're the best at the kind of battle waged in the courts, both at arguing a case themselves and at teaching someone else how to speak and to compose speeches suited for the courts. So before, they were only formidable at these things, but now they've crowned it all with the art of the pankration itself. The one kind of fighting they had left undeveloped, they've now perfected, so that no one can even stand up against them anymore — they've become so formidable at fighting with words and refuting whatever is said, whether it's false or true. So I've a mind, Crito, to hand myself over to these two men — they say they could make anyone else, in a short time, just as formidable at these very things. CRITO: But Socrates, aren't you worried about your age? Aren't you rather old for this now? SOCRATES: Not in the least, Crito. I have good enough proof and reassurance not to worry. These two men themselves, you might say, were old when they took up this expertise I'm so eager for — the art of disputation. Just last year, or the year before, they weren't wise at it yet. The only thing I'm afraid of is that I might bring disgrace on the two foreigners, the way I did on Connus, son of Metrobius, the lyre player, who's still teaching me the lyre even now — my fellow students see this and laugh at me, and call Connus 'the old man's teacher.' So I'm afraid someone might level that same charge at the two foreigners — and maybe they, fearing just this themselves, won't want to take me on. As it is, Crito, I've persuaded some other old men to come study the lyre with me there, and here I'll try to persuade others to join in. Why don't you come along too? And we'll use your sons as bait for them — since I know that in their eagerness to get your sons, they'll end up educating us as well. CRITO: There's nothing to stop it, Socrates, if you think it's a good idea. But first tell me what this expertise of theirs actually is, so I know what we'll be learning. SOCRATES: You'll hear it without delay — I couldn't claim that I wasn't paying attention to them; in fact I paid very close attention and I remember it, and I'll try to tell you the whole thing from the beginning. By some stroke of fortune I happened to be sitting right where you saw me, in the changing room, alone, and I was already about to get up, when, as I was rising, my usual sign, the divine one, came to me.
SOCRATES: So I sat back down, and a little later the two of them came in — Euthydemus and Dionysodorus — along with a good many other students, it seemed to me. Once inside, they began walking up and down in the covered running track. They hadn't gone around more than two or three laps when Cleinias came in — the one you say has grown so much, and truly he has. Behind him were a great many admirers, among them Ctesippus, a young man from Paeania, quite handsome and well-bred by nature, only a bit reckless because of his youth. Cleinias, seeing me sitting alone as he came in the door, walked straight across and sat down on my right, just as you say. When Dionysodorus and Euthydemus saw him, they first stopped and talked with each other for a moment, glancing over at us now and then — I was watching them closely — and then they came over; one of them, Euthydemus, sat down beside the boy, and the other sat beside me on my left, and the rest sat wherever they happened to land. I greeted the two of them, since I hadn't seen them in a while, and then I said to Cleinias: 'Cleinias, these two men are wise, you know — not in small things, but in great ones. They know everything to do with war, all that a future general needs to know — troop formations, command of armies, everything that must be taught about fighting in arms — and they're also able to make a man capable of defending himself in the courts, if anyone wrongs him.' Having said this, I was met with their scorn. Both of them laughed, looking at each other, and Euthydemus said: 'No, Socrates, we don't take those things seriously anymore — we treat them as side matters.' Amazed, I said: 'Then your real work must be a fine thing indeed, if things of that size are mere side issues for you — and by the gods, tell me what this fine thing is.' 'Virtue,' he said, 'Socrates — we believe we're able to hand it over better and faster than anyone.' 'Zeus!' I said, 'what a thing you're describing! Where did you two come by this windfall? I was still thinking of you, as I was just saying, as formidable mainly in fighting with weapons, and that's what I was saying about you both — for I remember, the last time you were here, that's what you were professing.'
SOCRATES: 'But if you really do have this knowledge now, be gracious to me — I address you, quite literally, as gods, and I ask your pardon for what I said before. But look, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, and tell me if you're speaking the truth — given the size of the claim, it's no wonder to be skeptical.' 'But you can be sure, Socrates,' they both said, 'that this is exactly how it is.' 'Then I count you happier in this possession than the Great King is in his empire. But tell me this much — do you intend to give a demonstration of this wisdom, or how have you two planned it?' 'That's exactly why we're here, Socrates — to demonstrate it and to teach it, to anyone who wants to learn.' 'Well, I can guarantee you that everyone who lacks it will want to — myself first, then Cleinias here, and besides us, Ctesippus here, and these others,' I said, pointing to Cleinias's admirers, who by now had gathered around us. Ctesippus happened to be sitting some way off from Cleinias, and it seems that, as Euthydemus was talking with me, leaning forward with Cleinias sitting between us, he was blocking Ctesippus's view. So Ctesippus, wanting to see his beloved and being naturally curious besides, jumped up and came and stood right across from us first, and seeing him do it, the others gathered round us too — both Cleinias's admirers and the companions of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus. Pointing to these, I told Euthydemus that they were all ready to learn. Ctesippus agreed most eagerly, and so did the others, and they all urged the two of them together to give a demonstration of the power of their wisdom. So I said: 'Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, by all means oblige these men, and give a demonstration for my sake too. Most of it, clearly, would be no small task to demonstrate — but tell me this: could you make a good man out of someone already convinced that he ought to learn from you, and only him — or can you do it also with someone not yet convinced, either because he doesn't believe at all that virtue is teachable, or because he doesn't think you two are teachers of it? Come — is persuading a man in that condition — that virtue is teachable and that you are the very ones from whom one could best learn it — the work of this same art, or of some other?' 'Of this very same art, Socrates,' said Dionysodorus.
SOCRATES: 'Then you two,' I said, 'Dionysodorus, would be the best of all people now living at turning someone toward philosophy and the care of virtue?' 'We think so indeed, Socrates.' 'Then set aside the demonstration of everything else for another time,' I said, 'and show us just this one thing — persuade this young man here that he ought to practice philosophy and care for virtue, and you'll be doing a favor both to me and to all these others. Something like this happens to be the case with this boy: I myself and all these men here happen to desire that he become as good as possible. He is the son of Axiochus, grandson of the elder Alcibiades, and first cousin of the Alcibiades of today; his name is Cleinias. He is young, and we're anxious about him, as one naturally is about someone young, for fear someone gets to him first and turns his mind toward some other pursuit and corrupts him. So you two have come at the best possible moment — unless it makes some difference to you, put the young man to the test and talk with him in front of us.' When I had said more or less this, Euthydemus said, boldly and with confidence: 'It makes no difference at all, Socrates, so long as the young man is willing to answer.' 'Well,' I said, 'he's quite used to that — these friends of his come to him often and ask him many questions and talk with him, so he's fairly comfortable answering.' What happened after that, Crito, how could I possibly tell it to you properly? It's no small task to be able to recall and go through such boundless wisdom, so that, like the poets, I feel I ought to begin my account by invoking the Muses and Memory. Euthydemus began, as I recall, from somewhere around here: 'Cleinias, which people are the ones who learn — the wise, or the ignorant?' And the boy, since it was such a weighty question, blushed and, at a loss, looked over at me. I saw he was flustered and said, 'Take courage, Cleinias, and answer bravely, whichever way seems right to you — it may well do you the greatest good.' And just then Dionysodorus leaned in close to my ear, smiling broadly, and said: 'I tell you now, Socrates, whichever way the boy answers, he'll be refuted.'
SOCRATES: While he was still speaking, Cleinias happened to answer, so I had no chance to warn the boy to be careful — he answered that it was the wise who learned. And Euthydemus said: You speak of teachers, don't you? — He agreed. — So teachers are teachers of learners — just as your lyre teacher and your writing teacher were teachers of you and the other boys, and you were their pupils? — He agreed. — And when you were learning, you didn't yet know the things you were learning? — He said no. — Were you wise, then, when you didn't know those things? — Certainly not, he said. — And if not wise, then ignorant? — Quite so. — So you, in learning what you didn't know, were learning while ignorant. — The boy nodded. — So it's the ignorant who learn, Cleinias, not the wise, as you supposed. At this, as if a chorus had been cued by its trainer, Dionysodorus's and Euthydemus's followers burst out laughing and cheering together; and before the boy could catch his breath properly, Dionysodorus took it up and said: Well, Cleinias, when your writing teacher used to dictate to you, which of the boys learned what was dictated — the wise ones or the ignorant ones? — The wise ones, said Cleinias. — So it's the wise who learn, not the ignorant, and your answer to Euthydemus just now was wrong. At this the admirers of the two men laughed and cheered very loudly indeed, marveling at their cleverness; the rest of us sat in stunned silence. Euthydemus, noticing we were stunned, and wanting us to admire him even more, wouldn't let the boy go, but kept questioning him, and like a skilled dancer he turned the questions on the same point twice over, and said: Do learners learn what they know, or what they don't know? And Dionysodorus whispered to me again: This too, Socrates, is another one just like the last. Good heavens, I said, the previous question certainly did seem fine to us. Everything we ask, Socrates, he said, is like that — inescapable. Well then, I said, it seems you two are quite popular with your students.
SOCRATES: Meanwhile Cleinias answered Euthydemus that learners learn what they don't know; and he questioned him through the same steps as before: Well now, don't you know your letters? — Yes, he said. — All of them? — He agreed. — And when someone dictates anything at all, isn't he dictating letters? — He agreed. — So he's dictating something you know, if indeed you know them all? — He agreed to that too. — Well then, he said, don't you fail to learn whatever is dictated, while the one who doesn't know his letters learns? — No, he said, I do learn. — So you learn what you know, he said, since you know all the letters. — He agreed. — Then your answer wasn't correct, he said. Euthydemus had barely finished saying this when Dionysodorus, catching the argument like a ball, took aim at the boy again and said: Euthydemus is deceiving you, Cleinias. Tell me — isn't learning acquiring knowledge of whatever one learns? — Cleinias agreed. — And knowing, he said, is nothing other than already having knowledge? — He agreed. — So not knowing is not yet having knowledge? — He agreed with him. — So are those who acquire something the ones who already have it, or those who don't have it? — Those who don't. — And you've agreed that those who don't know belong among those who don't have it? — He nodded. — So learners belong among those who are acquiring, not among those who have? — He agreed. — So it's those who don't know who learn, Cleinias, he said, not those who know. Euthydemus was now rushing in for a third throw on the young man, like a wrestler; and I, seeing the boy going under, wanting to give him a rest so he wouldn't lose his nerve with us, spoke to comfort him: Cleinias, don't be surprised if these arguments seem strange to you. Perhaps you don't notice what our two visitors are doing with you — they're doing just what the initiates do in the rites of the Corybantes, when they perform the enthronement around the one they're about to initiate. There too there's a kind of dance and play, if indeed you're being initiated; and now these two are doing nothing but dancing around you, playing and cavorting, as a prelude to initiating you afterward. So now think of yourself as hearing the opening rites of sophistic mysteries.
SOCRATES: For first, as Prodicus says, one must learn the correctness of names — which is exactly what our two visitors are showing you, since you didn't realize that people use the word 'learn' both when someone, having no knowledge at all about some matter from the start, later acquires knowledge of it, and also — using this very same word — when someone who already has the knowledge uses that same knowledge to examine that same matter, whether it's being done or said — though this they call 'understanding' more than 'learning,' though sometimes they do call it learning too — and this distinction, as our friends here are showing, has escaped you: that the same word applies to people in opposite conditions, both to the one who knows and to the one who doesn't. Something similar applies to the second question, where they asked you whether people learn what they know or what they don't know. These are just the playful games of learning — which is why I say these two are playing with you — and I call it play for this reason: even if someone learned many or even all such things, he'd be no better off knowing how matters actually stand; he'd only be able to toy with people, tripping them up and knocking them over through the ambiguity of words — just as those who yank stools out from under people about to sit down enjoy laughing when they see someone thrown flat on his back. So consider what you've gotten from these two so far to have been play; but afterward, clearly, these two will show you serious things, and I'll guide them so they deliver what they promised. For they said they'd display their skill at exhortation — but now, it seems, they thought they should play with you first. So, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, let this playing be enough — perhaps it's sufficient — and now show, in what follows, by way of exhortation, how the boy should attend to wisdom and virtue. But first let me show you two what I take that to mean and what kind of exhortation I want to hear. So if I seem to you to be doing this in an amateurish and laughable way, don't laugh at me — it's out of eagerness to hear your wisdom that I'll venture to improvise in front of you. So bear with me without laughing, both you and your students. Now, son of Axiochus, answer me: don't all of us human beings wish to do well? Or is this one of those questions I was just now afraid was laughable? For surely it's foolish even to ask such a thing — who among people doesn't wish to do well?
SOCRATES: There's no one who doesn't, said Cleinias. — Well then, I said, the next question: since we wish to do well, how would we do well? Would it be if we had many good things? Or is this an even sillier question than the last? For surely this too is obvious, that it's so. — He agreed. — Come then, what sorts of things among those that exist happen to be good for us? Or does this not seem difficult either, nor something requiring a solemn man to supply? For anyone would tell us that wealth is good — right? — Quite so, he said. — And so is being healthy, and being good-looking, and being adequately equipped in other bodily respects? — He agreed. — But surely good birth, power, and honors in one's own city are clearly good things. — He agreed. — What then, I said, is left to us among goods? What about being moderate, and just, and courageous? By Zeus, Cleinias, do you think we'll be right to set these down as goods, or not? Someone might dispute it with us — what do you think? — They're goods, said Cleinias. — Well then, I said, where shall we rank wisdom in the chorus? Among the goods, or how do you put it? — Among the goods. — Now think carefully whether we're leaving out any good worth mentioning. — But it seems to me, said Cleinias, that we're leaving out nothing. — And I, recalling something, said: By Zeus, we're in danger of having left out the greatest of the goods. — What's that? he said. — Good luck, Cleinias — which everyone says, even quite ordinary people, is the greatest of goods. — True, he said. — And then I, changing my mind again, said we'd nearly made ourselves ridiculous before our visitors, both you and I, son of Axiochus. — How so? he said. — Because, having already set down good luck earlier, we're now again talking about the same thing. — What do you mean by that? — It's surely ridiculous, I said, to bring up again what's already been proposed, and to say the same things twice. — How do you mean this? he said. — Wisdom, surely, I said, is good luck — even a child would know that. — And he was amazed — so young and naive is he still. — And I, noticing his amazement, said: Don't you know, Cleinias, that in flute-playing it's the flute players who are luckiest at succeeding? — He agreed. — And in reading and writing letters, the writing teachers? — Quite so. — Well then, in the dangers of the sea, do you think anyone is luckier than skilled pilots, generally speaking? — Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Well then — on campaign, with which commander would you rather share the risk and fortune of war, a wise one or an ignorant one? — With a wise one. — And if sick, with which doctor would you rather risk it, a skilled one or an unskilled one? — With a skilled one. — Isn't this, I said, because you think you'd fare more fortunately acting with a skilled person than with an unskilled one? — He agreed. — So wisdom makes people fortunate in every case; for surely wisdom could never err — it must act rightly and succeed, or it wouldn't be wisdom at all. We finally agreed, somehow, in sum, that this is how things stand: where wisdom is present, whoever has it needs nothing further of good luck. And once we'd agreed on this, I went back to ask him how our earlier agreements stood. For we'd agreed, I said, that if we had many good things, we'd be happy and do well. — He agreed. — Would we be happy, then, because of the goods present with us, if they did us no good, or if they did? — If they did good, he said. — Would something do us good if we merely had it but didn't use it? For instance, if we had much food but didn't eat it, or drink but didn't drink it, would we be benefited at all? — Certainly not, he said. — And what about craftsmen — if each had all the equipment necessary for his own work prepared, but didn't use it, would they do well because of possessing it, simply because they possessed everything a craftsman needs to possess? Take a carpenter — if he had all his tools ready and enough wood, but didn't do any carpentry, would he be benefited at all by the possession? — Not at all, he said. — And what if someone possessed wealth and all the other goods we just mentioned, but didn't use them — would he be happy because of possessing these goods? — Certainly not, Socrates. — It seems, then, I said, that one who is going to be happy must not only possess such goods but also use them; otherwise there's no benefit from possessing them. — True. — Well then, Cleinias, is this now sufficient to make someone happy — both possessing the goods and using them? — It seems so to me. — Whether, I said, one uses them rightly, or even if not? — If rightly.
SOCRATES: Well said, I told him. Because I suppose it does make a difference whether a person uses a thing wrongly or simply leaves it alone: the one is bad, while the other is neither bad nor good. Isn't that our position? He agreed. Now then: in working with wood and using it, is there anything that produces correct use other than the carpenter's knowledge? Certainly not, he said. And in the making of implements, too, it is knowledge that produces the correctness. He agreed. Then, I said, take the use of those goods we mentioned first — wealth and health and beauty. Was it knowledge that guided the correct use of all such things and steered the action straight, or was it something else? Knowledge, he said. So knowledge, it seems, supplies people not merely with good luck but with good doing, in every acquisition and every action. He conceded it. Then in heaven's name, I said, is there any benefit in the other possessions without good sense and wisdom? Would a man profit from owning much and doing much with no intelligence — or rather from owning little, with intelligence? Look at it this way: doing less, wouldn't he make fewer mistakes; making fewer mistakes, wouldn't he fare less badly; and faring less badly, wouldn't he be less miserable? Certainly, he said. And who would do less — a poor man or a rich one? A poor man, he said. A weak man or a strong one? A weak one. A man held in honor, or one without honor? One without honor. Would a brave and temperate man do less, or a coward? A coward. And a lazy man rather than a hardworking one? He agreed. And a slow man rather than a quick one, and a man whose sight and hearing are dull rather than sharp? On all points of this kind we kept agreeing with each other. To sum it up, Clinias, I said, it looks as if, with all the things we first called goods, the question is not how they are in themselves naturally good; rather it seems to stand like this: if ignorance is in command of them, they are greater evils than their opposites, in proportion as they are more capable of serving a commander who is bad; while if good sense and wisdom lead, they are greater goods — but in themselves neither sort is worth anything at all. It appears, he said, to be just as you say. Then what follows for us from what has been said? Surely this: that of all the rest nothing is either good or bad, while of these two, wisdom is good and ignorance is bad. He agreed.
SOCRATES: Well then, I said, let us examine what remains. Since we all long to be happy, and since we turned out to become happy by using things — and using them correctly — and since it was knowledge that supplied the correctness and the good fortune, then every man, it seems, must by every means equip himself for this: to become as wise as possible. Or not? Yes, he said. And a man who thinks he ought to receive this from his father — far more than money — and from guardians and friends, from the others and from those who profess to be his lovers, from strangers and fellow citizens alike, begging and imploring them to share their wisdom: there is nothing shameful in that, Clinias, nothing to resent, if for its sake he serves and slaves for a lover or for any man at all, willing to perform any honorable service in his eagerness to become wise. Or don't you think so? I said. You seem to me to speak exactly right, he said. Yes, Clinias, I said — if, that is, wisdom can be taught, and does not come to people of its own accord. For that is still unexamined between us; you and I have not yet settled it. But to me, Socrates, he said, it seems teachable. And I was delighted and said: Beautifully spoken, best of men! And you have done me a favor, sparing me a long inquiry into that very question, whether wisdom is teachable or not. So now, since you think it is both teachable and the only thing in the world that makes a person happy and fortunate, wouldn't you say the pursuit of wisdom is necessary — and do you intend to pursue it yourself? Absolutely, Socrates, he said, as much as I possibly can. And I, glad to hear all this, said: There, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, is my model of what I want exhortation-speeches to be — an amateur's effort, perhaps, laboring along at length. Now let whichever of you wishes do the same thing for us by art. Or, if you don't want that, then pick up where I left off and show the boy the next step: whether he must acquire every kind of knowledge, or whether there is some single one that a man must get in order to be happy and good — and what it is. For as I said at the start, it matters a great deal to us that this young man become wise and good.
SOCRATES: That, Crito, is what I said; and I gave my whole attention to what would come next, watching how they would take up the argument and where they would begin in urging the young man to practice wisdom and virtue. The elder of them, Dionysodorus, started the argument first, and we all fixed our eyes on him, expecting to hear some marvelous arguments on the spot. And that is exactly what happened to us: the man launched an argument that was marvelous indeed, Crito, and worth your hearing — such a spur to virtue it was! Tell me, he said, Socrates, and all the rest of you who say you want this young man to become wise: are you joking when you say it, or do you truly desire it in earnest? It crossed my mind that they must have assumed we were joking earlier, when we asked the pair of them to talk with the boy, and that this was why they had played around and not been serious. So with that in mind I said, still more emphatically, that we were extraordinarily in earnest. And Dionysodorus said: Take care, Socrates, that you don't end up denying what you say now. I have taken care, I said; I will never deny it. Well then, he said: you say you want him to become wise? Certainly. And at present, he said, is Clinias wise or not? He says not yet, I said — and he is no braggart. And you people, he said, want him to become wise, and not to be ignorant? We agreed. So you want him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he now is. When I heard that I was thrown into confusion; and while I was still reeling he pounced: Then since you want him no longer to be what he now is, you want him — apparently — to be destroyed? Fine friends and lovers these must be, who would give anything to have their darling annihilated! And Ctesippus, hearing this, grew angry on his favorite's behalf and said: Stranger from Thurii, if it weren't rather rude to say it, I would say: on your own head! Whatever put it into you to tell such a lie about me and the others — a thing I think it is not even holy to utter — that I would want this boy destroyed?
SOCRATES: What, Ctesippus, said Euthydemus — do you think it is possible to lie? Good God, yes, he said, unless I'm out of my mind. Speaking the thing the statement is about, or not speaking it? Speaking it, he said. Then if he speaks it, he speaks no other thing among the things that are than the very one he speaks? How could he? said Ctesippus. And that thing he speaks is itself one of the things that are, distinct from the rest? Certainly. So the man who speaks that thing, he said, speaks what is? Yes. But surely the man who speaks what is, and speaks things that are, speaks the truth — so that Dionysodorus, if he speaks things that are, speaks the truth and tells no lie against you. Yes, said Ctesippus, but a man who says those things, Euthydemus, is not speaking things that are. And Euthydemus said: The things that are not — surely they are not? They are not. Then nowhere are the things that are not, things that are? Nowhere. Then is there any way a person could do something about them — the things that are not — so that anyone at all could make things that are nowhere? I don't think so, said Ctesippus. Well then: when the orators speak before the people, are they doing nothing? They are doing something, he said. Then if they do, they also make? Yes. Speaking, then, is doing and making? He agreed. Then no one, he said, speaks things that are not — for he would already be making something, and you have admitted that no one can make what is not — so that by your own account nobody tells lies; and if Dionysodorus speaks, he speaks true things and things that are. By God, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus, he does speak things that are, in a manner of speaking — only not as they really stand. What do you mean, Ctesippus? said Dionysodorus. Are there people who say things as they stand? There certainly are, he said — gentlemen, the men who speak the truth. Well then, he said: good things stand well, don't they, and bad things badly? He conceded it. And you admit that gentlemen speak of things as they stand? I admit it. Then, Ctesippus, he said, the good speak badly of the bad — if they speak of them as they stand. Yes, by God, emphatically so, he said — of bad men, at any rate; and if you take my advice you will be careful not to be one of them, so that the good don't speak badly of you. For you may be sure the good speak badly of the bad. And do they speak of big men, said Euthydemus, in a big way, and of hot men hotly? Certainly, said Ctesippus — and of frigid men they speak frigidly, and say their way of arguing is frigid too. Now you are being abusive, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus — abusive!
SOCRATES: Not I, by God, Dionysodorus, said Ctesippus — I'm fond of you. I'm admonishing you as a comrade, and trying to persuade you never again to say to my face, so crudely, that I want these people destroyed — people I value more than anything. So, since they seemed to me to be getting rather fierce with each other, I started teasing Ctesippus and said: Ctesippus, my view is that we ought to accept from the strangers what they tell us, if they are willing to give it, and not quarrel over a word. If they know how to destroy people in such a way as to turn worthless fools into decent, sensible men — whether the two of them discovered it themselves or learned from someone else this kind of ruin and destruction, by which they abolish a man who is worthless and produce him again as a good one — if they know how to do this (and clearly they do: they said, after all, that their newly discovered art was to make people good who were bad), then let us concede the point to them. Let them destroy the boy for us and make him sensible — and all the rest of us too. And if you young men are afraid, let the risk fall on me, as they say it should fall on the Carian: since I am an old man anyway, I am ready to take the chance, and I hand myself over to Dionysodorus here as if to Medea of Colchis. Let him destroy me — boil me, if he likes, or do whatever he wants — only let him turn me out good. And Ctesippus said: I too, Socrates, am ready to offer myself to the strangers — even if they want to flay me worse than they are flaying me now — provided my hide does not end up as a wineskin, like the hide of Marsyas, but ends up as virtue. And yet Dionysodorus here thinks I am angry with him. I am not angry; I am contradicting what I think he has said improperly against me. Come, noble Dionysodorus, he said, don't call contradicting abuse — abuse is something else entirely. And Dionysodorus said: Do you build your arguments, Ctesippus, on the assumption that there is such a thing as contradicting? Of course I do, he said — emphatically. Or do you, Dionysodorus, think there is no such thing as contradicting? Well, you at least, he said, could never prove that you have heard one man contradicting another. Is that so? he said. Then let me prove it to you right now, as you listen: Ctesippus contradicting Dionysodorus. And would you stand behind that claim? Absolutely, he said.
SOCRATES: Well then, he said, does each of the things that are have its own account? Certainly. And that account states how the thing is, not how it is not? How it is. Because if you remember, Ctesippus, we just showed that no one speaks of what is not — no one was ever caught saying the nonexistent. So what does that prove? said Ctesippus. Does it stop you and me from contradicting each other? Well, he said, could we contradict each other while both giving the account of the very same thing — or wouldn't we then be saying the same thing? He agreed. But when neither of us states the account of the thing, could we contradict each other then? Or in that case would neither of us even be talking about the thing at all? He granted this too. But what if I state the account of the thing, and you state some other account of some other thing — is that when we contradict? Or rather: I am speaking of the thing, and you are not speaking at all — and how could someone who is not speaking contradict someone who is? At this Ctesippus fell silent, and I, astonished at the argument, said: What do you mean by this, Dionysodorus? I have heard this argument from many people, many times, and I am always amazed by it — Protagoras and his circle made heavy use of it, and even older thinkers before them. To me it always seems a marvel, since it topples everyone else and itself along with them. But I think I will learn the truth of it best from you. Is it your claim that it is impossible to say something false? That is what the argument holds, isn't it? Yes — either one speaks the truth, or one does not speak at all. He agreed. So is it impossible to speak falsely, but possible to hold a false belief? Not even that, he said. Then there is no such thing at all as false belief? No, he said. Then there is no ignorance either, nor ignorant people — since wouldn't ignorance, if it existed, be exactly this: being in error about things? Certainly, he said. But that is impossible, I said. He agreed it was impossible. Are you saying this, Dionysodorus, just for the sake of argument, to say something paradoxical — or do you truly believe that no human being is ignorant? No, he said, you refute it. And can that even be done, by your own argument — to refute someone, when no one speaks falsely? It cannot, said Euthydemus. Then Dionysodorus was not, just now, telling me to refute him? he asked. How could anyone tell you to do what does not exist? Yet you are the one telling me to. Because, Euthydemus, I said, I do not fully grasp these clever and elegant points — my understanding is rather crude. Perhaps my next question will be somewhat coarse, but bear with me.
SOCRATES: Look at it this way: if it is impossible to speak falsely, or to hold a false belief, or to be ignorant, then surely it is also impossible to make a mistake when one does something — for one who is doing a thing cannot fail to do the very thing he is doing. Isn't that what you're saying? Certainly, he said. Well, I said, now here is the coarse question. If we make no mistakes, whether in acting or speaking or thinking, then in the name of Zeus, what are you here to teach, if that is really so? Didn't you just claim you could hand down excellence better than anyone, to whoever wishes to learn? Really, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, breaking in, are you such an old fossil that you remember what we said at the start, and if I said something last year you'd remember that too, yet you can't find anything to say to what's being said right now? Well, I said, they are hard sayings indeed — understandably so, since wise men utter them — since even this last one of yours is very hard to know what to do with. What do you mean, Dionysodorus, by 'I can't find anything to say'? Isn't it clear that I mean I can't refute him? Come now, tell me — what else could this phrase mean, 'I can't find anything to do with the arguments'? Well, he said, what you're saying is very hard to do anything with — go on, answer. Before you answer, Dionysodorus? You won't answer? he said. Is that even fair? Perfectly fair, he said. On what principle? I said — or is it obvious: because you have arrived among us now as an utter master of arguments, and you know when one should answer and when not, and now you won't answer anything at all, knowing full well one shouldn't? You're babbling, he said, instead of bothering to answer. Come, my good man, obey and answer, since you agree that I am wise. Then I must obey, I said, and it seems I have no choice, since you are in command. Go on, ask. Well then — does 'thinking' apply to things that have a soul, or also to soulless things? To things that have a soul. Do you know of any utterance, he said, that has a soul? No, by Zeus, I do not. Then why did you just ask what the utterance 'thinks' to me? What else, I said, except that I made a mistake out of my own stupidity? Or did I not make a mistake, but actually speak correctly when I said that utterances think? Do you say I made a mistake, or not?
SOCRATES: For if I did not make a mistake, then not even you, wise as you are, will be able to refute me, nor will you have anything to do with the argument. But if I did make a mistake, then you are not speaking correctly either, when you claim that making mistakes is impossible. And I am not saying this against what you said last year, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus. But it seems, I said, that this argument stays exactly where it was and, just as in the old story, falls down again as soon as it's set up — and that your art, remarkable as it is at precision in arguments, hasn't yet discovered a way to keep it from doing so. And Ctesippus said, You say the most marvelous things, gentlemen of Thurii, or Chios, or wherever and however you like to be called — you don't care in the least that you're talking nonsense. And I, afraid a quarrel would break out, again tried to calm Ctesippus down and said: Ctesippus, what I said just now to Cleinias I say to you as well — that you don't recognize how marvelous these strangers' wisdom is. But they aren't willing to demonstrate it to us seriously — instead they're imitating the Egyptian sophist Proteus, working their tricks on us. So let's imitate Menelaus, and not let the two men go until they reveal to us what it is they're serious about. I imagine something quite splendid will appear from them once they start being serious. So let's beg them, coax them, and pray to them to reveal it. And I think I should myself go back and describe the kind of thing I'm praying will appear to me — from where I left off before, I'll try to continue as best I can, in case I can call it forth, and the two of them, taking pity and having mercy on how earnest and intent I am, will themselves grow serious too. So, Cleinias, I said, remind me where we left off. As I recall, it was somewhere around here: we ended up agreeing that one must pursue philosophy — yes? Yes, he said. And philosophy is the acquisition of knowledge, isn't it? I said. Yes, he said. Then what kind of knowledge should we acquire, to acquire it rightly? Isn't the simple answer: whichever knowledge will benefit us? Certainly, he said. Would it benefit us at all, then, to know how to go around and find where in the earth the most gold is buried? Perhaps, he said.
SOCRATES: But, I said, we already refuted that earlier — that it would be no advantage even if all the gold in the world came to us without any effort or digging in the earth. So even if we knew how to turn rocks into gold, that knowledge would be worth nothing. For if we don't also know how to use the gold, it turned out to be of no benefit at all — or don't you remember? I said. I remember perfectly, he said. And it seems that no other knowledge is of any benefit either — not moneymaking, not medicine, not any other art that knows how to make something but not how to use what it makes. Isn't that so? He agreed. Nor would there be any benefit even in a knowledge of how to make people immortal, without knowing how to use immortality — if we're to judge by what we've agreed on so far. We agreed on all this. So we need some kind of knowledge, my fine boy, I said, in which making and knowing-how-to-use what one makes coincide in the same thing. Apparently, he said. Then it's far from necessary, it seems, that we become lyre-makers or acquire that sort of knowledge. For there, the art of making is one thing and the art of using is another, though both concern the same object — lyre-making and lyre-playing are quite different from each other. Isn't that so? He agreed. And clearly we don't need flute-making either — that's another case of the same kind. He agreed. But, I said, in the name of the gods, if we learned the art of speech-writing, is that the one whose possession would make us happy? I don't think so, said Cleinias, breaking in. On what evidence, I said, do you base that? I see, he said, some speechwriters who don't know how to use their own speeches, the ones they compose themselves — just as lyre-makers can't use lyres — while others are capable of using what those men produced, though they themselves are incapable of writing speeches. So it's clear that with speeches too, the art of making and the art of using are separate. That seems to me, I said, sufficient evidence that this is not the art whose possession would make someone happy — the art of the speechwriters. And yet I thought that here, somewhere, the knowledge we've been seeking all along would turn up. Because the speechwriters themselves, whenever I'm with them, seem to me exceedingly wise, Cleinias, and their art itself seems something divine and lofty. And that's no wonder, really — it is a branch of the art of incantation, only slightly inferior to it.
SOCRATES: For the art of incantation charms away vipers, and spiders, and scorpions, and other creatures, and diseases too; while the other kind charms and soothes jurors, assemblymen, and other crowds — or does it seem otherwise to you? he asked. No, it appears to me just as you say, he said. Where, then, I said, could we still turn? To what art? I'm at a loss, he said. But, I said, I think I have found it. Which one? said Cleinias. Generalship, I said, seems to me, more than anything, the art whose possession would make one happy. It doesn't seem so to me, he said. Why not? I said. This is a kind of hunting art, applied to human beings. What of it? I said. No hunting art, he said, extends any further than hunting and capturing; once they have captured what they were hunting, they cannot use it themselves — hunters and fishermen hand their catch over to the cooks, and again the geometers, astronomers, and calculators — for they too are a kind of hunter, since none of them makes the figures, but discovers things that already exist — since they themselves don't know how to use their finds, but only how to hunt them down, they hand them over to the dialecticians to make use of their discoveries, at least those of them who aren't utterly senseless. Well then, I said, most excellent and wisest Cleinias, is this how it stands? Quite so. And generals, he said, do the very same thing: whenever they capture some city or army, they hand it over to the statesmen — since they themselves don't know how to use what they've captured — just as quail-hunters, I imagine, hand their catch over to quail-keepers. So if, he said, we need that art which, whatever it acquires — whether by making it or by hunting it down — also knows how to use it, and such an art would make us blessed, then we must look for some other art besides generalship. CRITO: What are you saying, Socrates? That mere boy said things like that? SOCRATES: Don't you believe it, Crito? CRITO: No, by Zeus, I don't. In fact I think that if he really said that, he'd have no more need of Euthydemus, or anyone else, for his education. SOCRATES: But then, in the name of Zeus, could it have been Ctesippus who said this, and I've simply forgotten?
CRITO: What Ctesippus? SOCRATES: Well, this much I know for certain — it wasn't Euthydemus or Dionysodorus who said that. But, my good Crito, could it be that one of our betters was standing by and spoke those words? For that I heard them, I'm quite sure. CRITO: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates — one of the higher powers, I'd say, and by a wide margin. But after that, did you go on hunting for some skill? And did you find the one you were after, or not? SOCRATES: Where would we have found it, my good man? We were completely ridiculous — like children chasing larks, we kept thinking we'd catch each science in a moment, and it kept slipping away from us. Why should I bore you with the whole business? When we came to the kingly art itself and examined whether this was the one that supplies and produces happiness, right there, as if we'd fallen into a maze, thinking we were at last near the end, we turned a corner and found ourselves back where we started, needing just as much as when we first began. CRITO: How on earth did that happen to you, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you. We had decided that statesmanship and the kingly art were one and the same. CRITO: Well, what then? SOCRATES: That this art hands over command of all the works that generalship and the other arts produce to itself alone, since it alone knows how to make use of them. So it seemed clear to us that this was the very thing we were after — the cause of right action in the city, and, in the plain words of Aeschylus, the one that sits alone at the stern of the state, steering everything, ruling everything, making everything useful. CRITO: So it seemed to you both a fine conclusion, Socrates? SOCRATES: You be the judge of that, Crito, if you want to hear what happened to us next. We looked at it again this way: come now, ruling over everything, what work does the kingly art actually produce for us — anything, or nothing? Surely something, we said to each other. Wouldn't you agree, Crito? CRITO: I would. SOCRATES: Then what would you say its product is? Suppose I asked you: medicine rules over everything it rules — what product does it supply? Wouldn't you say health? CRITO: I would.
SOCRATES: And what about your own art, farming? Ruling over everything it rules, what product does it produce? Wouldn't you say it supplies us nourishment from the earth? CRITO: I would. SOCRATES: And the kingly art, ruling over everything it rules — what does it produce? Perhaps you're not quite sure. CRITO: No, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: Nor were we, Crito. But you know at least this much — that if this is really the art we're after, it must be beneficial. CRITO: Certainly. SOCRATES: So it must hand over to us some good, mustn't it? CRITO: It must, Socrates. SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I agreed with each other that good is nothing other than a certain knowledge. CRITO: Yes, that's what you said. SOCRATES: Well, all the other products that people would attribute to statesmanship — and there'd be many, of course, such as making the citizens wealthy, free, and free of civil strife — none of these turned out to be either bad or good; it had to make people wise and give them a share of knowledge, if it was really going to be the art that benefits and produces happiness. CRITO: That's right — that's how it was agreed between you at the time, as you've reported the conversation. SOCRATES: So does the kingly art make people wise and good? CRITO: What's to stop it, Socrates? SOCRATES: But does it make everyone good at everything? And is this the art that hands over every science — shoemaking, carpentry, all the rest? CRITO: I don't think so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then which science does it hand over? For what use will we put it? Since it need not be the maker of any of the works that are neither bad nor good, but must hand over no other knowledge than itself. So let's say what on earth this is, and what use we'll make of it. Shall we say, Crito, that it's the knowledge by which we'll make other people good? CRITO: By all means. SOCRATES: But good for what, and useful for what, to us? Or shall we go on saying that they'll make yet others good, and those others still others? But as for what they're actually good for, that never appears anywhere, since we've dismissed all the works said to belong to statesmanship. Really and truly, as the saying goes, it becomes 'the Corinthian son of Zeus' — and, as I was saying, we're just as far, or farther, from knowing what that knowledge is that will make us happy. CRITO: By Zeus, Socrates, it seems you two got yourselves into quite a puzzle.
SOCRATES: And I myself, Crito, once caught in that puzzle, was crying out in every voice, begging the two strangers, as if calling on the Dioscuri, to save us — me and the boy — from the great wave of the argument, and to make every effort, and having made it, to show us plainly what that knowledge was that we needed to get hold of in order to live out the rest of our lives well. CRITO: Well then? Was Euthydemus willing to show you anything? SOCRATES: Of course he was! And he began, my friend, in quite a grand manner, like this — 'Tell me, Socrates,' he said, 'shall I teach you this knowledge you've been so long puzzling over, or shall I demonstrate that you already have it?' 'My good man,' I said, 'is that actually up to you to choose?' 'Certainly,' he said. 'Then by Zeus, demonstrate that I have it,' I said, 'for that's a good deal easier than teaching a man of my age.' 'Well then, answer me this,' he said. 'Is there anything you know?' 'Yes indeed,' I said, 'many things, though small ones.' 'That's enough,' he said. 'Now, do you think it's possible for any existing thing — the very thing it happens to be — not to be that thing?' 'No, by Zeus, I don't.' 'Now, you know something?' he said. 'I do.' 'Then you're a knower, since you know?' 'Certainly — of that thing, at least.' 'It makes no difference. But mustn't you, being a knower, know everything?' 'No, by Zeus,' I said, 'since there's a great deal else I don't know.' 'Then if there's something you don't know, you're not a knower.' 'Not of that thing, my friend,' I said. 'Are you any less a non-knower for that?' he said. 'Just now you claimed to be a knower — and so you happen to be this very person that you are, and again, by the same reasoning, you're not, at one and the same time.' 'Well now, Euthydemus,' I said, 'as the saying goes, you're making fine noise indeed. But how do I know that particular knowledge we were after? Since it's impossible for the same thing both to be and not to be — if I know one thing, I know everything, for I couldn't be both a knower and a non-knower at once — and since I know everything, I therefore have that knowledge too. Is that what you mean, and is this the wisdom?' 'You're refuting yourself with your own words, Socrates,' he said. 'But tell me, Euthydemus,' I said, 'haven't you suffered this same fate yourself? For with you, and with Dionysodorus here, dear as he is to me, whatever I might suffer I wouldn't be too upset about it. Tell me — don't the two of you know some things that exist, and not know others?' 'Far from it, Socrates,' said Dionysodorus. 'What do you mean?' I said. 'Do you two then know nothing at all?' 'Quite the opposite,' he said.
SOCRATES: 'Then you know everything,' I said, 'since you know even the smallest thing?' 'Everything,' he said, 'and you too, moreover, since if you know even one thing, you know everything.' 'Zeus above,' I said, 'what a marvel you're describing, and what a great good has come to light! Do all other people too know everything, or nothing at all?' 'Surely they don't,' he said, 'know some things and not know others, being at once knowers and non-knowers.' 'Then what?' I said. 'Everyone,' he said, 'knows everything, if they know even one thing.' 'By the gods, Dionysodorus,' I said — for it was now clear to me that the two of you were in earnest, and I'd only just managed to get you to be so — 'do you two really and truly know everything? Carpentry, for instance, and shoemaking?' 'Certainly,' he said. 'And can you two also stitch leather?' 'Yes, and cobble shoes too, by Zeus,' he said. 'And things like this — how many stars there are, and the grains of sand?' 'Certainly,' he said. 'Don't you think we'd admit as much?' And Ctesippus broke in: 'By Zeus, Dionysodorus,' he said, 'give me some proof of this sort, by which I'll know that you two are telling the truth.' 'What shall I demonstrate?' he said. 'Do you know how many teeth Euthydemus has, and does Euthydemus know how many you have?' 'Isn't it enough for you,' he said, 'to hear that we know everything?' 'Not at all,' he said, 'just tell us this one more thing, and show us that you're telling the truth — if you tell us how many teeth each of you has, and it turns out you're right when we count them, then we'll believe you about the rest too.' They thought they were being mocked and refused, but they did agree that they knew everything, when questioned point by point, one thing at a time, by Ctesippus. For Ctesippus, quite shamelessly, ended up asking absolutely everything, even the most indecent things, whether they knew them — and the two of them charged straight at the questions with the greatest boldness, admitting they knew, like wild boars charging straight into the blow, so that I myself, Crito, out of sheer disbelief, was finally forced to ask Euthydemus whether Dionysodorus even knew how to dance. 'Certainly,' he said. 'Surely,' I said, 'you haven't come so far in wisdom that, at your age, you also tumble among knives and spin on a wheel?' 'There's nothing,' he said, 'that we can't do.' 'Do you two,' I said, 'know everything only now, or always as well?' 'Always,' he said. 'And when you were children, and just born, did you know everything then too?' Both of them said yes, together.
SOCRATES: This struck us as quite unbelievable. But Euthydemus said, 'Do you disbelieve it, Socrates?' 'Only,' I said, 'insofar as it seems likely that you two are wise.' 'Well,' he said, 'if you're willing to answer me, I'll show that you too admit these marvels.' 'Why, that,' I said, 'is the pleasantest way for me to be refuted. For if I've been wise all this time without knowing it myself, and you're going to show that I know everything, and always have, what greater windfall could I find in my whole life?' 'Answer then,' he said. 'Ask away, since I'm ready to answer.' 'Well then, Socrates,' he said, 'are you a knower of something, or not?' 'I am.' 'Then is it by that very thing by which you're a knower that you also know, or by something else?' 'By that by which I'm a knower — I suppose you mean the soul, or don't you mean that?' 'Aren't you ashamed, Socrates,' he said, 'to answer a question with a question?' 'Well,' I said, 'what am I to do? I'll do just as you tell me. When I don't know what you're asking, are you telling me to answer anyway, rather than ask for clarification?' 'Surely you grasp something,' he said, 'of what I mean?' 'I do,' I said. 'Then answer according to what you grasp.' 'But what,' I said, 'if you mean one thing by your question and I grasp another, and then answer according to that — is it enough for you if I answer nothing to the point?' 'It's enough for me,' he said, 'though not, I think, for you.' 'Then, by Zeus,' I said, 'I won't answer at all until I understand.' 'You won't answer,' he said, 'according to whatever you happen to grasp each time, because you're being deliberately tiresome and more old-fashioned than you ought to be.' And I realized he was annoyed with me for picking apart what was said, since he wanted to hunt me down by cornering me with words. So I remembered Connus, who also gets annoyed with me whenever I don't yield to him, and afterward pays me less attention, thinking me a dullard; and since I'd made up my mind to keep studying under him too, I thought I'd better give way, so he wouldn't think me a hopeless pupil and refuse to take me on. So I said, 'Well, if that's how you think it should be done, Euthydemus, it must be done that way — for surely you know how to argue far better than I do, having the art, while I'm just an amateur. So ask again from the beginning.' 'Answer then,' he said, 'once more — do you know things by means of something, or not?' 'I do,' I said, 'by my soul.'
SOCRATES: "There he goes again," he said, "adding something extra to his answers. I didn't ask you what it is you know something by — I asked whether you know something by anything at all." "Well," I said, "I answered more fully than I needed to, out of sheer inexperience. Forgive me — I'll answer simply from now on: yes, I know the things I know by something." "Is it always," he said, "the same thing, or sometimes this and sometimes something else?" "Always," I said, "whenever I know anything — by that same thing." "Will you stop tacking things on!" he said. "Watch that this 'always' doesn't trip us up." "It won't trip us up," I said, "if it trips anyone, it's you." "Just answer — do you always know by this same thing?" "Always," I said, "since I have to drop the 'whenever.'" "So you always know by this thing. And knowing always, do you know some things by the thing you know by, and other things by something else, or do you know everything by this one thing?" "By this one thing," I said, "everything I know." "There it is again," he said, "the same little addition creeping back in." "Fine, I'll drop 'everything I know,'" I said. "Don't drop even that," he said, "I don't need you to drop anything. Just answer me — could you know everything if you didn't know everything?" "That would be a miracle," I said. And he said, "Then add whatever you like from now on — you've already agreed you know everything." "So it seems," I said, "since 'the things I know' turns out to carry no weight, and I know everything." "And haven't you also agreed that you always know by the same thing you know by, whether 'whenever you know' or however you like to put it? You've agreed you always know, and everything, all at once. So clearly you knew even as a child, and while you were being formed in the womb, and before that — before you yourself existed, and before heaven and earth existed, you knew everything, if indeed you always know." "And by Zeus," he said, "you will always keep on knowing everything, yourself, if I so wish it." "I do wish you would wish it, my most honored Euthydemus," I said, "if what you say is really true. But I don't quite trust that you're capable of it on your own, unless your brother here, Dionysodorus, joins in the wishing with you — then perhaps it might happen. Tell me both," I said — "for on everything else I have no idea how I could argue with men so monstrously wise, given that I don't know everything, since you two say I do — but how am I to say I know something like this, Euthydemus: that good men are unjust? Come, tell me, do I know this or not?" "You certainly know it," he said. "Know what?" I said. "That good men are not unjust."
SOCRATES: "Quite so," I said, "I've known that for ages. But that's not what I'm asking — I'm asking where I learned that good men ARE unjust." "Nowhere," said Dionysodorus. "Then I don't know that," I said. "You're ruining the argument," Euthydemus said to Dionysodorus, "he'll turn out not to know something, and be knowing and unknowing at the same time." And Dionysodorus blushed. "But you, Euthydemus, what do you say?" I said. "Don't you think your brother is right, the one who knows everything?" "Am I not Euthydemus's brother?" Dionysodorus cut in quickly. And I said, "Let it be, my good man, until Euthydemus teaches me that I know good men to be unjust — don't begrudge me the lesson." "You're running away, Socrates," said Dionysodorus, "you don't want to answer." "Naturally," I said, "I'm weaker than even one of you, so I'm a long way from being ashamed to run from two. I'm a good deal feebler than Heracles, who couldn't fight off both the hydra — a sophist of a sort, who for all her wisdom sprouted many heads to replace the one you cut off — and a certain crab, another sophist freshly arrived from the sea, just landed, I imagine. When the crab annoyed him by biting from the left as he argued, he called on his nephew Iolaus for help, and Iolaus helped him well enough. But if my Iolaus, Patrocles, were to come, he'd only make things worse." "Well, answer this," said Dionysodorus, "since you keep singing that song — was Iolaus more Heracles's nephew than yours?" "My best course, Dionysodorus," I said, "is simply to answer you. You'll never stop asking — I'm quite sure of that — out of sheer spite, trying to keep Euthydemus from teaching me that clever thing." "Answer, then," he said. "I answer," I said, "that Iolaus was Heracles's nephew, and not mine at all, as far as I can tell. Patrocles, my brother, wasn't his father — his father was someone with a similar name, Iphicles, Heracles's brother." "And Patrocles," he said, "is your brother?" "Certainly," I said, "on my mother's side, though not on my father's." "Then he's your brother and not your brother." "Not on the father's side, my excellent friend," I said. "His father was Chaeredemus, mine was Sophroniscus." "And was Sophroniscus a father," he said, "and Chaeredemus too?"
SOCRATES: "Certainly," I said, "mine, and his." "Then," he said, "Chaeredemus was different from your father?" "Different from mine, yes," I said. "So then was he a father while being different from a father? Or are you the same as a stone?" "I'm afraid," I said, "you'll show me to be the same — though I don't think I am." "Then you're different from a stone?" he said. "Different indeed." "Well then, being different from stone, aren't you not-stone? And being different from gold, aren't you not-gold?" "That's so." "Then Chaeredemus too," he said, "being different from a father, wouldn't be a father." "It seems," I said, "he isn't a father." "Well then if Chaeredemus is a father," said Euthydemus, taking it up, "then by the same reasoning Sophroniscus, being different from a father, isn't a father, so you, Socrates, are fatherless!" And Ctesippus jumped in: "Hasn't your own father suffered the very same fate? Isn't he different from my father?" "Far from it," said Euthydemus. "So he's the same?" "The same, indeed." "I wouldn't wish that on him. But tell me, Euthydemus, is he only my father, or everyone else's too?" "Everyone's," he said. "Or do you think someone can be a father and not be a father?" "I did think so," said Ctesippus. "And what of it?" he said. "Can something be gold and not be gold? Or a man and not a man?" "Don't," said Ctesippus, "Euthydemus, as the saying goes, don't tie linen to linen — you're saying something outrageous, that your father is everyone's father." "But he is," he said. "Everyone's, as in all men's?" said Ctesippus, "or of horses too, and all the other animals?" "Of all," he said. "And your mother too — is she everyone's mother?" "My mother too." "Then your mother is also the mother of sea urchins." "So is yours," he said. "Then you're the brother of gudgeons, and puppies, and piglets." "And so are you," he said. "So a boar is your father, and a dog." "And yours too," he said. "And soon enough," said Dionysodorus, "if you answer me, Ctesippus, you'll admit all this. Tell me — do you have a dog?" "A wretched one," said Ctesippus. "Does he have puppies?" "He does, several just like him." "So the dog is their father?" "I saw him myself," he said, "mounting the bitch." "Well then — isn't the dog yours?" "Certainly." "Then, being a father, he's yours, so the dog becomes your father, and you're the brother of puppies!" And Dionysodorus quickly cut in again, before Ctesippus could say anything, "And answer me one more small thing — do you beat this dog?" And Ctesippus laughed and said, "By the gods, yes — since I can't beat you." "So you beat your own father?" he said.
SOCRATES: "It would be far more just," he said, "for me to beat your father, for raising sons so wise. But surely, Euthydemus," said Ctesippus, "your father — and the puppies' father — has enjoyed plenty of good from this wisdom of yours." "But neither he nor you, Ctesippus, has any need of plenty of goods." "And you yourself, Euthydemus," he said, "don't need them either?" "Nor does any other man on earth. Tell me, Ctesippus — do you think it's a good thing for a sick man to drink medicine, or not good, when he needs it? Or when a man goes to war, is it better to go armed or unarmed?" "I'd say armed," he said, "though I suspect you're about to say something clever." "You'll soon know best," he said, "just answer. Since you've agreed it's good for a man to drink medicine when he needs it, doesn't it follow that this good thing should be drunk in the greatest possible quantity, and it would be well done if someone ground up a whole cartload of hellebore and mixed it in for him?" And Ctesippus said, "Very much so, Euthydemus — provided the drinker is the size of the statue at Delphi." "And in war too," he said, "since it's good to have weapons, shouldn't one have as many spears and shields as possible, since it's a good thing?" "Quite so, surely," said Ctesippus. "But you don't think that, Euthydemus — you'd settle for one shield and one spear?" "I would." "And would you arm Geryon and Briareus that way too?" he said. "I thought you'd be cleverer than that, being a master of arms yourself, and your friend here too." Euthydemus fell silent. But Dionysodorus, picking up on Ctesippus's earlier answers, asked, "And don't you think gold is good to have?" "Certainly, and plenty of it," said Ctesippus. "Well then — don't you think one ought to have good things always and everywhere?" "Very much so," he said. "And you agree gold is a good thing?" "I've agreed to that," he said. "Then one ought to have it always and everywhere, and as much of it as possible within oneself? And wouldn't a man be happiest who had three talents of gold in his belly, a talent in his skull, and a gold stater in each eye?" "Well, Euthydemus," said Ctesippus, "they do say the happiest and best men among the Scythians are those who carry a great deal of gold in their own skulls — just as you said the dog was my father a moment ago — and what's even more remarkable, they drink from their own gilded skulls, and look right down inside them, holding their own crown in their hands."
SOCRATES: "Do the Scythians, and other men," said Euthydemus, "see what is possible to see, or what is impossible?" "What is possible, surely." "And you too?" he said. "I too." "Do you see our cloaks?" "Yes." "Then these are possible to see." "Remarkably so," said Ctesippus. "What of it?" he said. "Nothing. But perhaps you don't think they're actually visible — you're such a delight. You seem to me, Euthydemus, to be sound asleep with your eyes open — and if it's possible to say something while saying nothing, that's exactly what you're doing." "Isn't it possible," said Dionysodorus, "to speak while being silent?" "Not in any way at all," said Ctesippus. "Or to be silent while speaking?" "Even less so," he said. "Then when you speak of stones and sticks and bits of iron, aren't you speaking while being silent?" "Not if I'm speaking of them," he said — "unless when I walk past the blacksmiths' shops, the bits of iron speak and shout at the top of their lungs when someone strikes them! So your wisdom made you say nothing there without noticing it. But show me the other one still — how it's possible to speak while being silent." And Ctesippus seemed to me terribly on edge over his boyfriend's honor. "When you're silent," said Euthydemus, "aren't you silent about everything?" "I am," he said. "Then you're also silent about the things that speak, if speech belongs among all things." "What?" said Ctesippus, "isn't everything silent?" "Surely not," said Euthydemus. "Then, my good man, does everything speak?" "The things that speak do, surely." "But that's not what I'm asking," he said, "I'm asking whether everything is silent or everything speaks." "Neither, and both," said Dionysodorus, snatching it up, "for I know well you won't know what to do with that answer." And Ctesippus, as he always did, burst out in a great roar of laughter and said, "Euthydemus, your brother has hedged the argument both ways at once — he's lost, and beaten." And Cleinias was thoroughly delighted and laughed, so that Ctesippus grew more than tenfold pleased with himself. And it seemed to me, given how crafty he is, that Ctesippus had picked up these very tricks from these two men themselves — for no one else among men today has wisdom quite like it. And I said, "Why are you laughing, Cleinias, at such serious and noble matters?" "Have you ever yet, Socrates," said Dionysodorus, "seen a noble thing?" "I have," I said, "and many, Dionysodorus."
SOCRATES: "Are they different from the beautiful," he said, "or the same as the beautiful?" And I was in complete confusion, and I thought I deserved it for having yelped in the first place, but still I said they were different from the beautiful itself—though each of them does have some beauty present in it. "Well then," he said, "if an ox is present to you, you're an ox? And since I'm present to you right now, are you Dionysodorus?" "Don't say such a thing," I said. "But in what way," he said, "could one thing become another just because another thing is present to it?" "Is that what's puzzling you?" I said—and by now I was trying to imitate the cleverness of these two men, since I was so eager for it. "Of course I'm puzzled," he said, "and so is everyone else, about what doesn't exist." "What do you mean, Dionysodorus?" I said. "Isn't the beautiful beautiful, and the ugly ugly?" "If it seems so to me," he said. "Well, does it seem so?" "Certainly," he said. "And isn't the same the same, and the different different? Surely the different isn't the same—I wouldn't have thought even a child would be puzzled that the different is different. But, Dionysodorus, you let that one go on purpose, since in everything else you two seem to me like craftsmen who each turn out exactly what belongs to their trade, and you two turn out arguing most beautifully of all. So do you know," he said, "what belongs to each of the craftsmen? First, do you know who ought to do metalwork?" "I do—a smith." "And who ought to do pottery?" "A potter." "And who ought to slaughter and skin animals and cut up the meat and boil and roast it?" "A cook," I said. "Then if someone does what belongs to him, he'll do it correctly?" "Certainly." "And it belongs to the cook, as you say, to cut up and skin? You agreed to that, didn't you?" "I agreed," I said, "but forgive me." "Then it's clear," he said, "that if someone slaughters the cook and cuts him up and boils and roasts him, he'll be doing what belongs to him—and if someone forges the smith himself, or pots the potter, he too will be doing what belongs to him." "By Poseidon," I said, "now you're putting the crowning touch on your wisdom! Will it ever come to me, so that it becomes my own?" "Would you recognize it, Socrates," he said, "once it had become your own?" "If you're willing, clearly I would," I said. "Well," he said, "do you think you know what belongs to you?" "Unless you mean something else by it—since we have to begin with you, and end up with Euthydemus here."
SOCRATES: "Well then," he said, "do you consider those things to be yours which you have authority over and are permitted to use however you wish? For instance, an ox or a sheep—would you consider those yours, things you'd be permitted to sell, give away, or sacrifice to whichever god you liked? And whatever isn't like that, isn't yours?" And I—knowing that something fine was about to hatch out of these questions, and eager to hear it as quickly as possible—said, "Yes indeed, that's exactly how it is; only things of that sort are mine." "Well then—do you call living things those which have a soul?" "Yes," I said. "Do you agree, then, that among living things only those are yours over which you have the authority to do all the things I just mentioned?" "I agree." And he, pausing very ironically as if considering some weighty matter, said, "Tell me, Socrates, do you have a Zeus of your fathers?" And I, suspecting where the argument would end up, tried some evasive twist, turning this way and that like someone caught in a net already. "I don't," I said, "Dionysodorus." "Then you're a wretched sort of man, and not even an Athenian, if you have no ancestral gods, no shrines, nothing else fine and good." "Enough, Dionysodorus," I said, "don't say such things, and don't lecture me so harshly. I do have altars and shrines, both household and ancestral, and everything else that other Athenians have of that kind." "Then don't other Athenians," he said, "have Zeus as their ancestral god?" "They don't," I said. "That title belongs to none of the Ionians, neither those who colonized from this city nor us—rather, Apollo is our ancestral god, because of the birth of Ion. Zeus isn't called 'ancestral' for us, but 'of the household' and 'of the clan,' and Athena is 'of the clan' too." "Well, that's enough," said Dionysodorus. "You do have Apollo, it seems, and Zeus, and Athena." "Certainly," I said. "Then these would be gods that are yours?" he said. "Ancestors," I said, "and masters." "But yours all the same," he said, "or haven't you agreed they're yours?" "I've agreed," I said, "what else can I do?" "Then," he said, "aren't these gods also living things? You've agreed that whatever has a soul is a living thing. Or do these gods not have souls?" "They do," I said. "So they're living things?" "Living things," I said. "And among living things," he said, "you've agreed that those are yours which you're permitted to give away, sell, and sacrifice to whatever god you please." "I've agreed," I said—"there's no wriggling out of it for me, Euthydemus."
SOCRATES: "Come then, tell me right away," he said: "since you agree that Zeus and the other gods are yours, are you permitted to sell them, or give them away, or do whatever else you like with them, just as with your other property?" As for me, Crito, I lay there speechless, as if struck by the argument. And Ctesippus came to my rescue, saying, "Well, by Heracles, what a fine argument!" And Dionysodorus said, "So is Heracles 'well' or is 'well' Heracles?" And Ctesippus said, "By Poseidon, what terrible arguments! I give up—the two of you are unbeatable." At that point, dear Crito, every single person present praised the argument and the two men to the skies, and they nearly collapsed from laughing and clapping and rejoicing. At every earlier point Euthydemus's own admirers alone had cheered gloriously, but this time even the pillars in the Lyceum practically cheered for the two men and delighted in them. As for me, I too was so affected that I admitted I had never seen men so wise, and, thoroughly enslaved by their cleverness, I turned to praising and extolling them, and said: "How blessed you two are in your marvelous natures, to have accomplished such a feat so quickly and in so little time! Your arguments have many other fine qualities, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, but among them this is the most magnificent: you care nothing for the majority of people, the dignified ones who think themselves somebody, but only for people like yourselves. I know well that very few people, only those like you, would enjoy these arguments, while the rest are so ignorant of them that I'm sure they'd be more ashamed to refute others with such arguments than to be refuted themselves. And here's another thing about your arguments, democratic and gentle: whenever you say that nothing is beautiful, nor good, nor white, nor anything else of that sort, and that nothing at all differs from anything else, you quite literally stitch shut people's mouths, just as you claim to do. But that you'd seem to do this not only to others' arguments but to your own as well—that's really quite charming, and it takes away the offensiveness of the whole business. And the greatest thing of all is that you have this worked out so skillfully that anyone at all could learn it in a very short time. I saw this myself, watching Ctesippus, how quickly he was able to imitate you on the spot."
SOCRATES: This cleverness of yours, then, is fine for handing on quickly, but it isn't suitable for arguing in front of people—rather, if you'll take my advice, you'll be careful not to speak in front of a crowd, so that people don't learn it quickly and then feel no gratitude toward you. Best of all, converse with each other alone, just the two of you; or if in front of anyone else, only in front of whoever pays you money. And if you're wise, you'll give your students this same advice: never argue with anyone at all except with you two and with each other. For what is scarce is precious, Euthydemus, while water—the best thing there is—is the cheapest, as Pindar said. "But come," I said, "see to it that you take on both me and Cleinias here as students." We talked about this, Crito, and a few other small things, and then we left. So think about how you'll join in studying with these two men, since they claim to be able to teach whoever is willing to pay, and that no nature and no age bars anyone—and this especially concerns you—that nothing prevents you from making money either, so nothing should stop anyone at all from easily taking up their wisdom. CRITO: Well, Socrates, I'm certainly fond of listening, and I'd gladly learn something; but I'm afraid I too may be one of those unlike Euthydemus—one of those, as you were saying, who would rather be refuted by such arguments than refute others with them. Still, though it seems ridiculous to me to lecture you, I do want to report what I heard. As you were all leaving, someone came up to me while I was walking about—a man who thinks himself very wise indeed, one of those clever at the arguments used in the lawcourts—and said, "Crito, aren't you listening to these wise men at all?" "No, by Zeus," I said, "I couldn't get close enough to hear anything over the crowd." "Well," he said, "it would have been worth hearing." "Why is that?" I said. "So that you could have heard men speaking who are now the wisest at this kind of argument." And I said, "Well, what did you think of them?" "What else," he said, "but what one always hears from such people—babbling nonsense and making a great fuss over things worth nothing?" (That's more or less how he put it in his own words.) And I said, "But surely philosophy is a charming thing."
CRITO: "Charming, my dear fellow?" he said. "Worth nothing at all! And if you'd been there just now, I think you'd have been quite ashamed on behalf of your friend—he was so out of place, willing to expose himself to men who don't care in the least what they say, and who latch onto every single word. And these two, as I was just saying, are among the best at it today." "But really, Crito," he said, "the thing itself, and the men who spend their time on it, are worthless and ridiculous." Now, Socrates, it seemed to me that he wasn't right to find fault with the thing itself, whether it was him or anyone else finding fault with it—but he did seem right to me in objecting to their willingness to argue that way in front of a crowd of people. SOCRATES: Crito, men of that sort are astonishing. But I still don't know what I'm about to say. Which kind of man was it who came up to you and found fault with philosophy? One of those formidable at contesting cases in the lawcourts, an orator, or one of those who supply such men, a composer of the speeches orators use in their contests? CRITO: Certainly not an orator, by Zeus—I don't think he's ever set foot in a lawcourt. But they say he understands the subject, by Zeus, and is clever, and puts together clever arguments. SOCRATES: Now I understand—I was about to say the same thing myself just now about men of this kind. These, Crito, are the ones Prodicus called the borderland between the philosopher and the statesman; and they think themselves the wisest of all people, and, beyond actually being so, also seeming so among a great many, so much so that they think the only people standing in the way of their being esteemed by everyone are those devoted to philosophy. So they suppose that if they can bring these philosophers into disrepute, so that they seem worth nothing, then they'll carry off the prize for wisdom uncontested in everyone's opinion. For they truly believe themselves the wisest, but when they get caught out in their own private discussions, they're cut down to size by the likes of Euthydemus. And they think themselves quite wise—reasonably enough, since they have a moderate share of philosophy and a moderate share of statesmanship, on a quite reasonable calculation—for they partake of both just as much as they need, while staying out of dangers and contests and reaping the fruits of their wisdom. CRITO: Well then—do you think they have a point, Socrates? For indeed, the argument does have a certain plausibility to it, as far as these men go.
SOCRATES: Yes, Crito, and in fact it has more surface plausibility than truth. It's not easy to convince them that when human beings, or anything else, stand between two things and share in both, then whatever is composed of a bad thing and a good thing is better than the one and worse than the other; but whatever is composed of two good things not aimed at the same purpose is, in relation to whichever purpose each of those components was good for, worse than both; while only what is composed of two bad things not aimed at the same thing, and stands between them, is better than each of those things it shares a part of. So if philosophy is a good thing, and statesmanship is a good thing, but each aims at something different, and these men, sharing in both, stand between them, then they're talking nonsense — because they're inferior to both. But if one is good and the other bad, then they're better than the practitioners of the bad one and worse than the practitioners of the good one. And if both are bad, then there's some truth in what they say — but in no other case. So I don't think they'd ever admit that both are bad, or that one is bad and the other good. No, the truth is that these people, sharing in both, fall short of both in relation to whatever it is that makes statesmanship and philosophy each worth taking seriously, and being in truth third-rate, they're trying to seem first-rate. Well, we should forgive them their ambition and not be harsh with them, but we should recognize them for what they are. After all, we ought to have some regard for any man who says anything at all that touches on wisdom, and who works hard and bravely to see an argument through. CRITO: And yet, Socrates, as I keep telling you, when it comes to my own sons I'm at a loss what to do with them. The younger one is still small, but Critobulus is already of an age and needs someone who'll do him some good. Whenever I'm with you, I find myself thinking it's sheer madness that for the sake of children people take such great pains over so many other things — over the marriage, so that the children will come from the noblest possible mother, and over money, so that they'll be as rich as possible — and yet neglect their children's own education. But then whenever I look at one of these men who claim they can educate people, I'm astonished, and each one of them, on examination, strikes me as thoroughly bizarre — to tell you the truth. So I don't know how I'm supposed to steer the boy toward philosophy.
SOCRATES: My dear Crito, don't you know that in every pursuit the mediocre are many and worth nothing, while the serious ones are few and worth everything? Take gymnastics, for instance — don't you think it's a fine thing? And money-making, and rhetoric, and generalship? CRITO: I certainly do, in every case. SOCRATES: Well then — in each of these, don't you see that the majority of people, measured against the real work of it, are laughable? CRITO: Yes, by Zeus, that's very true. SOCRATES: So is that any reason for you to run from all these pursuits yourself, and to forbid your son from taking them up? CRITO: No, that wouldn't be fair, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then don't do what you shouldn't, Crito. Instead, let the practitioners of philosophy be — whether they're good or worthless — and examine the thing itself carefully and well. If it looks to you like something worthless, then steer everyone away from it, not just your sons. But if it turns out to be what I believe it is, then take heart and pursue it — and train in it, as the saying goes, both you yourself and your children.
SOCRATES: Hippias — handsome and wise! It's been ages since you've put in at Athens. HIPPIAS: No time for it, Socrates. Whenever Elis needs to negotiate something with one of the other cities, she always comes to me first among her citizens and chooses me as ambassador, believing me the ablest judge and messenger of whatever speeches pass between the various cities. Many times, then, I've served as ambassador to other cities, but most often, and on the most numerous and weightiest matters, to Sparta. That's why, as you ask, I don't come around to these parts very often. SOCRATES: That's just what it is, Hippias, to be truly wise and a complete man. You're capable, privately, of taking large sums of money from the young and benefiting them still more than what you take, and you're also capable, publicly, of doing great service to your own city, as anyone must who means not to be looked down on but to win a good name among the many. But tell me, Hippias, what in the world is the reason that those men of old, whose names are spoken of as great in wisdom — Pittacus, and Bias, and the circle of Thales of Miletus, and even the later ones down to Anaxagoras — why is it that all or most of them plainly kept away from public affairs? HIPPIAS: What else could you think, Socrates, except that they were incapable, not able enough in judgment to reach both sides at once, the public and the private? SOCRATES: So then, by Zeus, just as the other arts have advanced, and the old practitioners are inferior to today's craftsmen, shall we say the same holds for your art — the sophists' art — that it too has advanced, and the ancients in wisdom are inferior to you? HIPPIAS: Quite right, yes.
SOCRATES: So if Bias came back to life among us now, Hippias, he'd earn a laugh from you people — the way the sculptors say Daedalus would, if he came back now and produced the sort of work that first won him his name — it would be laughable. HIPPIAS: That's so, Socrates, just as you say. Still, I myself am in the habit of praising the ancients, those who came before us, more and more readily than the men of today — being wary of the envy of the living, and fearful of the anger of the dead. SOCRATES: Well put, Hippias, both in the words you choose and the thought behind them, it seems to me. And I can bear you witness that what you say is true — your art really has advanced, to the point of being able to handle public business along with private. Take Gorgias, this sophist from Leontini — he came here publicly, sent from home as ambassador, on the grounds that he was the ablest of the Leontines to manage public affairs, and he was thought to speak best before the assembly, and privately, giving displays and keeping company with the young, he earned and took a great deal of money from this city. Or if you like, our friend Prodicus here — he too has come publicly many other times, and most recently, arriving publicly from Ceos, he spoke before the Council and won great acclaim, and privately, giving displays and keeping company with the young, he took in an astonishing amount of money. None of those old men, though, ever thought it right to charge a fee in silver, or to give displays of his own wisdom before all sorts of people — so simple were they, and so unaware how valuable silver could be. Yet each of these two men here has made more money from wisdom than any other craftsman from any craft — and even before them, Protagoras did. HIPPIAS: You know nothing, Socrates, of the fine points of this business. If you knew how much money I've made, you'd be amazed. Never mind the rest — once, arriving in Sicily, with Protagoras in residence there and in high repute, and older than I, though I was much younger, in a short time I made well over a hundred and fifty minas — and from one very small place alone, Inycus, more than twenty minas. And I brought it home and gave it to my father, so that he and the other citizens were astonished and dumbfounded. And I daresay I've made more money, all told, than any two sophists you care to name put together.
SOCRATES: That's a fine thing to say, Hippias, and a great proof of your own wisdom, and of how far the men of today outstrip the ancients. About the men of old, and about Anaxagoras in particular, a story is told of great foolishness, going by your account: quite the opposite happened to Anaxagoras from what happens to you — left a great fortune, he neglected it and lost it all, so senselessly wise was he. And they tell similar things about other men of old too. So this seems to me a fine proof you're offering about the wisdom of the men of today compared with those before, and many agree that a wise man above all needs to be wise for himself — and the mark of this, it seems, is whoever makes the most money. Well, enough of that. But tell me this: from which of the cities you visit have you made the most money? Surely from Sparta, since that's where you've gone most often? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, Socrates. SOCRATES: What do you mean — the least, then? HIPPIAS: None at all, ever, not the slightest bit. SOCRATES: What a strange and astonishing thing to say, Hippias! Tell me — isn't your wisdom the sort that makes those who keep company with it and learn from it better in virtue? HIPPIAS: Yes, very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: But you were able to make the sons of the Inycines better, while you were powerless with the Spartans? HIPPIAS: Far from it. SOCRATES: But surely the Sicilians want to become better, while the Spartans don't? HIPPIAS: Oh, the Spartans do too, Socrates, certainly. SOCRATES: So was it lack of money that made them avoid your company? HIPPIAS: No indeed, since they have plenty. SOCRATES: Then what could it be, that though they want it and have the money, and though you're able to benefit them enormously, they didn't send you off loaded with silver? Or is it this — could the Spartans educate their own children better than you? Shall we say that's the case, and do you agree? HIPPIAS: Not in the least. SOCRATES: Then were you unable to persuade the young men in Sparta that they'd advance further in virtue by keeping company with you than with their own people, or were you unable to persuade their fathers that they ought to hand their sons over to you rather than look after them themselves, if indeed they care at all for their sons' welfare? Surely they weren't grudging their own children the chance to become as good as possible. HIPPIAS: No, I don't think they were grudging. SOCRATES: And yet Sparta certainly has good laws.
HIPPIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: And in cities with good laws, virtue is held in the highest honor. HIPPIAS: Quite so. SOCRATES: And you know better than anyone alive how to hand that on to others. HIPPIAS: Yes, far better, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well then, someone who knows best how to teach horsemanship — wouldn't he be honored most, in all of Greece, in Thessaly, and paid the most money, and anywhere else where this is taken seriously? HIPPIAS: Likely so. SOCRATES: So then, the man capable of handing on the most valuable lessons for virtue — won't he be honored most in Sparta, and make the most money there, if he wishes, and in any other Greek city with good laws? Or do you suppose it's rather in Sicily, my friend, and in Inycus? Shall we accept this, Hippias? For if you tell us to, we must accept it. HIPPIAS: Well, it's not ancestral custom, Socrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons contrary to what's customary. SOCRATES: What do you mean? Is it ancestral custom for the Spartans to act wrongly rather than rightly? HIPPIAS: I wouldn't say that, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then wouldn't they act rightly by educating their young men better rather than worse? HIPPIAS: Rightly, yes — but it's not lawful for them to give their children a foreign education, since — you should know — if any Spartan ever took money for education from anyone, it would be me most of all he'd take it from; they certainly enjoy listening to me and praise me. But, as I say, it's not the law. SOCRATES: And when you say 'law,' Hippias, do you mean something harmful to a city, or something beneficial? HIPPIAS: It's laid down, I suppose, for the sake of benefit — though sometimes it does harm, if the law is badly made. SOCRATES: Well then? Don't those who lay down the law intend it as the greatest good for the city, and is it not impossible to live under good laws without it? HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: So whenever those who attempt to lay down laws miss what's good, they've missed both the lawful and law itself — or how do you put it? HIPPIAS: Strictly speaking, Socrates, that's how it is — though people aren't in the habit of naming it that way. SOCRATES: Which people, Hippias — those who know, or those who don't? HIPPIAS: The many. SOCRATES: And are these many the ones who know the truth? HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But surely those who know hold that what's more beneficial is more lawful for all people, in truth, than what's less beneficial — or don't you agree? HIPPIAS: Yes, I agree, that in truth it is so. SOCRATES: And is it not, in fact, just as those who know believe it to be? HIPPIAS: Quite so.
SOCRATES: But it is, as you say, more beneficial for the Spartans to be educated by you, in a foreign fashion, than in their own. HIPPIAS: And what I say is true. SOCRATES: And you also say this, Hippias — that what's more beneficial is more lawful? HIPPIAS: I did say so. SOCRATES: Then by your own account, it's more lawful for the sons of the Spartans to be educated by Hippias, and less lawful to be educated by their fathers, if indeed they'll truly be more benefited by you. HIPPIAS: But they will be benefited, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then the Spartans are breaking the law by not giving you gold and entrusting their sons to you. HIPPIAS: I grant you that — you seem to me to be arguing my own case, and there's no need for me to oppose it. SOCRATES: So we find the Spartans lawbreakers, my friend, and in the weightiest matters at that — they who are thought the most law-abiding of all. But tell me, for heaven's sake, Hippias, what is it they praise you for and delight in hearing? Surely it's obviously those things you know best of all — the stars, and the phenomena of the heavens? HIPPIAS: Not in the least — they can't even stand that. SOCRATES: Well, do they enjoy hearing about geometry? HIPPIAS: Not at all, since many of them, so to speak, don't even know how to count. SOCRATES: Then they're far from putting up with you giving displays of calculation. HIPPIAS: Far from it indeed, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Well then, surely those things which you, of all men, know how to distinguish most precisely — the power of letters, and syllables, and rhythms, and harmonies? HIPPIAS: What harmonies and letters are you talking about, my good man? SOCRATES: Then what in the world is it they listen to with pleasure and praise? Tell me yourself, since I can't find it. HIPPIAS: About genealogies, Socrates — of heroes and of men, and about the foundings of cities, how they were settled in ancient times, and in short, they listen with the greatest pleasure to the whole of antiquarian lore, so that on their account I've been forced to learn and practice all such things thoroughly. SOCRATES: Well, by Zeus, Hippias, you're lucky the Spartans don't enjoy hearing someone list our own archons going back to Solon — otherwise you'd have had your work cut out learning that by heart. HIPPIAS: Why, Socrates? I hear fifty names once and I can recite them from memory.
SOCRATES: True enough, but I hadn't realized you had such a memory. So I can see why the Spartans are so fond of you, seeing you know so much - they treat you the way children treat their old nurses, for the pleasure of a good story. HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and just recently I made quite a hit there talking about fine pursuits - what a young man ought to practice. I have a speech put together on the subject, a very fine one, well turned in its phrasing too. The setup and opening of the speech run something like this: after the fall of Troy, the story goes that Neoptolemus asked Nestor what pursuits are fine, ones that a young man might practice and become most highly regarded for. And after that Nestor speaks, laying out for him a great many fine and proper customs. I gave that performance there, and I mean to give it here too, the day after tomorrow, in Pheidostratus's schoolroom - along with plenty of other things worth hearing. Eudicus, son of Apemantus, asked me to. But be sure to come yourself, and bring others along, people capable of judging what they hear. SOCRATES: I will, god willing, Hippias. For now, though, answer me a small question about it - you've reminded me of something at just the right moment. Recently, my good man, someone put me in a real bind, in a discussion where he was condemning some things as shameful and praising others as fine. He asked me, in quite an insolent way: 'And how do you know, Socrates, what things are fine and what shameful? Go on, then - can you tell me what the fine itself is?' And because I'm such a poor thing, I was at a loss and couldn't answer him properly. So when I left that gathering I was angry at myself, and reproached myself, and swore that the first time I ran into one of you wise men, I'd learn from him, master it thoroughly, and go back to the man who'd asked me, to fight the argument over again. So now, as I say, you've come at just the right time. Teach me adequately what the fine itself is, and try to answer as precisely as you possibly can, so I don't get refuted a second time and made a laughingstock all over again. You surely know this clearly - it must be a small thing among all you know, compared to the rest. HIPPIAS: Small indeed, by Zeus, Socrates, and worth nothing at all, so to speak. SOCRATES: Then I'll learn it easily, and no one will ever refute me again.
HIPPIAS: No one indeed - otherwise my profession would be a poor, amateurish thing. SOCRATES: Well said, by Hera, Hippias, if we're going to get the better of that fellow. But wait - would it bother you if I imitated him, and pushed back against your answers as you give them, just so you can put me through my paces as thoroughly as possible? I'm fairly practiced at raising objections. So if it makes no difference to you, I'd like to object, so I learn more solidly. HIPPIAS: Go ahead and object. As I just said, it's not a big question - I could teach you to answer much harder ones than this, so that no one on earth could refute you. SOCRATES: Ah, well said. But come, since you tell me to, let me try to question you, becoming that man as much as I can. Suppose you gave him that speech of yours, the one about fine pursuits - once you'd finished speaking, the first thing he'd ask about, before anything else, is the fine itself - he has a habit of that - and he'd say: 'Stranger from Elis, is it not by justice that the just are just?' Answer, Hippias, as though he were asking. HIPPIAS: I'll answer that it is by justice. SOCRATES: So this is something, justice? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And is it not also by wisdom that the wise are wise, and by the good that all good things are good? HIPPIAS: Of course. SOCRATES: These being real things - not things that don't exist. HIPPIAS: They are real, certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't it also true that all fine things are fine by the fine? HIPPIAS: Yes, by the fine. SOCRATES: Which is also something real? HIPPIAS: Real - of course, what else would it be? SOCRATES: 'Then tell me, stranger,' he'll say, 'what is this fine?' HIPPIAS: Is there any difference, Socrates, between what this man is asking and simply wanting to know what is fine? SOCRATES: I don't think so - he's asking what the fine is, Hippias. HIPPIAS: And what's the difference between that and the other? SOCRATES: You see no difference? HIPPIAS: None at all. SOCRATES: Well, clearly you know better than I do. Still, my good man, think it over - he's not asking you what is fine, but what the fine is. HIPPIAS: I understand, my friend, and I'll answer him what the fine is, and never be refuted. The truth is, Socrates - mark this well, if I'm to speak plainly - a beautiful young woman is a fine thing.
SOCRATES: Well answered indeed, Hippias, by the dog, and with real style! So then, if I give that as my answer, I'll have answered what was asked, and answered correctly, and I'll never be refuted? HIPPIAS: How could you possibly be refuted, Socrates, on a point everyone agrees with, that everyone listening will back you up on as correct? SOCRATES: All right, let's say so. But come, Hippias, let me run through in my own mind what you're telling me. He'll question me something like this: 'Come, Socrates, answer me: all these things you say are fine - if there is some fine itself, would they be fine because of it?' And I'll say: if a beautiful young woman is fine, is there something because of which such things would be fine? HIPPIAS: Do you think he'll still try to refute you, claiming what you say isn't fine - or if he tries, that he won't make a fool of himself? SOCRATES: That he'll try, my astonishing friend, I'm quite sure. Whether trying will make a fool of him, the outcome will show. But what he'll say, I'm willing to tell you. HIPPIAS: Go on then. SOCRATES: 'How charming you are, Socrates,' he'll say. 'But isn't a fine mare also fine - one that even the god praised in his oracle?' What shall we say, Hippias? Must we not admit the mare is fine too, at least a fine one? How could we dare deny that the fine is not fine? HIPPIAS: True, Socrates - and indeed the god was right to say so, for we do breed magnificent mares where I come from. SOCRATES: 'Very well,' he'll say, 'and what about a fine lyre - isn't that fine?' Shall we say so, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then after that he'll say next - I'm fairly sure, judging from his manner - 'And what, my excellent fellow, of a fine pot? Is that not fine?' HIPPIAS: Socrates, who is this man? What an uncultivated fellow, to dare bring up such lowly things in so dignified a discussion! SOCRATES: That's the sort he is, Hippias - not refined, but common as rubbish, caring about nothing but the truth. Still, we must answer the man, and I'll say my own view in advance: if the pot were made by a good potter, smooth and round and well fired - like some of those fine two-handled pots that hold six choes, quite splendid - if that's the kind of pot he means, we must agree it's fine. How could we say a fine thing is not fine? HIPPIAS: We couldn't, Socrates. SOCRATES: 'So then a fine pot is fine too?' he'll say. Answer. HIPPIAS: Well, Socrates, I think it's like this: this utensil too is fine, if it's well made - but the whole thing doesn't deserve to be judged as fine when set beside a mare, a young woman, and all the other fine things.
SOCRATES: Very well - I see, Hippias, that we must answer the man who asks these questions like this: 'Sir, you forget that Heraclitus's saying holds true - that the finest of monkeys is ugly compared to the human race, and the finest of pots is ugly compared to the race of young women - as Hippias the wise tells us.' Isn't that right, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Quite right, Socrates - well answered. SOCRATES: Listen then - for after this, I'm sure he'll say: 'But Socrates, what about this - if one compares the race of young women to the race of gods, won't the same thing happen as when the pots were compared to the young women? Won't the finest young woman appear ugly? Doesn't Heraclitus himself, whom you cite, say exactly this - that the wisest of men will appear a monkey next to a god, in wisdom and beauty and everything else? Shall we agree, Hippias, that the finest young woman is ugly compared to the race of gods?' HIPPIAS: Who could argue with that, Socrates? SOCRATES: If we agree to that, then he'll laugh and say: 'Socrates, do you remember what you were asked?' 'I do,' I'll say, 'what the fine itself is.' 'Then,' he'll say, 'when asked about the fine, do you answer with something that turns out to be, by your own admission, no more fine than ugly?' 'So it seems,' I'll say. 'Or what would you have me say, my friend?' HIPPIAS: Say just that - since indeed, compared to the gods, it's true that the human race is not fine. SOCRATES: 'But if I had asked you from the start,' he'll say, 'what is fine and ugly, and you'd given me the very answer you just gave, wouldn't you have answered correctly? And do you still think that the fine itself, which adorns all other things and makes them appear fine whenever that form is added to them, is a young woman, or a mare, or a lyre?' HIPPIAS: But really, Socrates, if that's what he's after, it's the easiest thing in the world to answer him what the fine is that adorns all other things and makes them appear fine when added to them. The man must be perfectly simple-minded and understand nothing about fine possessions. If you answer him that what he's asking about, the fine, is nothing other than gold, he'll be stuck and won't try to refute you. We all know, after all, that wherever gold is added, even something that looked ugly before will look fine once it's adorned with gold. SOCRATES: You don't know the man, Hippias - how stubborn he is, and how he accepts nothing easily.
HIPPIAS: What of it, Socrates? What is said correctly, he's bound to accept - or if he doesn't accept it, he only makes himself ridiculous. SOCRATES: Yet that very answer, my excellent friend, he won't just fail to accept - he'll mock me thoroughly for it, and say: 'You poor deluded man - do you think Pheidias was a bad craftsman?' And I suppose I'll say, not in the least. HIPPIAS: And you'll be right to say so, Socrates. SOCRATES: Right indeed. And so, once I've agreed that Pheidias was a good craftsman, he'll say: 'Then do you think Pheidias didn't know this fine thing you're talking about?' And I'll say: 'What do you mean?' 'Because,' he'll say, 'he didn't make the eyes of Athena out of gold, nor the rest of her face, nor her feet, nor her hands - though if gold really made things look finest, that's what he would have used - instead he used ivory. Clearly he made this mistake out of ignorance, not knowing that gold is what makes everything fine, wherever it's added.' So what shall we answer him when he says this, Hippias? HIPPIAS: That's no trouble - we'll say he did it correctly. Ivory is fine too, I think. SOCRATES: 'Then why,' he'll say, 'didn't he also make the whites of the eyes out of ivory, but used stone instead - finding a stone as close to ivory in color as he could? Or is fine stone also fine?' Shall we say so, Hippias? HIPPIAS: We'll say so, certainly - when it's fitting. SOCRATES: And when it's not fitting, it's ugly? Do I have your agreement, or not? HIPPIAS: Agreed - when it doesn't fit. SOCRATES: 'Well then,' he'll say, 'clever as you are - don't ivory and gold make things look fine when they fit, and ugly when they don't?' Shall we deny it, or agree that he's right? HIPPIAS: We'll agree to this much: that whatever fits each thing is what makes each thing fine. SOCRATES: 'Then which is fitting,' he'll say, 'when someone is boiling that fine pot we mentioned earlier, full of fine soup - a golden ladle for it, or a fig-wood one?' HIPPIAS: Heracles, what a man you're describing, Socrates! Won't you tell me who he is? SOCRATES: You wouldn't recognize him even if I told you his name. HIPPIAS: Well, even now I can tell that he's some ignorant fellow.
SOCRATES: He's a real bother, Hippias — but still, what shall we say? Which of the two ladles suits the porridge and the pot? Clearly the fig-wood one, isn't it? It gives the porridge a better smell, and besides, my friend, it wouldn't shatter the pot and spill the porridge and put out the fire and leave the people about to dine without any decent food at all — whereas that golden one would do all of that. So it seems to me we ought to say the fig-wood ladle is more fitting than the golden one, unless you have something else to say. HIPPIAS: Well, it is more fitting, Socrates — but I wouldn't stoop to discuss such things with a man who asks questions like that. SOCRATES: And you're right not to, my friend — it wouldn't suit you to get mixed up in such names, dressed as beautifully as you are, shod as beautifully as you are, and famous for wisdom among all the Greeks. But it's no trouble at all for me to get tangled up with the fellow — so teach me first, and answer for my sake. If the fig-wood ladle really is more fitting than the golden one, the man will say, wouldn't it also be more beautiful, since you agreed, Socrates, that the fitting is more beautiful than the unfitting? Shall we agree, Hippias, that the fig-wood ladle is more beautiful than the golden one? HIPPIAS: Do you want me to tell you, Socrates, what you can say the beautiful is and free yourself from all this talk? SOCRATES: By all means — but not before you tell me which of the two ladles I should answer is the fitting and more beautiful one, of the two I just mentioned. HIPPIAS: Well, if you like, just answer him that it's the one made of fig wood. SOCRATES: Now say what you were just about to say. Because with that answer — that the beautiful is gold — nothing, it seems, will turn out to be more beautiful than gold, not even a piece of fig wood. So what do you say now the beautiful is? HIPPIAS: I'll tell you. You seem to me to be looking for an answer to 'what is the beautiful' that will never appear ugly to anyone, anywhere, ever. SOCRATES: Exactly, Hippias — and now you've got hold of it well. HIPPIAS: Listen, then. Know this in advance: if anyone can find fault with what I'm about to say, you may say I understand nothing at all. SOCRATES: Speak, then, for heaven's sake, as quickly as you can. HIPPIAS: I say, then, that it is always, for everyone, everywhere, most beautiful for a man to be rich, healthy, honored by the Greeks, to reach old age, and — having given his own parents a beautiful funeral — to be buried beautifully and magnificently by his own children. SOCRATES: Wow, Hippias — that's a marvelous, grand answer, worthy of you! And by Hera, I admire you for trying so hard, as far as you're able, to help me out. But the fact is, we're not hitting our man — he's going to laugh at us now more than ever, you can be sure of it.
HIPPIAS: A poor sort of laughter, Socrates. Because when a man has nothing to say against an argument and just laughs, he's laughing at himself, and he'll be a laughingstock to everyone present. SOCRATES: That may well be so. But then again, with this answer, I have a feeling — call it a hunch — that he'll be laughing at more than just me. HIPPIAS: What do you mean? SOCRATES: I mean that if he happens to have a stick, and I don't get away from him fast enough, he'll try his best to land it on me. HIPPIAS: What are you saying? Is this man some kind of master over you, that he could do such a thing and not be hauled into court and made to pay damages? Or is your city not a just one — does it allow citizens to strike each other unjustly? SOCRATES: Not in the least — it doesn't allow that at all. HIPPIAS: Then he'll be made to pay for striking you unjustly. SOCRATES: I don't think so, Hippias — not if I gave that answer. I think it would be a just beating. HIPPIAS: Well then, so do I, Socrates, since that's what you think yourself. SOCRATES: Shall I tell you, then, how I too think it would be a just beating for that answer? Or will you strike me without a trial? Will you hear my case? HIPPIAS: It would be shameful not to hear it. But how do you mean? SOCRATES: I'll tell you — in the same way as just now, imitating that man, so that I don't have to say to you the harsh and strange things he'll say to me. Be sure of this, he'll say — tell me, Socrates, don't you think you deserve a beating, when you sang such a long dithyramb and missed the question so badly, so tunelessly? How so? I'll ask. How? he'll say. Can't you remember that I was asking about the beautiful itself, the thing that, whatever it attaches to, makes that thing beautiful — stone or wood or man or god or every action and every branch of learning? I'm asking you, man, what beauty itself is, and I can get no more sense out of you than if a stone were sitting beside me — and a millstone at that, with neither ears nor a brain. Now, Hippias, if out of fear I said this in reply: but Hippias claimed this was the beautiful — even though I was asking him, just as you're asking me, for what is beautiful to everyone, always — wouldn't you be annoyed if I said that? HIPPIAS: Well, I know perfectly well, Socrates, that what I said is beautiful to everyone, and will be thought so. SOCRATES: And will it be so as well? he'll say — for surely the beautiful is always beautiful. HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And was it so before? he'll say. HIPPIAS: It was.
SOCRATES: And was it also beautiful, he'll say, for Achilles to be buried after his ancestors — according to the stranger from Elis — and for his grandfather Aeacus, and for all the others born of gods, and for the gods themselves? HIPPIAS: What's this? To hell with it! Those aren't even decent questions to ask, Socrates. SOCRATES: Well, what about it — is it not fairly indecent for someone else to be asked such things and to say yes, that's how it is? HIPPIAS: Perhaps. SOCRATES: Then perhaps you're the one, he'll say, who claims it's always and for everyone beautiful to be buried by one's descendants and to bury one's parents — or wasn't Heracles one of the whole company, and all the others we just mentioned? HIPPIAS: But I wasn't talking about the gods. SOCRATES: Nor about the heroes either, it seems. HIPPIAS: Not the ones who were children of gods, at least. SOCRATES: But the ones who weren't? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then, by your own account, it seems, among the heroes it is a terrible, unholy, shameful thing for Tantalus and Dardanus and Zethus, but beautiful for Pelops and the others born in the same way. HIPPIAS: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: Then you think, he'll say — though you just denied it — that being buried by one's descendants, after having buried one's own ancestors, is sometimes and for some people shameful; and further, it seems, it's impossible for this to happen to everyone and be beautiful — so that this, like the earlier cases, the girl and the pot, has suffered the same fate, and even more absurdly: beautiful for some, not beautiful for others. And to this very day, he'll say, you still haven't been able to answer, Socrates, what was asked about the beautiful — what it is. He'll reproach me with this and things like it, justly, if I answer him that way. For the most part, Hippias, that's roughly how he talks to me. But sometimes, as if taking pity on my inexperience and lack of education, he himself throws out a suggestion, asking whether I think the beautiful is such-and-such — or about whatever else happens to come up in the conversation. HIPPIAS: What do you mean by this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll show you. My good Socrates, he says, stop giving answers like that — they're too simple-minded and too easy to refute. Instead, consider this: does it seem beautiful to you — the very thing we touched on just now in your answer, when we said that gold is beautiful for those it suits, but not for those it doesn't, and likewise everything else that has this quality — consider whether this very thing, the fitting, and the nature of fitting itself, happens to be the beautiful. Now I'm in the habit of agreeing to such things each time — I don't have anything else to say — but do you think the fitting is the beautiful? HIPPIAS: Absolutely, I'd say, Socrates. SOCRATES: Let's examine it, then, in case we're somehow being deceived. HIPPIAS: We should examine it.
SOCRATES: Look here, then — do we mean by 'the fitting' that which, when present, makes each of the things it's present in appear beautiful, or that which makes them be beautiful, or neither of these? HIPPIAS: I think it's the one that makes them appear beautiful — just as when someone puts on clothes or shoes that fit well, even if he's a ridiculous figure, he appears more handsome. SOCRATES: Then if the fitting makes things appear more beautiful than they are, the fitting would be a kind of deception where beauty is concerned, and it wouldn't be the thing we're looking for, would it, Hippias? For surely what we were looking for was that by which all beautiful things are beautiful — just as it is by excess that all large things are large: by that, all things are large, and even if it doesn't appear so, so long as there is excess, they must be large. So too, we say, with the beautiful: that by which all things are beautiful — whether it appears so or not — what would it be? For it couldn't be the fitting, since, on your account, that makes things appear more beautiful than they are, and doesn't let them appear as they really are. But we must try to say what it is that makes things be beautiful, whether it appears so or not — for that's what we're looking for, if we're really looking for the beautiful. HIPPIAS: But Socrates, the fitting, when present, makes things both be and appear beautiful. SOCRATES: Then it's impossible for things that are really beautiful not to appear beautiful, given that the very thing that makes them appear so is present? HIPPIAS: Impossible. SOCRATES: Shall we then agree to this, Hippias — that all the things that are really beautiful, both the customs and the practices, are believed to be beautiful and always appear so to everyone — or is it rather the complete opposite: that they're misunderstood, and that more than anything else there is strife and battle about them, both privately among individuals and publicly among cities? HIPPIAS: The latter is more the case, Socrates — they're misunderstood. SOCRATES: That wouldn't happen if appearing beautiful were attached to them — and it would be attached, if the fitting were the beautiful and made things not only be beautiful but also appear so. So the fitting — if it's what makes things be beautiful — would be the beautiful we're looking for, but not what makes them appear beautiful. But if, on the other hand, it's what makes things appear beautiful that is the fitting, then it wouldn't be the beautiful we're looking for. For that makes things be beautiful, while appearing beautiful and being beautiful could never be the same thing — not for beauty, nor for anything else at all. Let's choose, then, which we think the fitting is — that which makes things appear beautiful, or that which makes them be beautiful. HIPPIAS: The one that makes them appear beautiful, I think, Socrates. SOCRATES: Ah, well! Then it's slipped away from us, Hippias — our chance to know what the beautiful actually is — since the fitting has turned out to be something other than the beautiful.
HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, and quite strangely too. SOCRATES: Well, my friend, let's not give up on it yet — I still have some hope that what the beautiful is will come to light. HIPPIAS: Certainly, Socrates — it isn't even hard to find. I know very well that if I went off alone for a little while and thought it over by myself, I could tell you more precisely than anything could possibly be precise. SOCRATES: Ah, don't say anything so grand, Hippias! You see how much trouble it's already given us — I'm afraid that if we make it angry it will run off from us even further. Though really I'm talking nonsense — you, I imagine, will find it easily enough once you're alone. But for the gods' sake, find it out in front of me, or if you like, look for it together with me as we're doing now. And if we find it, wonderful; if not, I'll resign myself, I suppose, to my fate, and you'll go off and easily find it. And if we do find it now, rest assured I won't bother you by asking what it was that you discovered on your own. So — look now at what you think the beautiful is. I'll say it is — well, watch me closely, so I don't babble nonsense — let this be beautiful for us: whatever is useful. I say this from thinking it through as follows: we call eyes beautiful, not the ones that seem to be such but can't see, but the ones that are capable and useful for seeing. Right? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And don't we likewise call the whole body beautiful in this way — one body for running, another for wrestling — and likewise all animals, a horse beautiful, and a rooster, and a quail, and all implements, and vehicles both on land and ships and triremes at sea, and all instruments, both those used in music and those in the other arts — and if you like, customs and laws too — pretty much all these we call beautiful in the same way: looking at each of them in terms of how it's made, how it's worked, how it's arranged, we say that what is useful is beautiful, in the way it's useful, for what it's useful, and when it's useful, and what is in every respect useless in that way is ugly. Doesn't it seem so to you too, Hippias? HIPPIAS: It does to me. SOCRATES: So we're right to say now that the useful, more than anything, happens to be the beautiful? HIPPIAS: Quite right, Socrates. SOCRATES: And isn't what's capable of producing something — whatever it's capable of — for that very thing also useful, while what's incapable is useless? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So capability is beautiful, and incapacity ugly?
HIPPIAS: Very much so. In fact other things too testify to us, Socrates, that this is so, and political affairs especially: in politics and in one's own city, being capable is the most beautiful thing of all, and being incapable the ugliest of all. SOCRATES: Well said. So then, for god's sake, Hippias, is it for this reason that wisdom too is the most beautiful thing of all, and ignorance the ugliest of all? HIPPIAS: What else could you think, Socrates? SOCRATES: Wait calmly a moment, my dear friend — I'm afraid of what we're saying now. HIPPIAS: Afraid of what now, Socrates, when the argument has gone forward so beautifully for you? SOCRATES: I wish it had. But look this over with me: could someone do something he neither knew how to do nor was capable of at all? HIPPIAS: In no way — how could he, if he weren't capable? SOCRATES: So those who err and do bad things, working and acting unwillingly — wouldn't they, if they weren't capable of doing these things, never have done them? HIPPIAS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: But surely those who are capable are capable by their capability — not, I suppose, by incapacity. HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: And all who do what they do are capable of doing it? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And all people do far more bad things than good, starting from childhood, and they err unwillingly. HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: Well then — this capability, and these useful things, whatever are useful for producing something bad, shall we say these are beautiful, or far from it? HIPPIAS: Far from it, it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then, Hippias, capability and usefulness are not, it seems, the beautiful for us. HIPPIAS: They are, Socrates, provided the capability is for good things and the usefulness is toward such things. SOCRATES: Well then that's gone — that being capable and useful is simply and without qualification beautiful. But was this perhaps what our soul wanted to say all along, Hippias — that the useful and the capable for producing something good, this is the beautiful? HIPPIAS: It seems so to me. SOCRATES: But surely this is exactly beneficial. Or not? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So in this way beautiful bodies too, and beautiful customs, and wisdom, and all the things we were just now mentioning, are beautiful because they are beneficial. HIPPIAS: Clearly so. SOCRATES: So the beneficial appears to be the beautiful for us, Hippias. HIPPIAS: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: But surely the beneficial is what produces something good. HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: And what produces is nothing other than the cause. Right? HIPPIAS: So it is.
SOCRATES: So the beautiful is the cause of the good. HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: But surely, Hippias, the cause and that of which the cause is a cause are different things — for surely a cause could not be the cause of a cause. Look at it this way: didn't the cause turn out to be something that produces? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And isn't it only the thing coming into being that is produced by the producer, and not the producer itself? HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: So the thing coming into being is one thing, and the thing producing is another? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the cause is not the cause of a cause, but of that which comes into being by means of it. HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So if the beautiful is the cause of the good, then the good would come into being by means of the beautiful — and this, it seems, is why we take seriously wisdom and all the other beautiful things, because their product and offspring, the good, is worth taking seriously; and it looks, from what we've found, as though the beautiful stands in the position of a father to the good. HIPPIAS: Quite so — you put it well, Socrates. SOCRATES: And don't I also put this well — that the father is not the son, nor the son the father? HIPPIAS: Well put indeed. SOCRATES: Nor is the cause the thing that comes into being, nor in turn is the thing that comes into being the cause. HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: By Zeus, my excellent friend, then neither is the beautiful good, nor the good beautiful — or does it seem to you possible, given what we've said? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, it doesn't seem so to me. SOCRATES: Does this please us, then, and would we be willing to say that the beautiful isn't good, nor the good beautiful? HIPPIAS: No, by Zeus, it doesn't please me at all. SOCRATES: Yes, by Zeus, Hippias — and of everything we've said, this pleases me least of all. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: So it's likely, after all, that what just now appeared to be the most beautiful of all our accounts — that the beneficial, the useful, and the capable of producing something good is the beautiful — is not so, but if it's possible, is even more ridiculous than those first ones, in which we thought the beautiful was a maiden, or each of the other things said earlier. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And for my part, Hippias, I no longer have anywhere to turn — I'm at a loss. Do you have anything to say? HIPPIAS: Not at the moment — but as I said just now, once I think it over I know well I'll find it.
SOCRATES: But I find myself, out of eagerness to know, unable to wait for you while you take your time — for indeed I think I've just now hit on something of a way forward. Look: if what makes us feel joy — not all pleasures, but whatever comes through hearing and sight — that's what we called beautiful, how would we hold up in the contest? Beautiful people, Hippias, and all decorated things and paintings and sculptures delight us when we look at them, if they are beautiful; and beautiful sounds and music altogether, and speeches and stories, produce this very same effect — so that if we answered that bold fellow: 'My good man, the beautiful is what is pleasant through hearing and through sight' — don't you think we'd check his boldness? HIPPIAS: To me at least, Socrates, it now seems well said, what the beautiful is. SOCRATES: But what about this — beautiful practices and laws, Hippias, shall we say they're beautiful because they're pleasant through hearing or through sight, or that they have some other character? HIPPIAS: These, Socrates, might perhaps slip past the man. SOCRATES: By the dog, Hippias, not the one before whom I would be most ashamed to talk nonsense and pretend to say something while saying nothing. HIPPIAS: Who is this? SOCRATES: The son of Sophroniscus, who would allow me no more to say such things easily, unexamined, than to claim I know what I don't know. HIPPIAS: Well, now that you've said it, it does seem to me too that this matter of the laws is something different. SOCRATES: Hold on quietly, Hippias — we're in danger of having fallen into the very same difficulty about the beautiful as before, while thinking we're somewhere else, in some easier way out. HIPPIAS: What do you mean by this, Socrates? SOCRATES: I'll tell you what appears to me, if indeed I'm saying anything. This business of laws and practices might perhaps turn out not to be outside the perception that comes to us through hearing and sight; but let's hold to this account — that what's pleasant through these is beautiful — without bringing laws into the discussion at all. But if someone should ask us — whether the man I mean, or anyone else — 'Why, Hippias and Socrates, have you marked off, from the pleasant as a whole, this part that's pleasant in the way you say is beautiful, while denying that what concerns the other senses — food and drink and sexual matters and all such things — is beautiful? Or do you say these aren't even pleasant, that there's no pleasure at all in such things, nor in anything other than seeing and hearing?' What shall we say, Hippias? HIPPIAS: We shall certainly say, Socrates, that in the other things too there are quite great pleasures.
SOCRATES: What then, he'll say, are these pleasures no less pleasures than the others, and yet you strip them of the name and deny that they're beautiful? Because, we'll say, no one, whoever he is, could help laughing at us if we claimed that eating well isn't pleasant but beautiful, or that a pleasant smell is not pleasant but beautiful. And as for sex, everyone would fight us tooth and nail if we said it's not the most pleasant thing there is—yet it has to be done, if it's done at all, in such a way that no one sees, because it's the ugliest thing to be seen doing. When we say this, Hippias, I understand, he might say—and I understand too—that you've long been ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful, because people don't think they are. But that wasn't my question—not what most people think is beautiful, but what actually is beautiful. So we'll say, I suppose, what we proposed at the start: that this part of the pleasant—the kind that comes through sight and hearing—we claim is beautiful. But do you have anything more to offer this argument, or shall we say something else, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Given what's been said, Socrates, there's nothing else to say but this. SOCRATES: Well said, then, he'll say. So if the pleasant that comes through sight and hearing is beautiful, then whatever pleasant thing doesn't happen to be of that kind clearly wouldn't be beautiful—shall we agree? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is the pleasant through sight, he'll say, pleasant through both sight and hearing, or is the pleasant through hearing pleasant through both hearing and sight? Not at all, we'll say—what comes through one of them wouldn't be through both together (that seems to be what you mean)—rather we meant that each of these, taken by itself, is beautiful among pleasant things, and so are both together. Isn't that how we'll answer? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then does one pleasant thing differ from another pleasant thing, he'll say, in this respect—in being pleasant? I don't mean whether one pleasure is greater or smaller, or more or less intense, but whether one differs from another in this very point, that one is a pleasure and the other is not a pleasure. That doesn't seem so to us, does it? HIPPIAS: No, it doesn't. SOCRATES: Then, he'll say, wasn't it for some reason other than their being pleasures that you picked out these particular pleasures from the rest—seeing something distinctive in both of them, something that sets them apart from the others, and looking to that you call them beautiful? For surely the pleasure through sight isn't beautiful because it comes through sight—if that were the reason it was beautiful, the other one, through hearing, would never be beautiful, since it isn't a pleasure through sight. Isn't that true, we'll say? HIPPIAS: We will say that.
SOCRATES: Nor again is the pleasure through hearing beautiful because it comes through hearing—for then the one through sight would never be beautiful either, since it isn't a pleasure through hearing. Shall we say the man is speaking the truth in saying this, Hippias? HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: But surely both are beautiful, as you claim. We do claim that? HIPPIAS: We do. SOCRATES: Then they have some one and the same thing that makes them beautiful, some common feature that belongs to both of them together and to each one separately—for otherwise they wouldn't both be beautiful, and each one too. Answer me as though I were him. HIPPIAS: I answer, and it does seem to me to be as you say. SOCRATES: So if these two pleasures have both experienced something together, but neither has experienced it alone, then it wouldn't be by virtue of that shared condition that they're beautiful. HIPPIAS: But how could that be, Socrates—that neither of two things has undergone some real condition, and yet both together have undergone this condition which neither underwent? SOCRATES: You don't think so? HIPPIAS: I'd have to be thoroughly ignorant of both the nature of these things and the way we're now speaking about them to think so. SOCRATES: A nice thought, Hippias. But I'm probably in danger of thinking I see something that you say is impossible, when really I see nothing at all. HIPPIAS: You're not in danger, Socrates—you're just very ready to see wrong. SOCRATES: And yet many such things do appear before my mind—but I distrust them, because they don't appear to you, a man who has made more money from wisdom than anyone alive today, while they do appear to me, who has never made a penny from it. And I suspect, my friend, that you might be playing with me and deliberately deceiving me—so strongly and so often do these things appear to me. HIPPIAS: No one will know better than you, Socrates, whether I'm playing or not, if you try to state these things that appear to you—you'll be shown to be talking nonsense. For you will never find that what neither I nor you have undergone, both of us together have undergone. SOCRATES: What do you mean, Hippias? Maybe you mean something, but I don't follow—listen to what I want to say more clearly. It appears to me that what I have not undergone and am not, nor again are you, this is something we could both, together, have undergone; and on the other hand there are things we've both undergone which neither of us individually is.
HIPPIAS: More monstrous answers, Socrates, even bigger than the ones you gave a moment ago. Just consider: if both of us are just, isn't each of us just too? Or if each is unjust, aren't both? Or if we're both healthy, isn't each? Or if each of us were tired, or wounded, or struck, or had suffered anything at all, wouldn't both of us together have suffered it too? Further, if we happened to be both made of gold, or silver, or ivory—or if you like, both noble or wise or honored, or old or young, or whatever else you like among human qualities—isn't it a great necessity that each of us is that too? SOCRATES: Absolutely, I suppose. HIPPIAS: But you, Socrates, don't look at things as wholes, nor do the people you're used to talking with—you knock things apart, taking beauty and each of the things there are and cutting them up in your arguments. That's why such great, continuous bodies of reality escape your notice. And now it's escaped you so completely that you think there's some condition or reality that holds of both these things together but not of each one, or again of each one but not of both together—so unreasonably, so carelessly, so simple-mindedly, so thoughtlessly are you all disposed. SOCRATES: Such is our condition, Hippias—not as one might wish, as people always say in their proverbs, but as it can be. Still, you do us good by always setting us straight. Since even now, before you set us straight on this, we were so simple-minded—shall I show you even more clearly by telling you what we used to think about these matters, or shall I not say it? HIPPIAS: You'll be telling someone who already knows, Socrates—I know how each of these people who deal in arguments is disposed. Still, if it's more pleasant for you, say it. SOCRATES: Well, it is more pleasant. You see, my good friend, before you told us this, we were so foolish as to hold the opinion about you and me that each of us is one, and that what each of us individually is, both of us together are not—for we're not one but two—so foolish were we. But now we've been taught by you that if both of us together are two, then each of us must be two as well, and if each is one, then both together must be one too. For it's not possible, on Hippias's account of a continuous unity of being, for it to be otherwise—whatever holds of both must hold of each, and whatever holds of each must hold of both. So, persuaded by you, I now sit here. But first, Hippias, remind me—are you and I one, or are you two and I two? HIPPIAS: What are you saying, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Just what I say—I'm afraid to speak plainly with you, because you get angry with me whenever you think you've said something. Still, tell me this—isn't each of us one, and hasn't each of us undergone this, being one? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then if each is one, wouldn't each of us also be odd? Or don't you think one is odd? HIPPIAS: I do. SOCRATES: Then are both of us together also odd, being two? HIPPIAS: That couldn't be, Socrates. SOCRATES: But both together are even, surely? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then is it because both together are even that each of us is also even? HIPPIAS: Certainly not. SOCRATES: So it's not an absolute necessity, as you were just saying, that whatever holds of both holds of each, and whatever holds of each holds of both. HIPPIAS: Not in cases like these—but in the cases I was talking about earlier, it is. SOCRATES: That's enough, Hippias—we can be content with that, since it turns out that some things are so and others are not. For as I said, if you remember where this argument started, I said that the pleasure through sight and hearing were not beautiful by virtue of the fact that each of them individually had some experience while both together did not, or both together had it while neither individually did—but by virtue of that which belongs to both together and to each individually, since you agreed that both of them together are beautiful, and each individually. That's why I thought that, following the reality that applies to both together, if indeed both are beautiful, it's by virtue of that that they must be beautiful—not by virtue of whatever falls short in one but not the other. And I still think so now. But tell me again, as from the beginning: the pleasure through sight and the pleasure through hearing, if both together are beautiful and each individually is too, doesn't whatever it is that makes them beautiful follow both of them together and each one separately? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Is it, then, because each is a pleasure, and both are, that they'd be beautiful? Or would all the other pleasures, for that same reason, be no less beautiful than these? For they turned out to be no less pleasures, if you remember. HIPPIAS: I remember. SOCRATES: But it was because they come through sight and hearing that these were said to be beautiful. HIPPIAS: Yes, that's what was said. SOCRATES: Consider whether I'm speaking the truth. It was said, as I recall, that the pleasant is beautiful—not all of it, but whatever comes through sight and hearing. HIPPIAS: True. SOCRATES: Now doesn't this condition follow both of them together, but not each one individually? For surely neither of them individually, as was said before, comes through both—but both together come through both, while each individually does not. Is that so? HIPPIAS: It is.
SOCRATES: Then beauty doesn't belong to each of them in the way that follows only one but not the other — since 'both together' doesn't follow each one separately — so that although we're allowed by our hypothesis to say both are beautiful, we're not allowed to say each one is. Isn't that how it stands? Isn't it necessary? HIPPIAS: It appears so. SOCRATES: Shall we then say both are beautiful, but not say each is? HIPPIAS: What's stopping us? SOCRATES: This is what seems to me to stop us, my friend: we had it that some things belong to each item in such a way that, if they belong to both, they also belong to each one, and if to each one, then also to both — all the things you went through. Isn't that right? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: But the things I went through, in turn, were not like that — and among these were 'each itself' and 'both.' Is that so? HIPPIAS: It is. SOCRATES: Well then, Hippias, to which class does beauty seem to you to belong? To the one you were describing — where if I am strong and you are, then both of us are, and if I am just and you are, then both of us are, and if both of us are, then each of us is — so that likewise, if I am beautiful and you are, then both of us are, and if both of us are, then each of us is? Or is there nothing to stop it being like the case of numbers, where two things might both be even while each one, taken separately, might happen to be odd, or both even — or again where two things might each be irrational while together they might be rational, or again irrational — and countless other cases of that sort, which I said occurred to me? To which class do you assign beauty? Or does it appear to you just as it appears to me? It seems to me thoroughly unreasonable that both of us should be beautiful while neither is individually, or each of us beautiful while both together are not, or any such combination. Do you choose as I do, or the other way? HIPPIAS: As you do, Socrates. SOCRATES: Good of you, Hippias — that spares us a longer search. For if beauty belongs to that class, then the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing could no longer be beauty. For the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing makes both beautiful but not each one — and that, as you and I have agreed, Hippias, was impossible. HIPPIAS: Yes, we agreed to that. SOCRATES: So it's impossible for the pleasant-through-sight-and-hearing to be beauty, since its becoming beauty produces one of those impossibilities. HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: 'Tell me again, then, from the beginning,' he'll say, 'since you've missed the mark on this one — what do you claim this beauty is, that belongs to both these pleasures, on account of which you honored them above the others and named them beautiful?' It seems to me necessary, Hippias, to say that these are the least harmful and the best of the pleasures, both together and each separately — unless you have something else to say by which they differ from the rest. HIPPIAS: Not at all — they really are the best. SOCRATES: 'So this,' he'll say, 'is what you claim beauty is — beneficial pleasure?' It seems so, I'll say for my part — what about you? HIPPIAS: I too.
SOCRATES: 'Now then,' he'll say, 'isn't the beneficial what produces the good? And didn't the producing and the produced just now turn out to be different things — so that your argument comes back around to the earlier one? For neither would the good be beautiful nor the beautiful good, if each of them really is something different from the other.' 'Absolutely,' we'll say, Hippias, if we're being sensible — for it's not right to refuse agreement to someone who's speaking correctly. HIPPIAS: But really, Socrates, what do you think all this amounts to? It's just scrapings and shavings of arguments, as I said just now, chopped up into little bits. What's truly beautiful and worth a great deal is being able to present a speech well and beautifully before a court, or a council, or whatever body it's addressed to, and to persuade them and walk away not with the smallest prizes but the greatest — one's own safety, and that of one's property and friends. These are the things one ought to hold onto, letting go of this petty hair-splitting, so as not to seem an utter fool, fussing over nonsense and trifles the way we're doing now. SOCRATES: My dear Hippias, you're a fortunate man — you know what a person ought to practice, and you've practiced it well enough, as you say. But some strange fate, it seems, holds me in its grip: I wander about forever in confusion, and when I display my confusion to you wise men, I get pelted with abuse in return, once I've shown it. You all tell me — as you're telling me now — that what I'm busy with is silly and small and worth nothing. But then, when I'm won over by you and say what you say — that it's by far the best thing to be able to carry through a speech, presented well and beautifully, in a court or some other gathering — I get called every kind of bad name, both by others here and by this fellow who's always cross-examining me. He happens, in fact, to be a close relative of mine and lives in the same house — so whenever I go home and he hears me saying these things, he asks whether I'm not ashamed to dare talk about beautiful pursuits when I'm so plainly refuted about beauty itself, not even knowing what it is. 'And yet how will you know,' he says, 'whether some speech has been presented beautifully or not, or any other action whatever, if you don't know beauty?' And when I'm in that state, do you think it's better for me to live than to die? So it has turned out for me, as I say — to be spoken ill of by you and reproached, and spoken ill of by him as well. But perhaps it's necessary to put up with all this — it wouldn't be strange if it did me some good. And I do think, Hippias, that I've profited from conversing with both of you: for I think I now know what the proverb means — that beautiful things are hard.
EUDICUS: Why so silent, Socrates, after Hippias has given such a display? Why not join in praising something he's said, or else refute it, if some part strikes you as not well said? Especially since the two of us are left here, we who would claim above all others some share in the pursuit of philosophy. SOCRATES: Well, Eudicus, there is indeed something I would gladly learn from Hippias about what he was just saying concerning Homer. I recall hearing your father Apemantus say that the Iliad is a finer poem than the Odyssey—finer by exactly the same measure that Achilles is a better man than Odysseus, since the one poem was made about Odysseus, the other about Achilles. So about that, if it pleases Hippias, I would gladly ask further how he sees the matter of these two men—which he says is the better—especially since he has already given us a display on many and various subjects, including other poets and Homer. EUDICUS: Well, clearly Hippias won't begrudge answering anything you ask him. Isn't that so, Hippias? If Socrates asks you something, will you answer? Or what will you do? HIPPIAS: It would indeed be strange of me, Eudicus, if—when I go up to Olympia for the great gathering of the Greeks every time the Olympic games are held, always making the journey from home in Elis to the sanctuary, and there offer myself to speak on whatever anyone wishes to hear that I've prepared for display, and to answer whatever anyone wants to ask—I should now run from a question of Socrates.
SOCRATES: A blessed condition you're in, Hippias, if at every Olympic festival you go up to the sanctuary so confident in your soul about your wisdom. I'd be amazed if any of the athletes who compete with their bodies approached the contest as fearlessly and trustingly regarding his body as you say you do regarding your mind. HIPPIAS: Naturally I feel this way, Socrates—ever since I began competing at Olympia, I have never yet met anyone better than myself in anything. SOCRATES: A fine thing you say, Hippias, and your reputation is a credit to the wisdom of the city of Elis, and to your parents as well. But tell us now about Achilles and Odysseus—which do you say is the better, and in what respect? When there was a large crowd inside and you were giving your display, I fell behind in following what you said—I hesitated to ask further questions then, because of the great crowd present, and so as not to get in the way of your display by asking. But now, since we are fewer and Eudicus here urges me to ask, tell us and teach us clearly: what were you saying about these two men? How did you distinguish between them? HIPPIAS: Well, Socrates, I'm happy to go through what I mean even more clearly than before, both about these two and about others. I say that Homer made Achilles the best of the men who came to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the most resourceful. SOCRATES: Goodness, Hippias! Would you do me a favor and not laugh at me if I'm slow to grasp what's said and ask again and again? Please try to answer me gently and patiently. HIPPIAS: It would be shameful, Socrates, if I taught these very things to others and charged money for it, yet couldn't show patience and answer you gently when you question me. SOCRATES: Well said. Now, when you said Achilles was made the best, I thought I understood you, and likewise when you said Nestor the wisest. But when you said the poet made Odysseus the most resourceful, that—to tell you the truth—I simply don't understand at all. Tell me, if this will help me understand better: isn't Achilles portrayed by Homer as resourceful?
HIPPIAS: Not at all, Socrates—rather the simplest and most truthful of men. Indeed in the Prayers, when the poet has them conversing with each other, Achilles says to Odysseus: 'Son of Laertes, sprung from Zeus, resourceful Odysseus, I must speak my mind outright, just as I intend, and just as it shall be accomplished: for hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and says another. But I will speak as I mean to see it done.' In these lines he reveals the character of each man—that Achilles is truthful and simple, while Odysseus is resourceful and false. For he has Achilles say these words to Odysseus. SOCRATES: Now at last, Hippias, I think I'm catching your meaning: you call the resourceful man false, it seems. HIPPIAS: Exactly, Socrates—for Homer has made Odysseus such a man in many places, both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. SOCRATES: So it seems that Homer thought one kind of man is truthful, another false, and that these are not the same man. HIPPIAS: Of course, Socrates—how could it be otherwise? SOCRATES: And do you yourself think this too, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Most certainly—it would be strange if I didn't. SOCRATES: Well then, let's leave Homer aside, since it's impossible to ask him what he had in mind when he wrote those lines. But since you seem to take up his cause, and you agree with what you say Homer means, answer on behalf of both Homer and yourself together. HIPPIAS: I will. Ask whatever you like, in short. SOCRATES: Do you mean that false men are incapable of doing something, like the sick, or capable of doing something? HIPPIAS: Capable, I say—very much so, of many things, including deceiving people. SOCRATES: Then, by your account, they are capable, it seems, and resourceful. Is that right? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And are they resourceful and deceivers through foolishness and lack of sense, or through cunning and a certain intelligence? HIPPIAS: Through cunning, above all, and intelligence. SOCRATES: So they are intelligent, it seems. HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, exceedingly so. SOCRATES: And being intelligent, do they not know what they're doing, or do they know? HIPPIAS: They know very well indeed—that's precisely why they do wrong. SOCRATES: And knowing what they know, are they ignorant or wise?
HIPPIAS: Wise, certainly, in this very thing—deceiving. SOCRATES: Hold on then; let's remind ourselves what you're saying. You say the false are capable and intelligent and knowledgeable and wise in the very matters in which they are false? HIPPIAS: Yes, I do say that. SOCRATES: And that others are truthful, and false men, and these two are utterly opposite to each other? HIPPIAS: That's what I say. SOCRATES: Come then: among the capable and wise, it seems, are the false, by your account. HIPPIAS: Very much so. SOCRATES: And when you say the false are capable and wise in these very things, do you mean capable of lying if they wish, or incapable in the matters about which they lie? HIPPIAS: Capable, I say. SOCRATES: So, to put it in a word, the false are those who are wise and capable of lying. HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then a man incapable of lying, and ignorant, could not be false. HIPPIAS: That's so. SOCRATES: And each man is capable, surely, who does what he wishes when he wishes—I don't mean someone prevented by illness or the like, but as you are capable of writing my name whenever you wish, that's what I mean. Or don't you call someone in that condition capable? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now tell me, Hippias—aren't you experienced in calculation and arithmetic? HIPPIAS: Very much so, Socrates. SOCRATES: So if someone asked you what number three times seven hundred is, could you, if you wished, tell the truth about it fastest and best of all? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: Is that because you are most capable and wisest in these matters? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Are you then only wisest and most capable, or are you also best in these matters—the calculations—in which you are most capable and wisest? HIPPIAS: Best too, surely, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then you would be most capable of telling the truth about these matters, wouldn't you? HIPPIAS: I think so.
SOCRATES: And what about telling falsehoods about these same matters? Answer me, Hippias, nobly and generously as before: if someone asked you how much three times seven hundred is, would you be the one most able to lie and always say the same false thing consistently about it, wishing to lie and never to answer truly—or would the man ignorant of calculation be more able to lie than you, even though you wished to lie? Might not the ignorant man, often wishing to speak falsely, tell the truth by accident, without meaning to, simply from not knowing—while you, the wise one, if you wished to lie, would always lie consistently? HIPPIAS: Yes, that's how it is, as you say. SOCRATES: Is the false man then false about other things, but not about number—incapable of lying about numbers? HIPPIAS: Yes, by Zeus, he could lie about number too. SOCRATES: Then let us grant this too, Hippias: that there is such a thing as a man false about calculation and number? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Who then would this be? Must he not, if he is to be false, be capable of lying, as you just agreed? For the man incapable of lying, if you remember, was said by you never to become false. HIPPIAS: I do remember, and that was said. SOCRATES: Then didn't you just show yourself to be most capable of lying about calculations? HIPPIAS: Yes, that was said too. SOCRATES: And are you also most capable of telling the truth about calculations? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: So the same man is most capable of both lying and telling the truth about calculations—and this is the good man in these matters, the one skilled in calculation. HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Then who becomes false about calculation, Hippias, other than the good man? For he is the same man who is capable—and this man is also truthful. HIPPIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Do you see, then, that the same man is both false and truthful in these matters, and the truthful man is no better than the false one? For surely it's the very same man, and they are not utterly opposite, as you supposed just now. HIPPIAS: It doesn't appear so, at least in this case. SOCRATES: Shall we then examine it elsewhere too? HIPPIAS: If you wish to go on. SOCRATES: Aren't you also experienced in geometry? HIPPIAS: I am. SOCRATES: Well then—isn't it the same in geometry? Isn't the same man, the geometer, most capable both of lying and of telling the truth about diagrams? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Is anyone else good at these matters besides him? HIPPIAS: No one else. SOCRATES: Then isn't the good and wise geometer most capable of both? And if anyone at all is false about diagrams, wouldn't it be this good man? For he is capable, while the bad man was incapable of lying—so that the man unable to lie could never become false, as has been agreed. HIPPIAS: That's so.
SOCRATES: Now let's look at a third case as well—the astronomer, a field in which you consider yourself even more expert than in the ones before. Isn't that so, Hippias? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And in astronomy the same holds true? HIPPIAS: It seems likely, Socrates. SOCRATES: So in astronomy too, if anyone can be false, it will be the good astronomer who is false—the one capable of it. The one who's incapable can't be, since he's simply ignorant. HIPPIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: Then the same person will be both truthful and false in astronomy as well. HIPPIAS: It seems so. SOCRATES: Come now, Hippias, look through the whole range of the sciences without restraint this way, and see if there's any case that stands otherwise. You are, after all, the wisest of all men in the greatest number of arts, as I once heard you boasting yourself, going on at length in the marketplace by the money-tables about your own vast and enviable learning. You said that once you arrived at Olympia wearing everything on your body that was your own handiwork—first the ring, since that's where you began, which you had made yourself, claiming you knew how to engrave rings, and another seal-stone that was your work, and a scraper and an oil-flask that you yourself had crafted. Then the sandals you were wearing, you said you had cut yourself, and the cloak you had woven, and the tunic too. And what struck everyone as strangest of all, the greatest display of your skill, was when you said the belt of your tunic—the kind the expensive Persian ones are—you had woven that yourself. On top of all this, you came with poems—epic verses, tragedies, dithyrambs—and many prose compositions of every sort strung together. And regarding the arts I was just now discussing, you claimed to have arrived there more expert than anyone else, and about rhythms and harmonies and the correctness of letters, and a great many other things besides, as I recall it. And yet I forgot, it seems, your memory-craft, the one in which you think you shine most brightly—and I imagine I've forgotten a great many other things too. But as I was saying, look to your own arts—and they're plenty—and to those of others, and tell me whether you can find, on the basis of what you and I have agreed, any case where the truthful one and the false one are separate, not the same person. Consider this in whatever skill you like, or cunning, or whatever else you enjoy calling it. But you won't find one, my friend—it doesn't exist—so go ahead and tell me.
HIPPIAS: Well, I can't, Socrates, not at the moment anyway. SOCRATES: Nor will you ever be able to, I think. But if what I say is true, remember, Hippias, what follows for us from the argument. HIPPIAS: I don't quite grasp what you mean, Socrates. SOCRATES: Perhaps right now you're not using your memory-craft—clearly you don't think it's needed here—but I'll remind you myself. You know you said Achilles was truthful, and Odysseus false and full of many turns? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Now do you notice that it's turned out to be the same person who is both false and truthful, so that if Odysseus was false, he also turns out truthful, and if Achilles was truthful, he also turns out false, and the two men aren't different from each other or opposites, but alike? HIPPIAS: Socrates, you're always weaving arguments like this, picking out whatever is most awkward in the discussion and clinging to that one small point, instead of engaging with the whole matter under debate. Take now, for instance—if you like, I can demonstrate to you with plenty of evidence, in a sufficient argument, that Homer made Achilles better than Odysseus and free of falsehood, while the other is deceitful, tells many lies, and is inferior to Achilles. And if you like, you in turn can set argument against argument, showing which of the two is better, and these people here will better be able to judge which of us argues better. SOCRATES: Hippias, I don't dispute that you're wiser than I am. But I've always made it my habit, whenever someone says something, to pay close attention—especially when the speaker seems wise to me—and wanting to learn what he means, I question closely, and examine again, and try to fit the statements together, so that I may learn. But if the speaker seems to me a poor one, I neither question further nor care what he says. And by this you'll recognize whom I consider wise: you'll find me persistent about what such a person says, questioning him, so that I may learn something and be benefited.
SOCRATES: Indeed, just now, as you were speaking, I noticed something—that in the very lines you quoted, showing Achilles addressing Odysseus as a fraud, it seems odd to me, if you're right, that Odysseus is nowhere shown telling a lie, the man of many turns, while Achilles turns out to be a man of many turns himself, by your own account—at least he lies. For having first spoken those lines, the very ones you just quoted—'Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another'—a little later he says that he would not be persuaded by Odysseus and Agamemnon, nor would he remain in Troy at all, but—'Tomorrow, having offered sacrifice to Zeus and all the gods, once I've loaded my ships well and drawn them down to the sea, you'll see, if you care to and it matters to you, my ships sailing early over the fish-filled Hellespont, and men in them eager at the oars. And if the glorious Earth-Shaker grants a good voyage, on the third day I would reach fertile Phthia.' And even before this, reviling Agamemnon, he said—'Now I'll go to Phthia, since it's far better to go home with my curved ships, and I don't think, dishonored as I am here, that I'll draw out wealth and riches for you.' Having said this, at one point before the whole army, and at another before his own companions, he's nowhere shown preparing or attempting to haul down the ships to sail home, but treats speaking the truth with great nobility of disregard. So from the very start, Hippias, I asked you in genuine puzzlement which of these two men Homer made the better one, thinking both were excellent and that it was hard to judge which was better with respect to falsehood, truth, and other virtue—since in this regard the two are quite similar. HIPPIAS: You're not looking at it rightly, Socrates. The things Achilles lies about, he clearly doesn't lie about through premeditated scheming, but unwillingly, forced by the army's dire situation to stay and help. But what Odysseus lies about, he does willingly and by design. SOCRATES: You're deceiving me, dearest Hippias, and imitating Odysseus yourself!
HIPPIAS: Not at all, Socrates. What do you mean, and in what respect? SOCRATES: That you say Achilles doesn't lie by design—when he was, according to Homer's own portrayal, such a schemer and so calculating on top of his boastfulness, that he shows himself so much shrewder than Odysseus at getting away with his deception easily, that he dared to say contradictory things right in front of Odysseus himself, without Odysseus noticing—at least Odysseus is nowhere shown saying anything to him as if he'd caught him lying. HIPPIAS: What exactly do you mean, Socrates? SOCRATES: Don't you know that later, after telling Odysseus he'd sail off at dawn, he tells Ajax something different—that he won't sail off after all, but says other things? HIPPIAS: Where's that? SOCRATES: In the lines where he says—'I won't take thought for bloody war again until Priam's warlike son, godlike Hector, reaches the huts and ships of the Myrmidons, killing Argives and burning the ships with fire. But around my own hut and dark ship, I think Hector will be held back from the fight, eager as he is.' Now then, Hippias, do you think the son of Thetis, raised by the wisest Chiron, was so forgetful that, having just reviled boastful men with the harshest reproach, he would immediately turn around and tell Odysseus he'd sail away, but tell Ajax he'd stay—not out of scheming, considering Odysseus simple-minded and thinking he could get the better of him precisely through this trickery and lying? HIPPIAS: I don't think so myself, Socrates. Rather, it was out of goodwill that he was persuaded to say something different to Ajax than to Odysseus—whereas whatever Odysseus says truly, he always says with premeditated design, and whatever he lies about, likewise. SOCRATES: Then Odysseus turns out to be better than Achilles, it seems. HIPPIAS: Hardly, I should think, Socrates. SOCRATES: What then? Didn't it just now turn out that those who lie willingly are better than those who lie unwillingly?
HIPPIAS: And how, Socrates, could those who do wrong willingly, scheme willingly, and do evil willingly be better than those who do so unwillingly—for whom there seems to be a great deal of forgiveness, if someone does wrong or lies or does some other evil without knowing it? And surely the laws are much harsher toward those who do evil and lie willingly than toward those who do so unwillingly. SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, that I'm telling the truth when I say I'm persistent in questioning wise men? And I run the risk of having this as my one good quality, while being quite poor in everything else. For I'm mistaken about how things really stand, and I don't know where the truth lies. And sufficient proof of this for me is that whenever I'm in the company of one of you who is well-regarded for wisdom—men to whom all the Greeks bear witness as to your wisdom—I turn out to know nothing. For hardly anything seems to me the same as it seems to you, so to speak. And yet what greater proof of ignorance is there than to be at odds with wise men? But I do have this one wonderful good quality that saves me: I'm not ashamed to learn, but I inquire and ask questions and am deeply grateful to whoever answers, and I've never yet deprived anyone of that gratitude. For I've never once, having learned something, denied it and claimed the learning as my own discovery—rather, I praise the one who taught me as being wise, by pointing out what I learned from him. And so now too, I don't agree with what you say, but I disagree quite strongly. And I know full well that this happens because of me, because I am the kind of person I am—not to say anything grander about myself. For to me, Hippias, it appears just the opposite of what you say: those who harm people and do wrong and lie and deceive and err willingly rather than unwillingly are better than those who do so unwillingly. Sometimes, though, the opposite seems true to me too, and I wander about on these matters, clearly because I don't know. But right now, at this moment, a kind of fit has come over me, and it seems to me that those who err willingly in some respect are better than those who err unwillingly. And I blame our earlier arguments for my present condition, which makes it appear, right now, that the unwilling ones in each of these cases are worse than the willing ones.
SOCRATES: So do me this favor — don't begrudge my soul its cure. You'll do me a far greater good by curing my soul of ignorance than if you cured my body of disease. Now if you want to make a long speech, I warn you in advance you won't cure me that way — I won't be able to follow along. But if you're willing to answer me the way you were doing a moment ago, you'll help me a great deal, and I don't think you'll be harmed yourself either. And I'd be right to call on you too, son of Apemantus — you're the one who got me talking with Hippias, and now, if Hippias won't answer me, beg him on my behalf. EUDICUS: But Socrates, I don't think Hippias will need any begging from us — what he said before wasn't like that at all. He said he wouldn't dodge any man's question. Isn't that so, Hippias? Isn't that what you said? HIPPIAS: Yes, it is. But Eudicus, Socrates is always stirring up trouble in arguments — he seems to be up to some kind of mischief. SOCRATES: My excellent Hippias, I don't do this on purpose — if I did, I'd be wise and clever, by your own account — but without meaning to. So forgive me. You yourself say that a man who does mischief unintentionally deserves forgiveness. EUDICUS: And please, Hippias, don't act otherwise — for our sake, and for the sake of what you said before, answer whatever Socrates asks you. HIPPIAS: Well, I'll answer, since you're asking. Go ahead, Socrates, ask whatever you like. SOCRATES: Well then, Hippias, I'm very eager to look into what was just being said — which men are better, those who err on purpose or those who err without meaning to. I think the best way to approach the question is like this. Answer me — do you call someone a good runner? HIPPIAS: I do. SOCRATES: And a bad one? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the one who runs well is good, and the one who runs badly is bad? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And the one who runs slowly runs badly, and the one who runs fast runs well? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So in running, and in the sport of running, speed is good and slowness is bad? HIPPIAS: Of course — what else would it be? SOCRATES: So which is the better runner — the one who runs slowly on purpose, or the one who does it without meaning to? HIPPIAS: The one on purpose. SOCRATES: And isn't running a kind of doing? HIPPIAS: Yes, a doing. SOCRATES: And if it's a doing, isn't it also a kind of accomplishing something? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the one who runs badly accomplishes something bad and shameful in the race? HIPPIAS: Bad — of course. SOCRATES: And the one who runs slowly runs badly? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the good runner accomplishes this bad and shameful thing on purpose, while the bad runner does it without meaning to? HIPPIAS: So it seems.
SOCRATES: So in running, the one who does bad things unintentionally is worse than the one who does them on purpose? HIPPIAS: In running, yes. SOCRATES: And what about wrestling? Which is the better wrestler — the one who falls on purpose, or the one who falls without meaning to? HIPPIAS: The one on purpose, it seems. SOCRATES: And in wrestling, is it worse and more shameful to fall, or to throw your opponent? HIPPIAS: To fall. SOCRATES: So in wrestling too, the one who does bad and shameful things on purpose is a better wrestler than the one who does them unintentionally. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And what about every other use of the body? Doesn't the one whose body is better have the ability to do both things — the strong and the weak, the shameful and the fine? So that when he does something bad with his body, the one with the better body does it on purpose, while the one with the worse body does it unintentionally? HIPPIAS: It seems that strength works the same way too. SOCRATES: And what about grace, Hippias? Doesn't the better body take on shameful and bad postures on purpose, while the worse body does so unintentionally? Or how does it seem to you? HIPPIAS: That's how it is. SOCRATES: And what do you say about the voice? Which voice do you say is better — the one that sings off-key on purpose, or the one that does so unintentionally? HIPPIAS: The one on purpose. SOCRATES: And the one that does it unintentionally is worse? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Would you rather possess good things or bad things? HIPPIAS: Good things. SOCRATES: So would you rather have feet that limp on purpose, or feet that limp without meaning to? HIPPIAS: On purpose. SOCRATES: And isn't lameness of the feet a kind of badness and ugliness? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about weak eyesight — isn't that a badness of the eyes? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So which eyes would you rather have, and which would you rather live with — eyes that see dimly and squint on purpose, or eyes that do so without meaning to? HIPPIAS: On purpose. SOCRATES: So you consider it better when your own faculties do bad things on purpose than when they do so unintentionally? HIPPIAS: In cases like these, yes. SOCRATES: And doesn't the same rule hold for everything — ears, nose, mouth, and all the senses — that those which do bad things unintentionally are worthless as being bad, while those which do so on purpose are worth having as being good? HIPPIAS: I think so. SOCRATES: And what about instruments? Which is the better partnership — instruments with which one does bad things on purpose, or without meaning to? Take a rudder, for instance — is it better to steer badly with it on purpose or unintentionally? HIPPIAS: On purpose. SOCRATES: And isn't the same true of a bow, a lyre, pipes, and everything else?
HIPPIAS: You're right. SOCRATES: And what about the soul of a horse — is it better to possess one that rides badly on purpose, or one that does so unintentionally? HIPPIAS: On purpose. SOCRATES: So that soul is the better one. HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So with the better soul of a horse, one would do the bad works proper to that soul on purpose, while with the worse soul one would do them unintentionally? HIPPIAS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And doesn't the same hold for a dog's soul, and for all the other animals? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then — is it better to possess the soul of an archer that misses the target on purpose, or one that misses without meaning to? HIPPIAS: The one on purpose. SOCRATES: And isn't that soul also better at archery? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So the soul that errs unintentionally is worse than the one that errs on purpose. HIPPIAS: In archery, yes. SOCRATES: And what about medicine? Isn't the soul that does harm to bodies on purpose more skilled in medicine? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So that soul is better at that art than the unskilled one. HIPPIAS: Better. SOCRATES: And what about the more skilled lyre-player and pipe-player, and all the rest that fall under the arts and sciences — doesn't the better one do bad and shameful things on purpose and err deliberately, while the worse one does so unintentionally? HIPPIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: But surely, when it comes to slaves' souls, we'd rather own the ones that err and do wrong on purpose than the ones that do so unintentionally, since they're better at it. HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about our own souls — wouldn't we want to possess the best one we could? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So won't it be better if it does wrong and errs on purpose, rather than unintentionally? HIPPIAS: That would be a strange thing indeed, Socrates, if those who do wrong on purpose turn out to be better than those who do wrong unintentionally. SOCRATES: And yet that's exactly what appears to follow from what we've said. HIPPIAS: Not to me, it doesn't. SOCRATES: But I thought it did appear that way to you too, Hippias. Answer me again — isn't justice either some kind of power, or knowledge, or both? Isn't it necessary that justice be at least one of these? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So if justice is a power of the soul, then the more powerful soul is more just — since, as it turned out, my good man, the more powerful soul is the better one. HIPPIAS: Yes, it did turn out that way. SOCRATES: And if it's knowledge — isn't the wiser soul more just, and the more ignorant one more unjust? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: And if it's both — doesn't the soul that has both knowledge and power become more just, while the more ignorant one becomes more unjust? Isn't that how it must be? HIPPIAS: So it appears.
SOCRATES: So this soul — the more powerful and wiser one — turned out to be the better one, and more able to do both things, the fine and the shameful, in every kind of undertaking? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So whenever it does shameful things, it does them on purpose, by virtue of its power and skill — and these, it turns out, belong to justice, either both of them or one of the two. HIPPIAS: So it seems. SOCRATES: And doing wrong is doing bad things, while not doing wrong is doing fine things. HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So won't the more powerful and better soul, whenever it does wrong, do wrong on purpose, while the worse soul does wrong unintentionally? HIPPIAS: So it appears. SOCRATES: And isn't a good man one who has a good soul, and a bad man one who has a bad soul? HIPPIAS: Yes. SOCRATES: So it belongs to a good man to do wrong on purpose, and to a bad man to do wrong unintentionally — since the good man has a good soul. HIPPIAS: Well, he certainly does have one. SOCRATES: So the man who errs on purpose and does shameful and unjust things — if there really is such a man, Hippias — could be none other than the good man. HIPPIAS: I can't agree with you on that, Socrates. SOCRATES: Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias — but that's how it necessarily appears to us, at least right now, from the argument. As I said before, on these matters I wander all over the place and never think the same thing twice. And it's no wonder that I wander, nor any other ordinary person — but if you wise men are going to wander too, that's a terrible thing for us, if not even coming to you can put an end to our wandering.
SOCRATES: Welcome, Ion. Where have you come from to visit us this time? Home to Ephesus? ION: Not at all, Socrates — from Epidaurus, from the festival of Asclepius. SOCRATES: Don't tell me the Epidaurians hold a rhapsode's competition for the god too? ION: They certainly do, and for the other arts of the Muses as well. SOCRATES: Well then? Did you compete for us? And how did it go? ION: We carried off first prize, Socrates. SOCRATES: Excellent — see to it we win at the Panathenaea too. ION: That will happen, god willing. SOCRATES: You know, Ion, I've often envied you rhapsodes your craft. It's fitting that your bodies always be got up handsomely, as befits your art, and that you look as attractive as possible — and at the same time you're required to spend your days among many fine poets, above all Homer, the best and most inspired of them, and to learn his thought through and through, not just his verses. That's something to envy. No one could ever become a good rhapsode without grasping what the poet is saying — the rhapsode has to become an interpreter of the poet's thought for his listeners, and it's impossible to do that well without understanding what the poet means. All of this deserves envy. ION: True, Socrates. That's certainly where I've put in the most effort in my art, and I believe I speak about Homer better than anyone alive — neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor anyone else who has ever lived has had as many fine things to say about Homer as I do. SOCRATES: Good to hear, Ion — clearly you won't begrudge me a demonstration. ION: It really is worth hearing, Socrates, how splendidly I've dressed up Homer — so much so that I think I deserve to be crowned with a gold wreath by the sons of Homer.
SOCRATES: Well, I'll certainly find time to hear you at length. But first answer me this: are you skilled at speaking about Homer alone, or about Hesiod and Archilochus too? ION: Not at all — only about Homer. That seems to me enough. SOCRATES: Is there anything on which Homer and Hesiod say the same thing? ION: I think there's a good deal. SOCRATES: Then on those points, could you explain what Homer says better, or what Hesiod says? ION: Equally well, Socrates, on the points where they say the same thing. SOCRATES: But what about the points where they don't agree? Homer and Hesiod both speak, say, about the seer's art. ION: They certainly do. SOCRATES: Well then — of what the two poets say alike and what they say differently about divination, could you explain it better, or one of the skilled seers? ION: One of the seers. SOCRATES: And if you were a seer, wouldn't you, being able to explain the points where they agree, also know how to explain the points where they differ? ION: Obviously. SOCRATES: Then why is it that you're skilled about Homer but not about Hesiod or the other poets? Does Homer talk about different things than all the other poets do? Doesn't he deal mostly with war, and with how people — good and bad, ordinary folk and craftsmen — deal with one another, and with how the gods deal with each other and with humans, and with what happens in the heavens and in Hades, and with the births of gods and heroes? Isn't that what Homer's poetry is about? ION: True, Socrates. SOCRATES: And the other poets — isn't it the same subjects? ION: Yes, but, Socrates, not in the same way Homer treats them. SOCRATES: How, then — worse? ION: Far worse. SOCRATES: And Homer better? ION: Better, by Zeus. SOCRATES: Well then, my dear Ion, when a number of people are talking about arithmetic and one of them speaks best, surely someone will recognize who's speaking well? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: And is it the same person who recognizes those speaking badly, or someone else? ION: The same person, surely. SOCRATES: And that's the one who has the skill of arithmetic? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Now, when a number of people are discussing what foods are healthy, and one speaks best, will one person recognize the one speaking best, and a different person the one speaking worse — or the same person? ION: Clearly the same. SOCRATES: Who is that? What's he called? ION: A doctor.
SOCRATES: So, to sum up, we're saying that the same person will always be able to tell, when a number of people are speaking on the same subject, who speaks well and who badly — or if he can't recognize the one who speaks badly, then clearly not the one who speaks well either, on that same subject. ION: That's so. SOCRATES: Then the same man becomes skilled at judging both? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: And you say that Homer and the other poets — including Hesiod and Archilochus — speak on the same subjects, but not equally well, but one speaks well and the others worse? ION: And I say that truly. SOCRATES: Then if you can recognize the one speaking well, you'd also recognize that the ones speaking worse are speaking worse. ION: So it seems. SOCRATES: Then, my excellent friend, if we say Ion is equally skilled about Homer and about the other poets, we won't be wrong, since he himself agrees that the same person will be a competent judge of everyone speaking on the same subjects, and that the poets pretty much all treat the same things. ION: Then what on earth is the reason, Socrates, why when someone discusses another poet I pay no attention and can't contribute anything worthwhile — I simply nod off — but the moment someone mentions Homer, I'm wide awake at once, paying attention, and full of things to say? SOCRATES: That's not hard to guess, my friend — it's obvious to anyone that you're unable to speak about Homer by skill and knowledge. If it were by skill, you'd be able to speak about all the other poets too — poetry, after all, is a single whole. Isn't that so? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then whenever someone masters any other art as a whole, the same method of inquiry applies to all the arts alike? Do you want me to explain what I mean by this, Ion? ION: Yes, by Zeus, Socrates, I do — I enjoy listening to you clever people. SOCRATES: I wish you were right, Ion. But it's you rhapsodes and actors, and the poets whose works you sing, who are the clever ones — I say nothing but the truth, as you'd expect from an ordinary man. Take this very question I just asked you — see how commonplace and ordinary a thing it is, one anybody could grasp, that the method of inquiry is the same whenever one masters an entire art. Let's take it up in argument: painting is a single art as a whole, isn't it? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: And there are, and have been, many painters, both good and bad? ION: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Now have you ever met someone who is skilled at pointing out what Polygnotus son of Aglaophon paints well and what he doesn't, but is helpless when it comes to the other painters — who, whenever someone displays the works of other painters, nods off and is at a loss and has nothing to contribute, but when it's time to give an opinion about Polygnotus or whichever other single painter you like, wakes up, pays attention, and is full of things to say? ION: No, by Zeus, I certainly haven't. SOCRATES: And in sculpture, have you ever met anyone who is skilled at explaining the good work of Daedalus son of Metion, or Epeius son of Panopeus, or Theodorus of Samos, or some other single sculptor, but is at a loss and nods off before the works of the other sculptors, having nothing to say? ION: No, by Zeus, I haven't seen that either. SOCRATES: And surely, I think, not in flute-playing either, nor in lyre-playing, nor in singing to the lyre, nor in rhapsody have you ever seen a man who is skilled at explaining Olympus, or Thamyras, or Orpheus, or Phemius the rhapsode of Ithaca, but who is at a loss about Ion of Ephesus and can't tell what he performs well and what not. ION: I have nothing to say against that, Socrates. But this much I know about myself: that I speak about Homer better than anyone alive, and have plenty to say, and everyone else agrees I speak well — but not about the others. So consider what that means. SOCRATES: I am considering it, Ion, and I'm about to show you what I think it is. It is not a skill in you for speaking well about Homer, as I was saying just now, but a divine power that moves you — like the power in the stone that Euripides called the Magnesian stone, though most people call it the stone of Heracles. For that stone not only draws iron rings themselves, but also puts a power into the rings so that they in turn can do the very thing the stone does — draw other rings — so that sometimes a long chain of iron pieces and rings hangs suspended from one another; and the power in all of them depends on that stone. In just the same way the Muse makes some people inspired herself, and from these inspired ones a chain of others, catching the inspiration in turn, hangs suspended.
SOCRATES: For all the good epic poets produce all these fine poems not by skill, but because they are inspired and possessed — and the good lyric poets likewise. Just as the Corybantic dancers dance without being in their right minds, so the lyric poets compose those fine songs without being in their right minds. Once they embark upon harmony and rhythm, they are seized with Bacchic frenzy and possession — just as the Bacchant women, when possessed, draw milk and honey from rivers, but not when in their right minds — and the soul of the lyric poets does this same thing, as they themselves say. For the poets tell us, surely, that they gather their songs from honey-flowing springs, from certain glades and gardens of the Muses, and bring them to us like bees, flying just as the bees do. And they speak the truth. For a poet is a light and winged and sacred thing, and he is not able to compose until he becomes inspired and out of his senses and his mind is no longer in him. So long as a person retains that possession, he is powerless to compose or to utter oracles. Since, then, poets compose and say many fine things about their subjects not by skill — as you do about Homer — but by divine allotment, each is capable of doing well only that one thing toward which the Muse has driven him: one man dithyrambs, another encomia, another dance-songs, another epic verse, another iambics — and in everything else each of them is poor. For it is not by skill that they say these things, but by divine power — since if they knew by skill how to speak well on one subject, they would know how on all the others too. That is why the god takes away the minds of these men and uses them as his servants, just as he uses oracle-singers and holy seers, so that we who listen may know that it is not these men who say these things of such great worth, men who have no mind in them, but that it is the god himself who speaks, and who addresses us through them. The strongest proof of this argument is Tynnichus of Chalcis, who never composed a single poem worth anyone's remembering, except the paean that everyone sings, nearly the most beautiful of all songs, which — exactly as he himself says — was simply 'a find of the Muses.' In this case above all, I think, the god has shown us, so that we should have no doubt, that these beautiful poems are not human, nor the work of humans, but divine, the work of gods, and that the poets are nothing but interpreters of the gods, each possessed by whatever power holds him. To show us this, the god deliberately sang the most beautiful song of all through the poorest poet. Or don't you think I'm speaking the truth, Ion?
ION: Yes, by Zeus, I do — your words somehow take hold of my soul, Socrates, and it seems to me that good poets are, by divine dispensation, interpreters for us of things that come from the gods. SOCRATES: And you rhapsodes, in turn, interpret what the poets say? ION: That too is true. SOCRATES: So you become interpreters of interpreters? ION: Exactly so. SOCRATES: Then tell me this, Ion, and don't hide anything I ask you. When you deliver a fine performance of the verses and strike your audience most powerfully — say, when you sing of Odysseus leaping onto the threshold, revealing himself to the suitors and pouring his arrows out before his feet, or of Achilles charging at Hector, or one of the pitiful scenes about Andromache, or Hecuba, or Priam — at that moment are you in your right mind, or are you carried out of yourself, so that your soul, in a kind of divine possession, believes itself to be among the events you describe, whether in Ithaca or in Troy or wherever the verses happen to be set? ION: How vivid a proof you've given me there, Socrates — for I won't hide the truth from you. Whenever I speak of something pitiful, my eyes fill with tears; and whenever it's something fearful or terrible, my hair stands on end with fright and my heart pounds. SOCRATES: Well then — shall we say, Ion, that a man is in his right mind at such a moment, when, decked out in embroidered robes and golden crowns, he weeps at sacrifices and festivals, though he has lost none of his finery, or feels more fear than if he stood among twenty thousand friendly people, with no one stripping him or doing him any harm? ION: No, by Zeus, not at all, Socrates, to tell the truth. SOCRATES: Do you know that you rhapsodes produce this very same effect in most of your audience too? ION: I know it very well indeed — I watch them every time from up on the platform, weeping and casting terrible looks and awestruck at what is being said. I have to pay them the closest attention, since if I set them weeping, I myself will laugh, as I collect my fee, but if I set them laughing, I myself will weep, at losing it.
SOCRATES: Do you know, then, that this spectator is the last of the rings I was telling you about, which draw their power from one another by way of the Heraclean stone? The middle one is you, the rhapsode and actor, and the first is the poet himself. The god, through all of these, pulls the soul of men wherever he wishes, suspending their power from one another. And just as from that stone a great chain is suspended — of choral dancers, and instructors, and assistant instructors — hanging off to the side from the rings that depend upon the Muse. One poet is suspended from one Muse, another from another — we call it 'being possessed,' but it is much the same thing, for he is indeed held fast. And from these first rings, the poets, others in turn hang suspended, one from one poet, one from another, and are inspired — some from Orpheus, some from Musaeus, but most of them are possessed and held by Homer. You, Ion, are one of these: you are possessed by Homer, and whenever anyone sings the work of some other poet, you fall asleep and are at a loss for words, but whenever someone strikes up a strain of this poet, you wake at once, your soul dances, and you are full of things to say. For it is not by skill or knowledge that you speak of Homer, but by divine dispensation and possession — just as the Corybantic revelers perceive keenly only that one strain which belongs to the god by whom they are possessed, and for that strain they have plenty of gestures and words, but care nothing for the rest. So too with you, Ion: when Homer is mentioned, you are full of resource, but at the mention of any other poet, you are at a loss. And the reason for this, which you asked me about — why you have plenty to say about Homer and nothing about the rest — is that it is not by skill that you are so formidable a praiser of Homer, but by divine dispensation. ION: You put it well, Socrates. Yet I would be astonished if you could speak so well as to persuade me that I praise Homer while possessed and out of my mind. I don't think you'd think so either, if you heard me speaking about Homer. SOCRATES: I am indeed willing to hear it — but not before you answer me this. Of the things Homer speaks of, on which subject do you speak well? Surely not on all of them. ION: Be assured, Socrates — on every one of them, without exception. SOCRATES: Surely not on those matters too, of which you happen to have no knowledge, while Homer speaks of them? ION: And what sort of things are these, that Homer speaks of and I don't know?
SOCRATES: Doesn't Homer, in many places, speak a great deal about various crafts? Take chariot-driving, for instance — if I can recall the lines, I'll tell you them. ION: No, I'll say them — I remember them. SOCRATES: Tell me, then, what Nestor says to his son Antilochus, advising him to be careful at the turning-post in the horse race held for Patroclus. ION: 'And lean yourself,' he says, 'in the well-polished chariot, gently to the left of the pair; and goad the right-hand horse, shouting to him, and give him rein with your hands. And let the left-hand horse graze close in against the post, so that the hub of the well-made wheel seems to reach its very edge — but beware of striking the stone.' SOCRATES: That's enough. Now, Ion, as to these verses — whether Homer speaks correctly or not — which of the two would judge better, a doctor or a charioteer? ION: A charioteer, surely. SOCRATES: Because he has that skill, or for some other reason? ION: No — because he has the skill. SOCRATES: And hasn't each of the skills been assigned by god a particular function it is capable of understanding? For surely what we know by the pilot's skill, we won't also know by the doctor's. ION: No, indeed. SOCRATES: Nor will what we know by medicine, we know also by carpentry. ION: No, indeed. SOCRATES: And so it goes for all the skills — what we know by one skill, we will not know by another? But answer me this first: do you say that one thing is one skill, and another thing another? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Is it as I judge it — when one skill has knowledge of one set of matters, and another has knowledge of another, I call one skill by one name and the other by another — is that how you judge it too? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: For if there were some single knowledge of the very same matters, why would we say that one is one skill and the other another, when the same things could be known from both? Just as I know that these fingers here are five, and you, like me, know the very same thing about them — and if I asked you whether it is by the very same skill, arithmetic, that you and I both know the same things, or by a different one, you would surely say by the same one. ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well then, tell me now what I was about to ask you just now: does it seem to you to hold in the case of all the skills, that the same skill must know the same things, while a different skill, if indeed it is different, must know different things? ION: That is how it seems to me, Socrates. SOCRATES: So whoever lacks a given skill will not be able to know well what is said or done in that skill? ION: True. SOCRATES: Now then, as for those verses you recited — whether Homer speaks well or not — will you know this better, or a charioteer? ION: A charioteer. SOCRATES: For you are a rhapsode, after all, not a charioteer. ION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the rhapsode's skill is different from the charioteer's? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: If it's different, then, it is knowledge of different matters. ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Well then — what about when Homer tells how Hecamede, Nestor's concubine, gives the wounded Machaon a potion to drink? He puts it something like this: 'in Pramnian wine,' he says, 'she grated goat's cheese with a bronze grater, and beside it, an onion as a relish for the drink.' Whether Homer is right about this or not — does it belong to medicine or to the rhapsode's skill to judge it well? ION: To medicine. SOCRATES: And what about when Homer says: 'and it, like a plummet of lead, went down to the depths, which, set on the horn of a field-going ox, goes plunging down among the ravenous fishes, bearing death'? Shall we say that it belongs more to the fisherman's skill to judge these lines, whatever they say, and whether well or not, or to the rhapsode's? ION: Clearly, Socrates, to the fisherman's. SOCRATES: Now consider — suppose you were the one asking me, and you said: since, Socrates, you find in Homer matters belonging to each of these skills that it's fitting for that skill to judge, come now, find for me also the matters of the seer and of seercraft — of what sort are the things it is fitting for him to be able to judge, whether well or badly composed. See how easily and truly I would answer you. For in many places, in the Odyssey too, he speaks of this — as, for instance, what the seer of the line of Melampus says to the suitors, Theoclymenus—
SOCRATES: 'Wretched men, what evil is this you suffer? Your heads and faces and the limbs beneath are shrouded in night, wailing has burst into flame, and cheeks are wet with tears; the porch is full of ghosts, the courtyard full too, hastening down to Erebus beneath the darkness; the sun has utterly perished from the sky, and an evil mist has swept over all.' And in many places in the Iliad too — as, for instance, at the battle for the wall. He says there too: 'For a bird came to them as they strained to cross, a high-flying eagle, cutting off the army to the left, bearing in its talons a blood-red serpent, monstrous, still alive, still writhing; nor had it yet forgotten its fight, for it struck the bird that held it, on the breast beside the neck, twisting back, and the eagle, in pain, cast it from him to the ground, and dropped it in the midst of the throng; and itself, screeching, flew off on the blasts of the wind.' These things, and things like them, I will say belong to the seer to examine and judge. ION: And what you say is true, Socrates. SOCRATES: And you too, Ion, speak the truth in saying so. Come then, you do for me as I did for you — I picked out for you, from both the Odyssey and the Iliad, which lines belong to the seer, which to the doctor, and which to the fisherman; now you, in the same way, pick out for me — since you are more expert than I am in the matters of Homer — which lines belong to the rhapsode, Ion, and to the rhapsode's skill, the things that it is fitting for the rhapsode, more than for other men, to examine and judge. ION: I say, Socrates, that it is all of them. SOCRATES: You are not saying 'all of them,' Ion — or are you so forgetful? And yet it would hardly be fitting for a rhapsode to be a forgetful man.
ION: What is it I'm forgetting? SOCRATES: Don't you remember saying that the rhapsode's art is different from the charioteer's? ION: I remember. SOCRATES: And you agreed that, being different, it knows different things? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then the rhapsode's art won't know everything, by your own account, and neither will the rhapsode. ION: Except, perhaps, things of that sort, Socrates. SOCRATES: By 'that sort' you mean, roughly, everything except what belongs to the other arts. But which things will it know, since not all of them? ION: The things fitting for a man to say, I think, and for a woman, and for a slave, and for a free man, and for a subject, and for a ruler. SOCRATES: You mean, when a ship is being battered by a storm at sea, the rhapsode will know better than the helmsman what a ruler ought to say? ION: No, the helmsman knows that. SOCRATES: And when a man is ill, will the rhapsode know better than the doctor what a ruler ought to say to him? ION: Not that either. SOCRATES: But you mean the things fitting for a slave? ION: Yes. SOCRATES: For instance, what a slave who's a herdsman ought to say to calm cattle that are turning wild — will the rhapsode know that, and not the herdsman? ION: Certainly not. SOCRATES: But what's fitting for a woman to say who works wool, about the working of wool? ION: No. SOCRATES: But he'll know what's fitting for a man to say — a general exhorting his soldiers? ION: Yes, that sort of thing the rhapsode will know. SOCRATES: What, then — is the rhapsode's art the same as generalship? ION: I myself would certainly know what's fitting for a general to say. SOCRATES: Yes, because you're probably also skilled in generalship, Ion. In fact, if you happened to be a horseman as well as a lyre-player, you'd recognize horses ridden well or badly. But if I asked you — by which art do you recognize well-ridden horses, Ion, as a horseman or as a lyre-player? — what would you answer me? ION: As a horseman, I'd say. SOCRATES: And if you could also tell good lyre-playing from bad, you'd agree that you tell it apart as a lyre-player, and not as a horseman. ION: Yes. SOCRATES: Now since you understand military matters, do you understand them as a skilled general, or as a good rhapsode? ION: I don't see that it makes any difference.
SOCRATES: What do you mean — no difference at all? Do you say the rhapsode's art and the general's are one art, or two? ION: One, I think. SOCRATES: So whoever is a good rhapsode happens also to be a good general? ION: Absolutely, Socrates. SOCRATES: And whoever happens to be a good general is also a good rhapsode? ION: No, I don't think that follows. SOCRATES: But you do think the other way round — that whoever is a good rhapsode is also a good general? ION: Certainly. SOCRATES: And you're the best rhapsode among the Greeks? ION: By far, Socrates. SOCRATES: And are you also the best general among the Greeks, Ion? ION: Rest assured, Socrates — and I learned that from Homer too. SOCRATES: Then why, in the gods' name, Ion, when you're the best of the Greeks at both things, generalship and rhapsody, do you go around performing as a rhapsode for the Greeks, but not commanding as a general? Or do you think the Greeks have great need of a rhapsode crowned with a golden wreath, but none at all of a general? ION: Well, my city, Socrates, is ruled and commanded by you Athenians and has no need of a general of its own; and your city, and the Spartans', wouldn't choose me as general — you people think yourselves quite capable. SOCRATES: My excellent Ion, don't you know Apollodorus of Cyzicus? ION: Which one is that? SOCRATES: The one the Athenians have often chosen as their general, though he's a foreigner. And Phanosthenes of Andros, and Heraclides of Clazomenae, whom this city, though they were foreigners, has raised to generalships and other offices once they showed themselves worth taking seriously — yet Ion of Ephesus, they won't choose as general and honor, if he shows himself worth taking seriously? Come now — aren't you Ephesians originally Athenians, and isn't Ephesus inferior to no city? But look here, Ion — if what you say is true, that it's by art and knowledge that you're able to praise Homer, you're doing me wrong. You promised me you knew many fine things about Homer and said you'd give a display, but you're deceiving me and are far from giving any display — you won't even say what these things are that you're supposedly clever about, though I've been begging you for so long,
SOCRATES: but you simply turn into every shape, like Proteus, twisting this way and that, until at last, slipping away from me, you turn up as a general — just so you won't have to display how clever you are at Homeric wisdom. So if you really do have expertise and are deceiving me after promising to give a display about Homer, you're doing wrong. But if you have no expertise, and it's by divine allotment, possessed by a power from Homer, that you say many fine things about the poet without knowing anything — as I said about you before — then you do no wrong at all. Choose, then, which you'd rather be thought by us — a man who does wrong, or a man touched by the divine. ION: There's a great difference, Socrates — it's far finer to be thought touched by the divine. SOCRATES: Then this finer thing is available to you from us, Ion — to be, not a man of skill, but a divinely inspired praiser of Homer.
SOCRATES: Coming from the marketplace, Menexenus, or where? MENEXENUS: From the marketplace, Socrates, and from the council-house. SOCRATES: And what would bring you to the council-house of all places? Or is it obvious — you think you've reached the summit of education and philosophy, and that you're well enough equipped now to turn to bigger things, and you intend, wonder that you are, to start ruling over us older men, young as you are, so that your household never fails to produce someone to look after the rest of us? MENEXENUS: If you let me, Socrates, and advise me to take office, I'll be eager to. But if not, I won't. As it is, though, I went to the council-house because I heard the council is about to choose who will speak over the dead — you know they're going to hold the funeral. SOCRATES: Certainly. But who did they choose? MENEXENUS: No one — they put it off until tomorrow. I expect Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
SOCRATES: Well, Menexenus, in many ways it does seem to be a fine thing to die in war. Even a poor man gets a beautiful, splendid funeral for it, and even a worthless one gets praised — praised by men who are wise, and who don't praise carelessly but have their speeches prepared long in advance, speeches so beautifully crafted that, whether or not the qualities they mention actually belong to each man, they dress everything up in the loveliest words and cast a spell over our souls. They praise the city in every conceivable way, praising those who died in the war, praising all our ancestors before them, and praising us who are still living — so that, for my part, Menexenus, I feel positively noble when I'm being praised by them, and every time I stand there entranced, listening, spellbound, believing that on the spot I've become taller, nobler, and better-looking. And as usual there are generally some foreigners with me who listen along, and in front of them I become even more dignified on the spot — because they seem to me to feel the very same thing, both about me and about the city as a whole, thinking it more marvelous than they did before, persuaded by the speaker. And this sense of my own dignity stays with me for more than three days — the words and the very sound of the speaker's voice sink so deep into my ears that it's only on the fourth or fifth day that I come back to myself and realize where on earth I am; until then I practically believe I'm living on the Isles of the Blessed. That's how skillful our public speakers are. MENEXENUS: You're always making fun of the public speakers, Socrates. But this time I think whoever gets chosen won't have an easy time of it — the choice has come up so suddenly that the speaker will probably be forced to improvise on the spot, so to speak. SOCRATES: Why do you say that, my friend? Each of these men has speeches already prepared, and besides, it isn't even hard to improvise something like this. If someone had to speak well of Athenians before Spartans, or Spartans before Athenians, that would call for a good speaker, one able to persuade and win approval. But when someone competes before the very people he's praising, there's nothing impressive about speaking well. MENEXENUS: You don't think so, Socrates? SOCRATES: No, by Zeus, I don't. MENEXENUS: Do you think you'd be able to speak yourself, if it were needed and the council chose you? SOCRATES: It wouldn't be at all surprising if I were able to speak, Menexenus, since I happen to have a teacher who's no mediocre hand at rhetoric — indeed she's produced many other fine public speakers, and one who stands out above all the Greeks: Pericles, son of Xanthippus. MENEXENUS: Who is she? Or clearly you mean Aspasia?
SOCRATES: Yes, her — and Connus, son of Metrobius, too. Those are my two teachers, one in music, the other in rhetoric. It's no wonder a man raised that way would be formidable at speaking. But even someone trained worse than I was — taught music by Lamprus and rhetoric by Antiphon of Rhamnus — could still manage to win praise speaking of Athenians before an Athenian audience. MENEXENUS: And what would you have to say, if you had to speak? SOCRATES: On my own, from myself, probably nothing. But just yesterday I was listening to Aspasia working through a funeral oration on this very subject. She'd heard exactly what you're telling me now, that the Athenians were about to choose their speaker; and she went through part of it for me on the spot, the sort of thing one ought to say, and part of it she'd worked out earlier — I think it was when she was composing the funeral speech that Pericles delivered, stitching together various leftover scraps from that one. MENEXENUS: Could you actually remember what Aspasia said? SOCRATES: I should be able to, unless I do her wrong — I learned it from her directly, in fact, and nearly got a beating when I kept forgetting it. MENEXENUS: Then why not go through it? SOCRATES: Because I'm afraid my teacher will be angry with me if I make her speech public. MENEXENUS: Don't worry about that, Socrates — just tell it, and you'll do me a great favor, whether you want to call it Aspasia's speech or anyone else's. Just tell it. SOCRATES: But you'll probably laugh at me, if I strike you as an old man still playing games. MENEXENUS: Not at all, Socrates — tell it, by any means. SOCRATES: Well, I suppose I do have to indulge you — so much so that if you asked me to strip and dance, I'd probably indulge you in that too, seeing as we're alone. All right, listen. As I recall, she began speaking from the dead themselves, something like this: 'In deed, these men here have received what is fitting for them, and having received it they travel the journey appointed by fate, sent forth in procession jointly by the city and privately by their own families. But in speech, the law commands that the remaining honor be paid to these men, and it is right that it should be. For when deeds have been nobly done, a fine speech creates for those who did them memory and honor in the minds of those who hear it. There is need, then, of a speech that will adequately praise the dead and kindly counsel the living — urging their children and brothers to imitate the virtue of these men here, and comforting their fathers and mothers, and any ancestors still further back who remain.'
SOCRATES: What kind of speech, then, would seem right to us for this? Or where should we rightly begin in praising good men, who by their virtue delighted their own people while they lived, and who traded their death for the safety of the living? It seems to me we should praise them in accordance with nature, in the same way they came to be good. They became good because they were born of good stock. Let us praise, first, their good birth; second, their nurture and education; and after that, let us display the accomplishment of their deeds, showing how fine and worthy of these origins it was. Now the first foundation of their good birth was the origin of their ancestors, which was not that of immigrants, nor did it show these descendants to be settlers in the land who had come from elsewhere, but rather natives of the soil, truly dwelling and living in their own fatherland, nurtured not by a stepmother, as others are, but by the very mother-country in which they lived — and now, in death, they lie in the family plots of the land that bore them, raised them, and took them back. It is most just, then, to honor first that mother herself; for in doing so we honor at the same time the good birth of these men. And this land deserves to be praised by all humankind, not only by us, for many reasons, but first and greatest because it happens to be beloved by the gods. Our claim is borne out by the very contest and judgment of the gods who once disputed over her; and if the gods themselves praised her, how could all humanity not rightly join in praising her too? A second praise she rightly deserves is this: in that age when the whole earth was bringing forth and producing living creatures of every kind, beasts wild and tame, our land in that very time showed herself barren of savage beasts and pure, and out of all creatures she chose and brought forth man, who surpasses the rest in understanding and alone among them recognizes justice and the gods. And a great proof of this claim is that this earth bore the ancestors of these men and of us. For everything that gives birth has, ready at hand, nourishment fitting for what it bears — by which a woman too is shown, whether she has truly given birth or not, if she has no springs of milk for the child.
SOCRATES: And this is exactly the proof our land and mother offers, that she truly gave birth to human beings: she alone, first and at that time only she, brought forth food fit for humans, the fruit of wheat and barley, by which the human race is nourished most beautifully and best, as genuine proof that she herself had truly given birth to this creature. And it is more fitting to accept such proofs on behalf of earth than on behalf of a woman — for it is not the earth that has imitated woman in conceiving and bearing, but woman that has imitated the earth. Nor did she keep this fruit jealously to herself, but shared it with the rest of humankind as well. After this she brought forth the olive, help for their labors, and gave it to her children; and having nursed and raised them to maturity, she brought in gods to rule and teach them — whose names it's proper to leave unspoken here, since we know them — gods who set our life in order both for our daily living, having first taught us crafts, and for the defense of our land, teaching us the acquisition and use of arms. Having been born and raised in this way, the ancestors of these men settled here and established a constitution, which it's right to mention briefly. For a constitution is the nourishment of human beings — a good one nourishing good men, its opposite nourishing bad ones. So it's necessary to show that our forebears were raised under a good constitution, one through which both those men of old and the men of today are good — among whom these fallen men here belong. For the very same constitution existed then as now, an aristocracy, under which we live now and have lived, as a rule, ever since that time. One person calls it a democracy, another something else, whatever pleases him, but in truth it is an aristocracy exercised with the approval of the majority. For we always have kings — sometimes by birth, sometimes elected — but control of the city rests for the most part with the people, who grant offices and power always to those judged best, and no one is excluded for weakness, poverty, or obscurity of birth, nor honored for the opposites of these, as happens in other cities; there is one single standard: whoever is judged wise or good rules and holds power. And the cause of this constitution of ours is our equal birth.
SOCRATES: Other cities are made up of people of every sort, unequal to one another, so that their constitutions too are unequal — tyrannies and oligarchies — and some people there regard each other as slaves, others as masters. But we and our own, all born brothers of a single mother, do not think it right to be slaves or masters of one another; rather, our natural equality of birth compels us to seek equality under the law, and to yield to one another on no other ground than a reputation for virtue and wisdom. For this reason, the fathers of these men, and our own, and these men themselves, raised in complete freedom and nobly born, have displayed many fine deeds before all humankind, both privately and publicly, believing it their duty to fight for freedom — for the Greeks against the Greeks, and against the barbarians on behalf of all Greece together. Now, how they defended themselves against Eumolpus and the Amazons when they invaded our land, and against still earlier attackers, and how they came to the aid of the Argives against the Cadmeans and of the Heraclids against the Argives — this would take too long to tell properly for the time we have, and poets have already sung their virtue beautifully in verse and made it known to all; so if we were to try to dress up the same deeds in plain prose, we would probably come off second best. For this reason, then, I think it best to leave these matters aside, since they already have their due honor. But of the deeds for which no poet has yet won fitting fame for worthy men, and which still lie forgotten, of these I think we should make mention, praising them and inviting others to set them fittingly to song and other poetry, as befits those who did them. The first of these I mean is this: the Persians, who ruled Asia and were enslaving Europe, were checked by the descendants of this land, our own forebears — and it is right and necessary, in speaking of them first, to praise their virtue. One must picture it, if one is to praise it properly, as it stood in that age, when all of Asia was already enslaved to a third king in succession: the first of whom, Cyrus, freed the Persians, his own people, by his own force of spirit, and in the same act enslaved their former masters the Medes, and ruled the rest of Asia as far as Egypt;
SOCRATES: The son of Darius took over Egypt and Libya as far as he could reach, and Darius, third in line, fixed the empire's land border at the Scythians, and with his fleets ruled the sea and the islands, so that no one was thought his match. All men's minds were enslaved to him -- so many great and warlike peoples had the Persian empire brought under the yoke. Darius then, charging us and the Eretrians with plotting against Sardis as his pretext, sent fifty thousand men in transports and warships, three hundred ships in all, with Datis in command, and told him to come back bringing the Eretrians and the Athenians, if he wanted to keep his head. Datis sailed to Eretria against men who were, at that time, among the most respected of the Greeks for their skill in war, and no small number either, and he subdued them in three days. Then he combed the whole territory so that no one could escape, in this fashion: his soldiers went to the borders of Eretrian land, spread out from sea to sea, joined hands, and swept through the entire country, so that they could report to the king that not one person had gotten away. With the same plan in mind they sailed down from Eretria to Marathon, confident that they could yoke the Athenians to the same fate and lead them off along with the Eretrians. Some of this they had already done, some they were still attempting, when no Greek came to help either the Eretrians or the Athenians except the Spartans -- and they arrived a day after the battle. Everyone else, panic-stricken, content just to survive for the moment, sat still. It is in a moment like that one would come to know the true worth of the men who met the barbarian's power at Marathon, who checked the arrogance of the whole of Asia, and who were the first to set up trophies over barbarians, becoming leaders and teachers to the rest of Greece that Persian power was not invincible after all, but that every mass of men and every store of wealth yields to courage. I say those men are fathers not only of our bodies but of our freedom and the freedom of everyone on this continent. It was with that deed before their eyes that the Greeks later dared to risk the battles that followed for their own survival, as pupils of the men of Marathon.
SOCRATES: So the first prize in this speech must go to those men, and the second to the ones who fought and won at sea off Salamis and Artemisium. About these men too one could say a great deal -- what attacks they withstood, on land and on sea, and how they beat them back. But what strikes me as their finest achievement, I will mention: they completed the work the men of Marathon had begun. The men of Marathon had shown the Greeks only this much, that it was possible on land for the few to beat back the many barbarians; but at sea it was still an open question, and the Persians had a reputation for being unbeatable there, given their numbers, their wealth, their skill, and their strength. So this deserves praise in the men who fought that sea battle: that they dissolved the fear that came next for the Greeks, and stopped them fearing the sheer mass of ships and men. So it happened, through both groups -- the fighters at Marathon and the sailors at Salamis -- that the rest of Greece was schooled: by the one on land, by the other at sea, taught and trained not to fear the barbarians. Third I count the action at Plataea, in numbers and in courage a bulwark of Greek survival -- and this time it was a joint achievement of Spartans and Athenians. So all these men beat back the greatest and hardest danger, and for that courage they are praised now by us and will be by those who come after. But after this, many Greek cities still sided with the barbarian, and the king himself was reported to be planning to attack the Greeks again. So it is only right that we remember these men too, who put the finishing touch on the survival begun by their predecessors, sweeping and driving every trace of the barbarian from the sea. These were the men who fought at sea off the Eurymedon, who campaigned to Cyprus, who sailed to Egypt and to many other places -- men we must remember and thank, because they made the king turn his attention to his own survival instead of scheming to destroy the Greeks.
SOCRATES: This war, then, was drained to the dregs by the whole city, on behalf of itself and the rest of the Greek-speaking world, against the barbarians. But once peace came and the city was honored, there fell upon her what tends to befall men who are doing well -- first envy, and from envy, resentment; and this is what drew even this city, against her will, into war with other Greeks. After this a war broke out, and our men fought the Spartans at Tanagra for the freedom of the Boeotians; the battle's outcome was in doubt, but the later engagement settled it: the Spartans went off home, abandoning the Boeotians they had come to help, while our men, three days later, won at Oenophyta and rightly restored the men who had been unjustly driven out. These were the first, after the Persian war, to help fellow Greeks against Greeks in the cause of freedom, proving themselves good men and freeing those they helped, and for that they were honored by the city and laid first in this tomb. After this a great war broke out, with all the Greeks marching against us, ravaging our land, and repaying the city with gratitude she did not deserve; our men beat them in a sea battle, took their Spartan commanders prisoner at Sphagia, and though they could have put them to death, spared them, gave them back, and made peace -- holding that against people of one's own kind the war should go only as far as victory, and that a city's private anger should not be allowed to destroy the common good of the Greeks, while against barbarians it should go all the way to destruction. These men deserve praise, who fought this war and lie here, because they showed -- if anyone still doubted that in the earlier war against the barbarians there were better men than the Athenians -- that such a doubt was groundless. For here, amid the factional strife of Greece, they proved themselves victors in war, subduing the very leaders of the other Greeks, the same men with whom they had once jointly defeated the barbarians -- now beating them on their own.
SOCRATES: A third war followed this peace, unforeseen and terrible, in which many brave men died and lie here -- many around Sicily, who set up countless trophies for the freedom of the Leontines, sailing to those parts to help them, bound by oath; but because of the length of the voyage the city fell into difficulty and could not keep supplying them, and for that reason, abandoned, they met disaster. Yet their very enemies, the men who fought against them, hold them in higher regard for restraint and courage than their own friends do for other men. Many others died in the sea battles around the Hellespont, who in a single day captured every enemy ship, and won many other battles besides. What I called terrible and unforeseen about this war is this: that the rest of the Greeks came to such a pitch of rivalry against our city that they dared to send envoys to their bitterest enemy, the king whom we had jointly driven out, and bring him back again on their own, a barbarian against Greeks, and to gather against the city both Greeks and barbarians together. It was then that the city's strength and courage became plain for all to see. For when everyone thought she was already beaten, with our ships trapped at Mytilene, our men went to the rescue with sixty ships, manning the vessels themselves, and, proving themselves by common consent the bravest of men, defeated the enemy and freed our own -- yet met with an undeserved fate, and lie here still, never recovered from the sea. We must always remember and praise them: by their courage we won not only that sea battle but the war as a whole, for because of them the city gained the reputation that she could never be beaten, even by the whole world combined -- and that reputation proved true. It was by our own internal division that we were defeated, not by anyone else; we remain, even now, undefeated by them; we ourselves defeated ourselves, and we ourselves were the ones beaten. After this, when calm and peace came with the rest of the world, our own private war was fought in such a way that, if it is truly fated for men to fall into civil strife, no one could pray for his own city to suffer it in any gentler form.
SOCRATES: For from the Piraeus and from the city itself, the citizens came together with one another so gladly and so much like kin, against all the expectations of the rest of the Greeks, and they settled the war against the men at Eleusis with such moderation. And the sole cause of all this was nothing other than the true kinship among them, providing a firm and unified friendship not in word only but in deed. We should also remember those who died at one another's hands in this war, and reconcile them, so far as we are able, with prayers and sacrifices, on occasions like this one, praying to those who hold power over them, since we ourselves have already been reconciled. For they did not turn on one another out of wickedness or hatred, but out of misfortune. We ourselves, the living, are witnesses of this: being of the same stock as they were, we grant one another forgiveness both for what we did and for what we suffered. After this, when peace came to us in full, the city kept quiet, forgiving the barbarians, since, having suffered badly at her hands, they had defended themselves adequately and not too little, but indignant with the Greeks, remembering how, after being treated well by her, they repaid her -- joining forces with the barbarians, stripping her of the ships that had once saved them, and tearing down the walls in return for our having kept theirs from falling. Resolving never again to defend Greeks enslaving one another, nor Greeks against barbarians, the city lived on in that spirit. While we were of this mind, the Spartans, thinking that the guardians of freedom had fallen and that it was now their own task to enslave the rest, set about doing just that. Why go on at length? What followed did not happen long ago, nor to men of a distant past -- we ourselves know how the leading states of Greece, Argos, Boeotia, and Corinth, came in terror to seek our city's help, and, most remarkable of all, how the king himself was reduced to such straits that his only hope of survival lay in this very city he had once been so eager to destroy. And indeed, if anyone wished to bring a just charge against our city, the only true charge he could bring would be this: that she is always too tender-hearted, too much a nurse to the weaker side.
SOCRATES: And so, at that moment too, she could not hold firm and keep to what she had resolved—to help no one against enslavement who had once wronged us. She bent, and she helped. By her own aid she freed the Greeks from slavery, so that they were free men until they enslaved one another again; but the King himself she did not dare to help openly, out of shame before the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea. Still, by merely allowing exiles and volunteers to go to his aid, she saved him—everyone admits it. Then, having rebuilt her walls and her fleet, she accepted the war when war was forced on her, and fought the Spartans in defense of the Parians. But the King grew afraid of our city when he saw the Spartans giving up the fight at sea; wanting to withdraw, he demanded the Greeks of the mainland—the very ones the Spartans had handed over to him before—as his price for fighting alongside us and the other allies, expecting we would refuse, so that he would have his excuse for pulling out. About the other allies he was mistaken: the Corinthians, the Argives, the Boeotians, and the rest were quite willing to hand them over, and made a compact and swore to it—if he would supply the money, they would surrender the Greeks of the mainland. We alone could not bring ourselves either to hand them over or to swear. So firm and sound, you see, is the nobility and freedom of our city, so instinctive its hatred of the barbarian, because we are purely Greek, with no barbarian admixture. No Pelopses live among us, no Cadmuses, no Aegyptuses or Danauses, none of the many who are barbarian by nature and Greek only by convention; we live here as Greeks ourselves, not half-barbarians, and that is why an undiluted hatred of foreign blood is bred into the city. Even so, we were left standing alone once more, because we refused to do a shameful and unholy thing—to hand Greeks over to barbarians. Having come round, then, to the same position from which we had been beaten down before, with God's help we brought that war to a better end than the last one: we came out of it with our ships, our walls, and our own colonies intact, so that the enemy were glad enough to be out of it too.
SOCRATES: Yet in this war also we lost brave men—those who met rough ground at Corinth and treachery at Lechaeum. Brave too were the men who set the King free and drove the Spartans from the sea. I recall these men to you; and it is fitting that you join me in praising and honoring such men. So much, then, for the deeds of the men who lie here, and of all the others who have died for the city. Many fine things have been said, and many more and finer remain unsaid; whole days and nights would not be enough for the man who set out to tell it all. Remembering them, then, every man should charge their descendants, as one does in battle, not to desert the post their ancestors held, and not to fall back into retreat, yielding to cowardice. I myself, sons of brave men, give you that charge now, and in time to come, wherever I meet one of you, I will remind you and urge you on: be eager to be your best. But at this moment it is right that I tell you what your fathers, whenever they were about to face danger, enjoined us to report to those left behind, should anything happen to them. I will tell you what I heard from their own lips, and what they would gladly say to you now if they had the power—judging from what they said then. You must imagine you are hearing their own voices in what I report. This is what they said: 'Children, that you come of brave fathers, this present occasion itself declares. We could have lived without honor; we chose instead to die with honor, rather than bring you and those after you into disgrace, and rather than shame our own fathers and all our line before us; for we hold that life is unlivable for the man who shames his own, and that no man and no god is friend to such a one, whether on the earth or, once he is dead, beneath it. Remember our words, then, and whatever else you pursue, pursue it with virtue, knowing that without virtue everything acquired and everything undertaken is shameful and base. Wealth brings no beauty to the man who holds it in cowardice—such a man is rich for someone else, not for himself—and beauty of body and strength, when they dwell in a coward and a villain, look not fitting but unfit: they make their owner more conspicuous and show up his cowardice.'
SOCRATES: 'And all knowledge, cut off from justice and the rest of virtue, shows itself as cunning, not wisdom. For these reasons make it your effort, first and last and always, in every way and with all your zeal, above all to surpass both us and those before us in glory. If you do not, know this: if we defeat you in virtue, our victory brings us shame, while defeat, if we are defeated, brings us happiness. And we would most surely be defeated, and you victorious, if you make yourselves ready not to trade on the reputation of your ancestors and not to spend it away, knowing that for a man who thinks himself something, nothing is more shameful than to offer himself up for honor not on his own account but on the strength of his ancestors' fame. Honors won by parents are a fine and magnificent treasure for their children; but to use up a treasure of wealth and honors and hand nothing on to one's children, for want of possessions and good repute of one's own, is shameful and unmanly. If you practice these things, you will come to us as friends coming to friends, whenever your appointed portion carries you here; but if you neglect them and turn coward, no one will receive you kindly. To our children, then, let this be said. As for our fathers, those of us who still have them, and our mothers, they must be encouraged, always, to bear the calamity as lightly as they can, if it should indeed befall—not to join them in lamenting; they will need no one to stir their grief, for the misfortune itself will supply enough of that. Rather, healing and soothing them, remind them that the gods have heard their greatest prayers. For they did not pray for immortal sons, but for good and glorious ones; and these, the greatest of goods, they obtained. That everything in his own life should turn out to his liking is not easy for a mortal man. By bearing their misfortunes bravely they will be seen as truly the fathers of brave sons, and brave themselves; but if they give way, they will raise the suspicion either that they are not our fathers, or that those who praise us speak falsely. Neither must happen. They above all must be our praisers in deed, showing themselves plainly what they are—true men, fathers of men. The old saying, nothing too much, has long seemed well said; and in truth it is well said.'
SOCRATES: 'For the man whose whole road to happiness, or nearly so, runs through himself—who does not hang suspended on other people, forced to drift as his fortunes drift with theirs, for better or worse—for him life is best provided. He is the temperate man, he is the brave and the sensible one; he it is who, as money and children come and are lost again, will most obey the proverb: he will be seen neither rejoicing nor grieving too much, because he trusts in himself. Such men we expect our own people to be; such we wish them and declare them; and such we now show ourselves, neither resentful nor overly afraid if we must die at this present hour. We ask, then, of our fathers and mothers that they live out the rest of their lives in this same spirit, and know that they will not please us most by wailing and mourning over us. If the dead have any awareness of the living, this is how they would most fail to please us—by hurting themselves and taking their misfortunes hard; lightly and with measure, that is how they would please us best. For our part, our lives will now have the ending that is finest for human beings, so that it is more fitting to honor it than to mourn it. But if they turn their care to our wives and children, providing for them and directing their minds there, they will best forget their bad fortune and live more nobly, more rightly, and more as we would love them to live. This message is enough from us to our families. To the city we would give this charge: to care for our fathers and our sons—educating the sons in good order, and keeping the fathers in an old age worthy of them. But as it is, we know that even without our charge, her care will be enough.' These things, children and parents of the dead, they enjoined us to report, and I report them as earnestly as I can; and on their behalf I make my own request—that the sons imitate their fathers, and that the parents take heart on their own account, since we will nourish your old age and care for you, both privately and publicly, wherever any of us meets any of yours.
SOCRATES: As for the city's care, you know it yourselves: she has made laws concerning the children and the parents of those who die in war, and cares for them; the highest office of all is charged, above all other citizens, to see that the fathers and mothers of these men suffer no wrong. Their children the city joins in raising herself, striving to make their orphanhood as little felt as may be, taking on the role of a father to them herself while they are still boys; and when they come to a man's estate she sends them off to their own affairs, arrayed in full armor, showing them and reminding them of their father's ways by giving them the instruments of their father's valor—and at the same time, for the omen's sake, that each may first set foot on his ancestral hearth to rule there in strength, adorned in arms. And the dead themselves she never fails to honor: year by year she herself performs for all in common the rites that are performed for each man privately, and beyond this she holds contests of athletics and horsemanship and music of every kind—standing, quite simply, in the place of heir and son to the fallen, of father to their sons, of guardian to their parents, keeping every kind of care over all of them through all time. Keeping this in mind, you should bear the calamity more gently; so would you be dearest both to the dead and to the living, and easiest both to comfort and to be comforted. And now that you and all the rest have together made lament for the dead as the law directs, go your ways. There, Menexenus, is the speech of Aspasia of Miletus. MENEXENUS: By Zeus, Socrates, Aspasia is a lucky woman by your account, if she can compose speeches like that—and a woman at that. SOCRATES: Well, if you don't believe it, come with me and hear her speaking yourself. MENEXENUS: I have met Aspasia many times, Socrates. I know what she is like. SOCRATES: Well then? Don't you admire her, and aren't you grateful to her now for the speech? MENEXENUS: I am very grateful indeed, Socrates, for this speech—to her, or to him, whoever it was that recited it to you. And for many other things besides, I am grateful to the one who recited it. SOCRATES: That's all very well—only don't give me away, and then I'll report many more fine political speeches of hers to you. MENEXENUS: Don't worry, I won't give you away. Just keep reporting. SOCRATES: It shall be done.
SOCRATES: Someone was telling us just now about Cleitophon, son of Aristonymus — that in conversation with Lysias he was disparaging the time spent with Socrates, and praising to the skies his sessions with Thrasymachus. CLEITOPHON: Whoever told you that, Socrates, reported the conversation I had with Lysias about you inaccurately. Some of what I said was not praise, true, but some of it was. And since it's plain that you hold this against me, while pretending not to care in the least, I'd be glad to go through it with you myself, now that we happen to be alone, so that you'll think less badly of me. Because as it stands you've probably heard a garbled version, which is why you seem to be treating me more roughly than I deserve. But if you'll let me speak freely, I'd be very glad to, and I'm willing to say it all.
SOCRATES: It would be shameful of me not to put up with it when you're eager to do me some good. Obviously, once I learn in what respects I'm worse and in what respects better, I'll practice and pursue the one and flee the other with all my strength. CLEITOPHON: Then listen. I, Socrates, in my many conversations with you, used to be astonished at what I heard, and you seemed to me to speak more beautifully than anyone else alive, whenever you rebuked people — like a god on the tragic stage's crane, chanting: 'Where are you rushing off to, men? Don't you realize you're doing none of what needs doing — you who spend all your energy making sure you'll have money, but give no thought to whether the sons you'll leave it to will know how to use it justly; you find them no teachers of justice, if indeed it can be taught — or if it's to be gained through practice and exercise, no one to train and drill them in it properly; nor, even earlier than that, did you look after yourselves in this way. Yet seeing that you and your children have learned your letters, music, and gymnastics well enough — things you consider a complete education in excellence — and then noticing that you're no less corrupt where money is concerned, why don't you hold your present education in contempt, and go looking for people who will cure you of this tastelessness? And yet it is because of this very disharmony and carelessness — not because of any mismatch between foot and lyre — that brother quarrels with brother and city with city, clashing without measure and without harmony, warring and doing and suffering the worst things. And you claim that the unjust are unjust not from lack of education or ignorance, but willingly — yet in the same breath you dare to say that injustice is shameful and hateful to the gods. How, then, could anyone willingly choose so great an evil? Whoever is worse, you say, is mastered by his pleasures. But isn't that too involuntary, if winning is voluntary? So the argument proves, every way you look at it, that doing wrong is involuntary, and that every man, privately and every city publicly together, ought to give far more attention to this than they now do. Now, Socrates, whenever I hear you saying these things often, I marvel at them and I praise them wonderfully. And likewise when you go on to say that people who train their bodies but neglect their souls are doing something similar — neglecting the ruler and fussing over the ruled. And when you say that whoever doesn't know how to use a thing is better off leaving it unused — that if someone doesn't know how to use his eyes, or his ears, or his whole body, it's better for him not to hear, not to see, not to make any other use of his body at all than to use it just any old way.
CLEITOPHON: And the same goes for a craft: whoever doesn't know how to use his own lyre obviously doesn't know how to use his neighbor's either, and whoever can't use others' tools can't use his own, nor any other instrument or possession. And this argument of yours comes to its fine conclusion: that whoever doesn't know how to use his soul is better off keeping it still and not living, than living and acting on his own initiative — and if he really must live, it's better for such a person to spend his life as a slave than as a free man, handing over the rudder of his thinking to someone else, to one who has learned the art of governing men, which you, Socrates, so often call statesmanship, saying that this very same thing is also judicial skill and justice. Now to these arguments and countless others like them, all beautifully put — that excellence can be taught, and that everyone ought to care for himself before anything else — I have pretty much never objected, and I don't think I ever will; I consider them most exhorting and most useful, truly like someone waking us from sleep. So I paid close attention to what came next, expecting to hear more — questioning, not you first, Socrates, but your age-mates, your fellow enthusiasts, your companions, or however one ought to name them to you. I questioned first those thought by you to amount to something in particular, asking what the next step in the argument was, and putting it to them in something like your own manner: 'My good friends,' I said, 'how exactly are we now to take up Socrates's exhortation to excellence? Is this all there is to it — that we can never fully pursue the matter and grasp it completely, but that this will be our task for our whole lives, to exhort those not yet exhorted, and they in turn others? Or must we, after agreeing that this is what a person should do, go on to ask Socrates and one another what comes next — how are we supposed to begin learning about justice? It's as if someone had urged us to take care of our bodies, seeing us give no thought to the matter, like children, though there is such a thing as gymnastics and medicine, and then reproached us, saying it's shameful to take every care over wheat and barley and vines, and everything else we labor for and acquire for the body's sake, yet discover no craft or device for making the body itself as good as possible, even though one exists.
CLEITOPHON: 'And if we then asked the person exhorting us this: what do you say these crafts are? — he would probably answer, gymnastics and medicine. So now what do we say is the craft concerned with excellence of the soul? Let it be named.' The one among them who seemed strongest on this point, answering, told me that this craft is the very one you speak of, Socrates — none other than justice. And when I said, 'Don't just tell me the name, explain it like this: there's a craft called medicine; it produces two results — one, it continually trains up more doctors in addition to those already there; the other is health. But only the second of these is not itself a craft — it's the product of the craft that both teaches and is taught, and that product we call health. And likewise with carpentry: a house is one thing, carpentry itself is the other — the one is the product, the other the teaching. So with justice too, in the same way: one thing is to make people just, as in that case the craft makes craftsmen; but the other thing, the product the just man is able to produce for us — what do we call that? Tell me.' This man, I think, answered 'the advantageous'; another said 'the fitting'; another 'the beneficial'; another 'the profitable.' I came back saying that in each of the crafts too there are such names — acting correctly, profitably, beneficially, and so on — but toward what end all of these point, each craft will state its own special product: carpentry, for instance, will say the good, the fine, the fitting, resulting in wooden furniture being made, which is not itself a craft. Let the same be said, then, about justice. Finally one of your companions, Socrates — the one who seemed to me to put it most cleverly — answered that this was the special product of justice, belonging to no other craft: the creation of friendship in cities. But when asked further, he said that friendship is a good thing and never bad, and he refused to accept, when pressed, that the friendships of children or of animals — which we also call by that name — really counted as friendship; for it turned out that such friendships are mostly harmful rather than good. Fleeing that difficulty, he said such things aren't friendships at all, and that people who call them that are using the word falsely; the true and genuine friendship, he said, is most precisely concord. Asked then whether by concord he meant agreement of opinion or of knowledge, he rejected agreement of opinion as unworthy, since many harmful agreements of opinion arise among people; but since he had already agreed that friendship is entirely a good thing and the product of justice, he ended up saying that concord and knowledge are the same thing, not opinion.
CLEITOPHON: When we had reached this impasse in the argument, the others present were quick to rebuke him, saying that the argument had circled right back to where it started — for medicine, too, they said, is a kind of concord, as is every craft, and each can say what it concerns; but the justice or concord you speak of, Socrates — where it tends, has escaped us, and it's unclear what its product actually is. In the end, Socrates, I put this same question to you yourself, and you told me that the work of justice is to harm one's enemies and benefit one's friends. But later it turned out that the just man never harms anyone at all — that everything he does, he does for everyone's benefit. I've endured this, not once or twice but for a long time now, pressing the point, until I've given up — concluding that you, of all people, exhort men most beautifully to care for excellence, but that one of two things must be true: either you can do only this much and nothing further — the same thing that could happen with any other craft, as when someone who isn't really a pilot has rehearsed a fine speech in praise of piloting, how valuable it is to men, and the same with any other craft — someone might level the same charge at you regarding justice, that you're no more knowledgeable about justice itself just because you praise it so beautifully. That's not quite how I see it myself, though; rather, one of two things is true: either you don't know it, or you're unwilling to share it with me. For this reason I think I'll go to Thrasymachus, and anywhere else I can, still at a loss. Because if you're willing to stop giving me these exhortations and instead — just as, if you had urged someone to take care of his body and not neglect it, you would then go on, after the exhortation, to describe the particular care that body by nature required — let the same happen now. Take it that Cleitophon agrees it's ridiculous to look after everything else and neglect the soul, for whose sake we labor over all the rest; and take it that I've said everything else that follows from this, just as I went through it a moment ago. And I beg you: please don't do otherwise, so that I won't end up, as I do now, praising you to Lysias and to others in some respects and criticizing you in others. For I won't say, Socrates, that to a man not yet exhorted you're not worth everything in the world — but to one who has already been exhorted, you're very nearly an obstacle to his reaching the end of excellence and becoming happy.
SOCRATES: What is law, for us? COMPANION: What sort of law do you mean by that question? SOCRATES: What do you mean? Does one law differ from another precisely in respect of being law? Consider what I'm actually asking you. It's as if I had asked what gold is, and you had asked me in return what sort of gold I meant — I don't think that would be a fair question to ask back. Gold doesn't differ from gold, nor stone from stone, in respect of being stone or being gold. In the same way, no law differs from any other law in that respect — they're all the same thing. Each of them is law in exactly the same way, not one more so and another less so. So this is exactly what I'm asking: what is the whole of it, law? If you have an answer ready, tell me. COMPANION: What else could law be, Socrates, than the things that are customarily held? SOCRATES: Do you think that speech is the same as the things spoken, or sight the same as the things seen, or hearing the same as the things heard? Or is speech one thing and the things spoken another; sight one thing and the things seen another; hearing one thing and the things heard another — and so too, is law one thing and the things customarily held another? Which do you think? COMPANION: Now that you put it that way, I see they're different. SOCRATES: Then law is not the things customarily held. COMPANION: I don't think it is.
SOCRATES: Then what could law be? Let's look at it this way. If someone asked us, following up on what we just said — since you claim that sight is what sees the things seen, what is sight, that it sees by means of it? — we'd answer that it's that perception which reveals things to us through the eyes. And if he then asked, well, since hearing is what hears the things heard, what is hearing, that it hears by means of it? — we'd answer that it's that perception which reveals sounds to us through the ears. So too, if he asked us — since law is what makes customary the things that are held customary, what is law, that it makes them customary by means of it? — is it some kind of perception, or a revealing, the way things learned are learned by knowledge revealing them? Or is it some kind of discovery, the way things found are found — as, say, what's healthy and what's diseased are found by medicine, and what the gods intend, as the diviners say, by divination? For a craft, I take it, is a discovery of things — isn't that right? COMPANION: Certainly. SOCRATES: Then which of these should we suppose law most resembles? COMPANION: These decrees and resolutions — that's what it seems to me. What else would anyone say law is? So it looks as though what you're asking about, the whole of it, law, is a city's decree. SOCRATES: You mean, it seems, that law is a political opinion. COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: And perhaps you're right. But let's see if we can get a better grip on it this way. Do you speak of certain people as wise? COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: And the wise are wise by wisdom? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the just are just by justice? COMPANION: Certainly. SOCRATES: And the law-abiding are law-abiding by law? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the lawless are lawless by lawlessness? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the law-abiding are just? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the lawless are unjust? COMPANION: Unjust. SOCRATES: So justice and law are the finest things? COMPANION: So it seems. SOCRATES: And injustice and lawlessness the most shameful? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the one preserves cities and everything else, while the other destroys and overturns them? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then we must think of law as being something fine, and seek it as something good. COMPANION: Of course. SOCRATES: But didn't we say law was a city's decree? COMPANION: We did. SOCRATES: Well then — aren't some decrees good and others bad? COMPANION: They are indeed. SOCRATES: And yet law, at least, was not something bad. COMPANION: No, it wasn't. SOCRATES: So it isn't right to answer, simply like that, that law is a city's decree. COMPANION: I don't think it is. SOCRATES: A bad decree, then, could not fittingly be law. COMPANION: No indeed. SOCRATES: And yet it does seem to me, too, that law is some kind of opinion. Since it isn't the bad opinion, isn't it already clear that it must be the good one, if law is opinion at all? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And what is a good opinion? Isn't it the true one?
COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And isn't the true opinion a discovery of what is? COMPANION: It is. SOCRATES: Then law aims at being a discovery of what is. COMPANION: But then, Socrates, if law is a discovery of what is, why don't we always use the same laws about the same things, if the things that are have already been discovered by us? SOCRATES: Law aims no less at being a discovery of what is — but people who don't always use the same laws, it seems, are simply not always able to discover what the law is aiming at, namely what is. Come, let's see whether it becomes clear to us from this whether we always use the same laws or different ones at different times, and whether everyone uses the same ones or different peoples different ones. COMPANION: Well, that at least isn't hard to see, Socrates — that neither do the same people always use the same laws, nor do different peoples use the same ones as each other. Take us, for instance: it isn't our law to sacrifice human beings — it's unholy — but the Carthaginians sacrifice them, thinking it holy and lawful for them, and some of them even sacrifice their own sons to Kronos, as you've probably heard too. And it isn't only that foreign peoples use different laws from us — the people of Mount Lykaion and the descendants of Athamas, Greeks though they are, perform the kinds of sacrifices they do! And you know too, I think, from hearing about it yourself, what customs we ourselves once used to follow regarding the dead — slaughtering victims before the corpse was carried out, and sending for the women who pour the libations; and before that, people even earlier still used to bury their dead right in the house — we do none of that now. One could mention countless things of this kind; there's plenty of room to show that neither do we ourselves always hold to the same customs, nor do people hold to the same customs as each other. SOCRATES: It's no wonder at all, my good man, if you're right and this has escaped me. But as long as you speak your mind at length on your own, and then I speak mine, we'll never come to agreement, I think. If instead we set the inquiry up as something shared, we might well agree. So if you're willing, examine it together with me by questioning me; or if you'd rather, by answering me. COMPANION: I'm willing to answer whatever you like, Socrates. SOCRATES: Come then — do you think just things are unjust and unjust things just, or that just things are just and unjust things unjust?
COMPANION: I think just things are just and unjust things unjust. SOCRATES: And isn't that held the same way everywhere as it is here? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Even among the Persians? COMPANION: Even among the Persians. SOCRATES: Always, I suppose? COMPANION: Always. SOCRATES: And are heavier-weighing things held to be heavier here, and lighter ones lighter, or the reverse? COMPANION: No — heavier-weighing things are heavier, lighter ones lighter. SOCRATES: And the same in Carthage and on Mount Lykaion? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Fine things, it seems, are held fine everywhere, and shameful things shameful — never shameful things fine or fine things shameful. COMPANION: So it is. SOCRATES: So, speaking universally, what is is held to be, not what is not — both among us and among all other peoples. COMPANION: So it seems to me. SOCRATES: Then whoever misses what is, misses what is lawful. COMPANION: Put the way you put it, Socrates, that does appear to be lawful for us always and for others too. But when I think about how we never stop moving our laws around, up and down, I can't be persuaded. SOCRATES: Perhaps you're not noticing that when these things get shifted about, like pieces on a board, they remain the same. Let's look at it this way instead. Have you ever come across a treatise on the health of the sick? COMPANION: I have. SOCRATES: Do you know which craft this treatise belongs to? COMPANION: I do — medicine. SOCRATES: And you call those who have knowledge of these matters doctors? COMPANION: I do. SOCRATES: Now, do those with knowledge hold the same views about the same things, or different people different things? COMPANION: They hold the same views, I think. SOCRATES: Do only Greeks hold the same views as other Greeks, or do foreigners too, as regards what they know, hold the same views both among themselves and with the Greeks? COMPANION: It's surely a great necessity that those who know hold the same views among themselves, whether Greek or foreign. SOCRATES: Well answered. And always, too? COMPANION: Yes, always. SOCRATES: And doctors write treatises about health according to what they hold to be so? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So these writings of doctors are medical matters and medical laws. COMPANION: Medical, certainly. SOCRATES: And are writings on farming, then, farming laws? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Whose, then, are the writings and rules concerning the working of gardens? COMPANION: Gardeners'. SOCRATES: So these are gardening laws for us. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Belonging to those who know how to govern gardens? COMPANION: Of course. SOCRATES: And gardeners know how. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And whose are the writings and rules about the preparation of food? COMPANION: Cooks'. SOCRATES: So these are cooking laws? COMPANION: Cooking laws.
SOCRATES: Belonging, it seems, to those who know how to govern the preparation of food? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And cooks know how, as they say? COMPANION: They do know. SOCRATES: Very well — whose, then, are the writings and rules about the management of a city? Aren't they those of people who know how to govern cities? COMPANION: I think so. SOCRATES: And does anyone know this besides statesmen and kings? COMPANION: Those, and no others. SOCRATES: So these writings, which people call laws, are political matters — the writings of kings and good men. COMPANION: True. SOCRATES: And surely those who know won't write different things at different times about the same matters? COMPANION: No. SOCRATES: Nor will they ever change to different rules about the same things? COMPANION: No indeed. SOCRATES: So if we see anyone anywhere doing this, shall we say those who do it are people who know, or people who don't know? COMPANION: People who don't know. SOCRATES: And whatever is correct, we'll say is lawful for each craft, won't we — the medically correct, or the cooking-correct, or the gardening-correct? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And whatever is not correct, we'll no longer call lawful? COMPANION: No longer. SOCRATES: It becomes unlawful, then. COMPANION: It must. SOCRATES: So too in writings about just and unjust things, and generally about how a city should be ordered and governed — what is correct is a king's law, and what is not correct is not, even though it seems to be law to those who don't know; for it is in fact unlawful. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So we were right to agree that law is a discovery of what is. COMPANION: So it appears. SOCRATES: Now let's consider this further point too, along the same lines. Who has the knowledge to distribute seed over land? COMPANION: A farmer. SOCRATES: And does he distribute the seed fitting to each piece of land? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So the farmer is a good distributor of these things, and his rules and distributions concerning them are correct? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And who is a good distributor of notes in a melody, allotting what is fitting? And whose rules are correct in that? COMPANION: The flute-player's and the lyre-player's. SOCRATES: So the one most skilled in rule-making in this domain is the one most skilled at flute-playing. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And who is best at distributing nourishment to human bodies? Isn't it the one who distributes what is fitting? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: So his distributions and rules are the best, and whoever is most skilled in rule-making about these things is also the best distributor. COMPANION: Certainly. SOCRATES: Who is this?
COMPANION: A trainer. SOCRATES: And he's the best at herding the human herd, as far as the body goes? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And who is best at herding a flock of sheep? What's he called? COMPANION: A shepherd. SOCRATES: So the shepherd's rules are the best rules for sheep. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And the cowherd's rules are best for cattle. COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: And whose rules are best for the souls of men? Isn't it the king's? Say it. COMPANION: I do say it. SOCRATES: Well put. Now, can you tell me who among the ancients turned out to be a good lawgiver where flute-music is concerned? Perhaps it doesn't occur to you—shall I remind you? COMPANION: Please do. SOCRATES: Isn't it said to be Marsyas, and his beloved Olympus the Phrygian? COMPANION: True. SOCRATES: Their tunes are the most godlike of all, the only ones that stir people and reveal who stands in need of the gods; and even now they're the only tunes still left to us, because they're divine. COMPANION: That's so. SOCRATES: And who among the ancient kings is said to have become a good lawgiver, whose ordinances still stand today because they are divine? COMPANION: I can't think of one. SOCRATES: Don't you know which Greeks live under the oldest laws? COMPANION: You mean the Spartans, and Lycurgus their lawgiver? SOCRATES: But that's hardly three hundred years old, or a little more. Where do the best parts of their code come from—do you know? COMPANION: They say from Crete. SOCRATES: So the Cretans live under the oldest laws of all the Greeks? COMPANION: Yes. SOCRATES: Then do you know which of their kings were good ones? Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa—these are their laws. COMPANION: They do say, Socrates, that Rhadamanthus was a just man, but that Minos was some savage, harsh, unjust fellow. SOCRATES: You're telling an Athenian story, my good man, and a tragic one at that. COMPANION: What, isn't that what's said about Minos? SOCRATES: Not by Homer and Hesiod, at any rate—and they're more trustworthy than the whole pack of tragedians you've been listening to. COMPANION: Well, what do they say about Minos, then?
SOCRATES: I'll tell you myself, so that you don't end up impious like most people. There's nothing more impious, nothing that calls for more caution, than sinning in word or deed against the gods—and second to that, against godlike men. So one must always take great care, whenever one is about to blame or praise a man, not to speak wrongly. That's exactly why we need to learn to tell good men from bad. For the god feels resentment when someone blames a man like himself or praises a man of the opposite character—and the good man is like the god. Don't imagine that stones and timber and birds and snakes can be sacred, but not men—no, the most sacred thing of all these is the good man, and the vilest is the bad one. So now, about Minos, and how Homer and Hesiod actually praise him, I'll explain—so that being a mere man yourself, you don't sin in speech against a hero, a son of Zeus. Homer, speaking of Crete, says there are many people there and ninety cities, and among them—'there is Knossos, a great city, where Minos, in his ninth year, reigned as the confidant of great Zeus.' Now this is Homer's praise of Minos, spoken briefly, but of a kind he gives to no other hero. That Zeus is a wise teacher and that this craft of his is a splendid thing, Homer makes clear in many other places, and here too. For he says that Minos kept company with Zeus in conversation every ninth year, going to be instructed as if by a wise teacher. That this honor—having been educated by Zeus himself—is one Homer assigns to no other hero but Minos, is itself a stunning compliment. And in the Odyssey, in the underworld scene, he has Minos, not Rhadamanthus, holding a golden scepter and passing judgment; he never once shows Rhadamanthus judging there, nor keeping Zeus's company anywhere. That's why I say Minos, of all men, has been praised by Homer more than anyone. For being a son of Zeus and being educated by Zeus alone leaves no room for higher praise—that's what the line means, 'in his ninth year he reigned as the confidant of great Zeus'—that Minos was Zeus's companion in conversation. For 'oaroi' means conversations, and a confidant, an 'oaristes,' is one who converses closely with another. So every ninth year Minos would go up to the cave of Zeus, partly to learn, partly to demonstrate what he had learned from Zeus in the previous nine years.
SOCRATES: Now there are some who suppose that this 'confidant' means a drinking companion and playmate of Zeus, but here's a proof that those who think so are talking nonsense: among the many peoples, Greek and foreign alike, there is no one who abstains from drinking parties and that kind of amusement where wine is involved, except the Cretans, and the Spartans second, who learned it from the Cretans. And in Crete this is one of the laws Minos laid down—not to drink together to the point of drunkenness. Clearly, then, whatever he believed to be admirable, that he set down as law for his own citizens too. He wasn't, like some worthless man, believing one thing and doing another contrary to his beliefs—no, that companionship with Zeus was, as I say, conversation aimed at education in virtue. That's exactly why he laid down these laws for his citizens, laws thanks to which Crete has flourished for all time, and Sparta too, ever since it began following them, since they are divine laws. Rhadamanthus, for his part, was a good man—for he had been educated by Minos. But he had been trained not in the whole art of kingship, but only in a service subordinate to it, namely presiding over the courts; hence he was said to be a good judge. Minos employed him as guardian of the laws in the city itself, and for the rest of Crete he used Talos. Talos went around the villages three times a year guarding the laws there, carrying them written on bronze tablets—hence he was called 'bronze.' Hesiod, too, says things akin to this about Minos. Recalling his very name, he says: 'who became the most kingly of mortal kings, and ruled over the most neighboring peoples, holding the scepter of Zeus; by it he ruled over many cities.' Here too, the scepter of Zeus is nothing other than the education that came from Zeus, by which he guided Crete rightly. COMPANION: Then why, Socrates, has this reputation spread about Minos, that he was some uneducated, harsh man?
SOCRATES: For the very reason that you too, my good man, if you're wise, will be careful about—and every man who cares for his good name should take care never to make an enemy of any poet. For poets have great power over reputation, depending on which way they choose to treat people—whether praising or slandering. And this is exactly the mistake Minos made: he went to war against this city, where there is a great deal of wisdom besides, and poets of every kind, in other genres and in tragedy especially. Tragedy is an old art here—it didn't begin with Thespis, as people think, nor with Phrynichus; if you care to reflect, you'll find it a very old invention indeed, belonging to this city. And tragedy is the most crowd-pleasing and soul-stirring form of poetry there is; and it's in tragedy that we take our revenge on Minos, stretching the truth, for forcing us to pay that tribute. So this was the mistake Minos made—making an enemy of us—and that is exactly why, as you ask, he has come to have a worse reputation. Since that he was in fact good and law-abiding—as we were saying before, a good herdsman—here is the greatest proof: his laws have remained unmoved, because he had truly discovered the truth about how a city should be run. COMPANION: What you say strikes me as plausible, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then if I'm right, does it seem to you that the Cretans, fellow citizens of Minos and Rhadamanthus, live under the very oldest laws? COMPANION: It appears so. SOCRATES: Then these men turned out to be the best lawgivers among the ancients, herdsmen and shepherds of men, just as Homer said a good general is a shepherd of his people. COMPANION: Certainly. SOCRATES: Come then, by Zeus, god of friendship—if someone asked us what a good lawgiver and herdsman does for the body, distributing which things to make it better, we would answer well and briefly: food and exercise, building it up with the one, training and knitting it together with the other. COMPANION: Quite right. SOCRATES: But if after that someone asked us, what exactly are those things which a good lawgiver and herdsman distributes to the soul to make it better—what could we answer without shame, given our age and standing? COMPANION: That I can no longer say. SOCRATES: And yet it is shameful for each of our souls that some things about it should be visible in which we're ignorant—the very things in which good and bad reside—while we've taken such care to examine the body's concerns, and other people's concerns besides.
CLINIAS: As for keeping our appointment, stranger, we've done it properly — the three of us here, myself and you and Megillus — to examine wisdom, and by what account we ought to explain what it is that, once thought through, makes the human condition as fine as a man can possibly make it with respect to wisdom. Everything else about lawgiving we've been through, as we say; but the greatest thing to discover and state — what a mortal man must learn to become wise — that we've neither stated nor discovered, and now we should try not to leave it out. We'd be leaving our whole undertaking unfinished if we don't make it plain from beginning to end. ATHENIAN: My dear Clinias, you're right to say so, but I think you're going to hear a strange account — and in a way, not strange at all. Many people who've had a rough time in life come out with the same claim, that the human race can never be blessed or happy. Follow along, then, and see whether you think I too am speaking well on this point, in agreement with them. I say it isn't possible for human beings to become blessed and happy, except for a few — I mean for as long as we're alive; but there's a fine hope of attaining, once we've died, everything for the sake of which one would be eager, while alive, to live as finely as possible, and, having died, to meet with just such a death. I'm not saying anything clever here, only what all of us, Greeks and non-Greeks alike, recognize in some fashion — that from the very start, coming into being is hard for every living thing: first there's a share in the condition of the unborn, then there's being born, and then there's being nourished and educated — all of this happens, as we all agree, through countless hardships.
ATHENIAN: And the time we get would be short indeed for reckoning — not the miserable part of it, but whatever anyone would judge the fair part. This seems to provide something like a breathing space around the middle of a human life; but old age, coming on quickly, would make anyone, once he reckoned up the life he'd lived, never wish to live it again — unless, that is, he happens to be full of childish notions. What's my evidence for this? That the very thing we're now seeking by argument is naturally so disposed. We're asking how we're to become wise, on the assumption that each of us has this capacity somehow; yet it runs away in flight whenever someone approaches some form of wisdom — one of the so-called arts, or bodies of practical knowledge, or other such things we take to be sciences — as though none of these deserved to be called by the name of wisdom where human affairs are concerned, while the soul is quite confident and divines that it does have some such capacity by nature, but can't quite discover what it is, or when, or how. Doesn't our perplexity and search concerning wisdom closely resemble this — turning out, for each of us capable of examining ourselves and others sensibly through every kind of argument stated in every way, to exceed our hope? Shall we agree that this is so, or something like it? CLINIAS: We'll agree, stranger, in the hope that in time, together with you, we may eventually form the truest opinion about it. ATHENIAN: Then we must first go through the other things that are called sciences but don't make wise the person who acquires and possesses them, so that, having set these aside, we can try to lay out those we need, and having laid them out, learn them. First, then, of the things a mortal race needs first, let's see that they are indeed the most necessary and, in a real sense, the first — yet the person who becomes expert in them, even if at the start he was thought wise, is now thought not wise at all, and gets more reproach than anything from that kind of knowledge.
ATHENIAN: We'll say what they are, and that pretty much every man who has any contest before him — over seeming to have turned out as fine a man as possible — flees them because of the possessions that come with intelligence and pursuit of it. Let there be, first, the eating of one animal by another — the myth tells us it turned some of us away from that altogether, and settled others into lawful eating. May our forebears be gracious to us, both then and now — whoever they were, let them be greeted first — but the making of barley-meal and flour, along with the nourishment it provides, however fine and good, will never make a man wise all the way through. That very thing, the name 'making,' would produce distaste in the things made. Nor, pretty much, does farming, over the whole land — for it's not by art but by nature, under god's ordering, that all of us are seen to have handled the earth. Nor again the whole business of weaving houses together, all building, and the manufacture of every kind of implement, metalwork and the equipment of carpentry and modeling and weaving and every other tool besides — useful to the people, but not spoken of with a view to virtue. Nor the whole art of hunting, though it has become extensive and skillful, does it grant grandeur together with wisdom. Nor does divination, nor interpretation at all — for these only know what is said, not whether it's true. Once we see that the acquisition of necessities is achieved through art, yet none of these makes anyone wise, what would be left after this is a kind of play — mostly imitative, and nowhere serious. For people imitate with many instruments, and with the postures of their own bodies, not always graceful imitations — in speech and in every form of the Muses' art, and whatever painting mothers forth, with many varied patterns worked out in many wet and dry materials. Of these, imitation offers not a single person who works at anything with the utmost seriousness and turns out wise. And once all these are done, what's left would be countless kinds of help for countless needs — the greatest, and useful for the most purposes, being what's called warfare, the general's art, most esteemed for its usefulness, needing the greatest luck, and given by nature more to courage than to wisdom.
ATHENIAN: And the art they call medicine is likewise, in a sense, a kind of help — for all the ways in which the seasons plunder the nature of living things with untimely cold and heat and all such things. None of this is esteemed for the truest wisdom, for it proceeds by guesswork, without measure, forming conjectures. We'll call helpers, too, both the pilots and the sailors together, and let no one, trying to console us, report to us that any man among all of these is wise — for no one could know the wind's temper or its favor, which is dear to the whole art of piloting. Nor, again, all those who claim to become helpers in lawsuits through strength of speech, giving their minds over to memory and practiced habits of opinion, while missing the truth of what is really just, straying outside it. There remains still, in popular opinion, a strange sort of power that most people would call nature rather than wisdom — whenever someone is observed to learn easily whatever he learns, and to remember a great deal of it securely, and, when he calls to mind what is fitting for each occasion, what would be proper as it comes about, does this quickly. All of this some will call nature, others wisdom, others a natural quickness of mind, but no sensible person will ever be willing to call any of these truly wise. And yet some science must clearly be shown to exist, possessing which the person who is truly wise, and not merely reputed so, would become wise. Let's look, then. We're undertaking a difficult inquiry altogether — to find, apart from what's been mentioned, another thing which could truly and reasonably be called wisdom, and whose possessor will be neither a vulgar craftsman nor a fool, but through it will be a wise and good citizen, ruler and ruled alike, justly and harmoniously, at once. Let's look first, then, at this: what single science, out of human nature, if it were taken away or had never been present among those now available to us, would render the human animal the most senseless and mindless of all creatures. This, at least, isn't very hard to see. One thing above all others, one might say, would do this to the whole mortal race — the thing that gives it number. I believe it's a god, rather than any chance, who gave it to us for our preservation.
ATHENIAN: Which god I have in mind must be said, strange as it is — and yet in a way not strange at all. For how could we fail to hold that the cause of all good things for us is also the cause of the greatest good by far, wisdom? Which god, then, am I honoring and naming, Megillus and Clinias? Pretty much Uranus, Heaven, whom it is most just — as it is for all the other divine powers and gods together — to honor and pray to above all. That he has been the cause of all our other good things, we would all agree; and that he gave us number as well, we for our part truly say he did, and will go on giving it, if anyone is willing to follow along. For if one turns to a correct contemplation of him — whether one prefers to call him cosmos, or Olympus, or Heaven, let him call him what he pleases, but let him follow how, by adorning himself and turning the stars within himself, he provides all their circuits, the seasons, and nourishment for everything. And so too the rest of wisdom, we'd say, along with number entire, and all the other good things; and this is the greatest — if someone, having received his gift of numbers, goes on through the whole cycle. Let's go back a little in our argument and recall that we were quite right to think that if we removed number from human nature, we could never become wise in anything. For the soul of this creature could hardly attain any virtue at all, if it were deprived of reason; and a creature that does not recognize two and three, nor odd and even, but is wholly ignorant of number, could never give an account of the things of which it has only perceptions and memories — though nothing prevents it from having the rest of virtue, courage and self-control. But deprived of true reason, it could never become wise, and whoever lacks wisdom, the greatest part of all virtue, could never become fully good, and so could never become happy. Thus number must absolutely be assumed as a foundation; why this is necessary would take a still longer account than everything said so far. But this much can rightly be said now — that the things attributed to the other arts, which we've just gone through, granting them all to be arts, none of them holds up at all; everything is left utterly behind, once someone takes arithmetic away.
ATHENIAN: One might perhaps suppose that the human race needs number for only a few purposes, looking to the arts — and yet that alone would be a great thing. But if one were to see the divine and the mortal in coming-into-being, in which reverence for the divine and true number will both be recognized, one would no longer fail to see how great a power number, once it joins with us, is the cause of for us in every respect — since it's plain that even in the whole art of music, motion and pitch must be counted through — and, greatest of all, that it's the cause of all good things, and of no evil, this must be well understood, and it could soon be so. But whatever motion is more or less irrational and disordered, unshapely and without rhythm and unharmonious, and everything that has a share in any evil, is lacking in number entirely, and this is how the man who means to end his life happily must think of it. And no one who doesn't know the just and the good and the beautiful and all such things, even if he has grasped a true opinion of them, will ever be able to reckon them out so as to persuade himself or another of it altogether. Let's go on, then, and consider this very point — how did we learn to count? Come now: whence did the one and the two come to us, so that we could conceive of them, given the nature we have from the whole, such as to be capable of understanding? Many other living creatures, in turn, have not even been endowed by nature with this much, so as to be capable of learning to count from their parent, whereas in us this very thing god settled first of all, so that we'd be capable, when shown, of grasping it — and then he showed it, and goes on showing it. Of these things, what could one behold more beautiful, one against one, than the class of day — and then, going into the portion of night, having sight, from which everything else would appear to him as different? And by revolving these same things without ever stopping, many nights and many days, which Heaven turns, he never stops teaching human beings one and two, until even the slowest learner learns to count adequately — for as with three and four and many, each of us would come to understand it by watching these. And out of these god fashioned and made the moon one thing, which, appearing now larger, now smaller, passed through, each time showing a different day, up to fifteen days and nights; and this is a cycle, if one wants to reckon the whole circuit as one — so that, so to speak, even the slowest-learning creature could learn, to whom god gave a nature capable of learning.
ATHENIAN: And up to this point, and in these matters, every animal capable of it has become quite good at counting, so far as counting each thing by itself goes. But to reckon number in relation to number, everywhere and always — that, I think, is for something greater, and it was for this purpose, as we said, that god made the moon wax and wane, and so put together months to make up a year, and every kind began to see number in relation to number, by a happy stroke of luck. Because of this we have crops and a pregnant earth, so that there is food for all living things, with winds and rains coming that are not excessive or immoderate. But if anything besides this turns out badly, we should blame not divine nature but human nature, for failing to distribute its own life justly. Well, as we have been inquiring about laws, it seemed to us, roughly, that the other things are easy to know — the best things for human beings — and anyone would be capable of understanding and doing what is said, if he knew what is likely to be beneficial and what is not. And it seemed then, and still seems now, that all the other pursuits are not especially difficult, but how people are to become good — that is entirely difficult. And again, all the other good things are easy to acquire, as the saying goes, both possible and not hard — as much property as one needs and no more, and a body of the right sort and no other. But that the soul must be good, everyone agrees with everyone; yet as to how it is to be good — that it must be just, moderate, and courageous, people agree to that much too — but that it must be wise, everyone says it must, yet as to what sort of wisdom, as we have just gone through, no one any longer agrees with anyone else on that point, among the many. Now then, alongside all the previous forms of wisdom, we are discovering one that is no small thing, precisely in this respect: that the one who has learned what we have gone through is held to be wise. But whether the one who has knowledge of these things is truly wise and good — of that we must give an account. CLEINIAS: Stranger, how fitting it was of you to say that you are attempting to speak greatly about great matters. ATHENIAN: Yes, for they are not small matters, Cleinias — and what is harder still is that they are altogether and in every way true. CLEINIAS: Very much so, stranger. But all the same, do not grow weary of saying what you mean to say. ATHENIAN: Yes — and you two must not grow weary of listening either. CLEINIAS: That will be so. I speak for both of us.
ATHENIAN: Well said. From the beginning, then, it seems we must first say, if we possibly can grasp it in a single name, what this wisdom is that we believe it to be; and if we are quite unable to do that, then second, what the various kinds of it are, and how many, such that a person who has grasped them would be wise, according to our account. CLEINIAS: Do go on. ATHENIAN: What comes next, then, is something the lawgiver may say without blame — namely, to speak, better and more fittingly than what has been said before about the gods, in the manner of one engaging in noble play and honoring the gods, passing his own life in hymns and in happiness. CLEINIAS: Well said indeed, stranger. If this were the goal of your laws — to play before the gods and pass one's life more purely — one would meet the best and finest end at the same time. ATHENIAN: How then, Cleinias, shall we put it? Do we think that in hymning the gods we honor them greatly, praying that the finest and best things about them come to us as we speak of them? Is that how you would put it, or how? CLEINIAS: Wonderfully put, just so. But, my good man, trusting in the gods, pray and speak the account that comes to you concerning the beautiful things about the gods and goddesses. ATHENIAN: So it shall be, if the god himself guides us. Only join me in prayer. CLEINIAS: Go on to what comes next. ATHENIAN: We must, it seems, first give a better account of the birth of the gods and of living creatures than those who came before us gave — since they pictured it badly — taking up again what I attempted to say against the impious, declaring that there are gods who care for all things, small and great alike, and are all but inexorable concerning matters of justice — if indeed you remember, Cleinias; for you were given reminders of it too — for what was said then was quite true. And the greatest point of it was this: that soul, every soul, is older than body, every body. Do you remember? Or is this at any rate certain? For what is better, older, and more godlike is likely to be prior to what is younger and newer and less honorable, and what rules is everywhere older than what is ruled, and what leads is older than what is led in every way. Let us take this, then, as settled: that soul is older than body.
ATHENIAN: If this is so, then the first thing about the first stage of coming-to-be would, I think, already have been established more plausibly for us. And let us take it that the beginning of the beginning has been handled more fittingly, and that we are stepping most correctly onto the greatest matters concerning the wisdom of the birth of the gods. CLEINIAS: Let it stand as said, as far as we are able. ATHENIAN: Come then — shall we say that this is what is truly said, in accordance with nature, to be a living creature: when a single combined union of soul and body brings forth a single form? CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: And such a thing is most rightly called a living creature? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And solid bodies, according to the likely account, must be said to be five in number, from which one might fashion the finest and best things, while every other kind has but a single form; for there is nothing bodiless that could come to be otherwise, nor anything that has any color at all — except the truly most divine kind, that of soul. And this is, in a sense, the only thing to which it belongs to fashion and create, while body, as we call it, is that which is fashioned and comes to be and is seen; and the other — let us say it again, for it must not be said only once — is invisible, and knows and is known by thought, partaking of memory and calculation amid changes both odd and even together. There being five bodies, then, we must say there are fire, water, and third air, fourth earth, and fifth aether, and that out of the dominance of each of these, in turn, many and varied kinds of living creatures are produced. We must learn this one by one, in this way. Let us set down as our first single kind the earthy: all human beings, and everything with many feet or no feet, and everything that moves about or stays fixed, held apart by roots. But we must think of this as its unity — that all these things come from all these kinds together, though the greater part of it is of earth and of a solid nature. We must set down a second kind of living creature, one that comes to be at the same time and is also capable of being seen; for it has the most of fire in it, yet it also has some earth and air, and small portions of all the others too, so that varied living creatures must be said to arise from them and to be visible. And again we must think of the kinds of living things throughout the heavens — the whole divine kind of the stars, we must say, has come to be with, perhaps, the fairest of bodies, and the happiest and best of souls. Of two lots, we should grant them a share in roughly one or the other: either each of them is, by every necessity, imperishable and immortal and wholly divine, or each has some long-lived life, sufficient for each of them, such that it would never need anything more.
ATHENIAN: Let us then first think through what we mean — that these are two such kinds of living creature, both visible — let us say it again — the one made wholly, it would seem, of fire, the other of earth; and the earthy one moves in disorder, while the fiery one moves in complete order. Now we should reckon the one that moves in disorder to be mindless — which is what the creature around us mostly does — while the one that moves in order and has its course fixed in the heavens should be taken as strong evidence of being intelligent; for a thing that always travels in the same way and along the same path, both acting and being acted upon, would give sufficient evidence of living intelligently. And the necessity belonging to a soul possessed of mind would be by far the greatest of all necessities — for it rules rather than being ruled, and so it legislates — and when a soul, deliberating in accordance with the best mind, resolves upon what is best, the result that actually follows is perfect in accordance with mind, and not even adamant could ever be stronger than this or less able to be turned aside; rather, in truth three Fates hold fast and guard as perfect whatever has been resolved by the best counsel for each of the gods. For human beings, the stars and this whole circuit of theirs ought to be evidence of possessing mind, in that they always do the same things, because they have long ago resolved to do them for some marvelous stretch of time, and do not keep changing their resolve, now this way, now that, acting differently at different times, wandering and shifting their course. But most of us have come to think the very opposite of this: that because they do the same things in the same way, they have no soul. So the multitude has followed after the mindless in thinking that the human, because it moves about, should be taken as intelligent and alive, while the divine, because it remains in the same courses, is mindless. Yet a man could take hold of the finer and better and more welcome view — that precisely because a thing acts always in the same way, the same manner, and for the same reasons, it must for that very reason be reckoned intelligent, and that this is the nature of the stars, fairest to behold, and performing, in the finest and most magnificent dance of all dances, what is fitting for all living things.
ATHENIAN: And indeed, that we rightly call them ensouled, let us first consider their size. For they are not, as they appear, small; each of them is truly immense in bulk — and this is worth believing, for it is grasped by sufficient demonstrations — for it is possible to think correctly that the sun as a whole is greater than the whole earth, and all the moving stars have some marvelous magnitude. Let us then grasp what manner it could be for some nature to carry around so great a bulk for the very same length of time it is now carried around. I say that god is the cause, and that it cannot possibly be otherwise; for a thing could never become ensouled by any other means than through a god, as we have declared. And since god is capable of this, it has been entirely easy for him, first, to make the whole body and mass of each creature come to be, and then to move it in whatever way he judges best. Now, concerning all these things, let us state one true account: it is not possible for earth and heaven and all the stars, and the masses composed of these, to make their way with such precision through the year, month by month and day by day, and for everything that happens to turn out good for all of us, unless soul has come to be present in each and every one, or within each — and yet, however inferior a human being may be, he ought to appear speaking clearly, at least, and not talking nonsense. If someone speaks of certain causes as mere currents of bodies, or natures, or something of the sort, he will say nothing clear. But what has been said by us must be firmly grasped again — whether our account holds together or fails altogether — namely, first, that the things that exist are two, soul and body, and many of each, and all of them different from one another, each from each, and there is nothing else, a third thing, common to any of them, and that soul differs from body: the one we shall posit as intelligent, the other as mindless; the one as ruling, the other as ruled; and the one as cause of all things, the other as not itself the cause of anything it undergoes. So that to say the things in the heavens have come to be by some other means, and are not thus the offspring of soul and body, would be great folly and unreason. If, then, the accounts about all such matters must prevail, and these things must be shown convincingly to have come to be divine, throughout, one of two things must be laid down concerning them:
ATHENIAN: Either we must hymn these things as gods themselves in the truest sense, or we must take them to be images of gods, set up like statues, made by the gods themselves — for they are not senseless things, nor worth little, but rather, as we have said, we must posit one or the other of these alternatives, and whichever we posit must be honored beyond all other statues. Never will there appear statues more beautiful and more universally shared by all mankind, set up in more varied places, surpassing in purity and majesty and in the whole of their life, than these, since they have come to be exactly as they are in every respect. So now let us undertake this much concerning the gods: having observed the two living beings visible to us — one of which we say is immortal, while everything earthly has come to be mortal — let us try to speak of the three middle kinds among the five, which fall between these, according to the most reasonable opinion we can form. Let us set aether just after fire, and hold that soul molds living beings out of it, having the power to do so, as with the other kinds — the greater part of its own nature, but smaller portions drawn from the other kinds for the sake of binding together. And after aether, let us hold that soul molds out of air a second kind of living being, and a third out of water. Once it has fashioned all of these, it stands to reason that soul fills the whole heaven with living beings, making use of every kind according to its power, all of them having come to share in life; and these run in second, third, fourth, and fifth ranks, beginning from the visible gods and ending, at last, in us human beings. As for the gods — Zeus and Hera and all the rest — let each person, however he wishes, hold to the same law regarding them, and let this account stand firm. But the visible gods, the greatest and most honored, seeing most keenly in every direction, we must call the first — the nature of the stars — and whatever else we perceive to have come into being along with them; and after these, and beneath them, in due order, the daemons, an airy race, holding the third and middle seat, the cause of interpretation between us and the gods — these it is very much needful to honor with prayers, for the sake of a safe and reverent passage through life.
ATHENIAN: Of these two kinds of living beings — the one made of aether, and next the one made of air, each being seen in its entirety when close at hand, though not clearly visible to us at present — sharing as they do in a wondrous intelligence, being of a race quick to learn and retentive of memory, let us say that they know the whole of our thinking, and that they embrace with wondrous warmth whoever among us is good and noble, and hate whoever is thoroughly wicked, since they already share in pain — for god, who possesses the perfection of the divine portion, stands outside of these things, outside pain and pleasure, though he shares fully in thought and knowledge. And since the heaven has thus become full of living beings, they interpret to one another, and to all the highest gods, all things and everyone, since these middle beings move both toward earth and through the whole heaven, borne along with a light rushing motion. As for the fifth kind, that of water, one would rightly guess it to be a kind of demigod, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden from sight and becoming unclear, presenting a marvel glimpsed but dimly. Now as for these five kinds of beings that truly exist, however anyone among us has encountered them — whether meeting them in a dream during sleep, or through reports and oracles told to some in their waking hours, whether healthy or sick, or to those who have come near the end of life — and from these encounters, opinions have arisen, privately and publicly, from which many sacred rites have come into being for many people, and others will come to be — concerning all of this, any lawgiver possessing even the least intelligence will never dare to introduce innovations regarding reverence for the gods when it lacks clear grounding, in a way that might unsettle his own city. Nor indeed will he forbid the sacrifices that ancestral law has prescribed, since he knows absolutely nothing about them — nor could mortal nature possibly know anything about such matters. And is it not the very same reasoning that holds that the gods truly manifest to us are treated most disgracefully by those who do not dare to speak of, and make plain to us, other gods who go without their rites and do not receive the honors owed to them? But in fact, this very thing is happening right now.
ATHENIAN: For imagine, for instance, if one of us had once seen the sun or moon coming into being, and watched them observing us all, and did not speak of it, being somehow unable to say anything, though he saw them lacking honor — and did not, for his own part, do his best to bring them into an honored position where they might be plainly seen, and to establish festivals and sacrifices for them, and, apportioning time to each, to allot the seasons of the years in greater or lesser measure, again and again — would not such a person, rightly speaking, be judged wicked both to himself and to anyone else who understood the matter? CLINIAS: How could it be otherwise, stranger? Utterly wicked. ATHENIAN: Well then, dear Clinias, know that this very thing is now plainly happening in my own case. CLINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: You know there are eight powers moving throughout the whole heaven, sisters to one another, which I myself have observed — and I have accomplished nothing great in this, for it is easy for anyone else to do the same — three of these are the sun, the moon, and the wandering stars we mentioned a little before, and there are five others besides. Let none of us ever suppose otherwise about all of these and about the beings within them, whether they move on their own or are carried along in vehicles as they travel their course — let none of us think that some of them are gods while others are not, nor that some are legitimate while others are of some sort that none of us may rightly even name — rather, let us all say and declare that all of them are brothers, sharing brotherly portions, and let us render honors without assigning a year to one, a month to another, and to others neither any portion nor any span of time in which each completes its own circuit, jointly bringing to completion that visible order which the most divine of all accounts has arranged. This order the fortunate man first marvels at, and then conceives a passionate longing to learn all that mortal nature is capable of learning, believing that in this way he will live out his life best and most happily, and that when he dies he will arrive at places befitting virtue, and having been truly and genuinely initiated, and having come to share in understanding, being one who has become one with the one, he will spend the time remaining to him as a beholder of the most beautiful things that can be seen. Now after this it remains for us to say how many these beings are, and what they are — for we must never appear to speak falsely. This much, then, I firmly maintain: I say again that there are eight, and of the eight, three have been named, and five still remain. The fourth motion and course — and likewise the fifth — is nearly equal in speed to the sun, and is on the whole neither slower nor faster. Given that these are three, one must have sufficient intelligence to grasp them as guides. Let us say that these belong to the sun, to the morning star, and to a third — one which we cannot name, since it is not commonly known, and the reason for this is that the first man to observe these things was a foreigner.
ATHENIAN: For it was an ancient custom that nourished the first people who conceived these things, on account of the beauty of the summer season, which Egypt and Syria possess in full measure, always seeing the stars, so to speak, plainly and altogether, since their sky is always free from clouds and rain — and from there this knowledge has spread everywhere, including here, tested over countless years, over boundless time. Therefore we should confidently set these matters into our laws — for to hold that some divine things are worthy of honor and others not clearly shows a lack of sense — but as for why they have not received names, this is the reason that must be given. Yet in fact they have received names taken from the gods: the morning star, being the same as the evening star, is reasonably identified with Aphrodite — and this fits well with a Syrian lawgiver — while the one that runs together with the sun and with this one belongs, more or less, to Hermes. Let us name three further courses of those traveling to the right along with the moon and the sun. And there is one more, the eighth, which one might most properly call the order of the universe, which travels opposite to all those others, not leading the rest, as it would appear to people who know little of these matters. Whatever we know sufficiently, we must state, and we do state it — for true wisdom appears in just this way, to whoever has even a small share of right and divine understanding. There remain three stars, of which one is distinguished by its slowness, and some call it by the name of Cronus; the next after it in slowness we must call the star of Zeus; and the one after that, of Ares, which of all of them has the most reddish color. None of this is difficult for anyone to grasp once someone explains it, but having learned it, as we say, one must follow along with understanding. Yet this much every Greek man must bear in mind: that we Greeks hold about the best position with respect to virtue among nearly all peoples; and what is praiseworthy about it must be said to be this — that it lies midway between winter and the nature of summer, whereas the nature of that other region, which lags behind us in summer heat, as we have said, has, later on, handed down to its people this understanding of the order of these gods of the universe. Let us take it, then, that whatever the Greeks receive from foreigners, they bring to a finer completion in the end.
ATHENIAN: And indeed concerning what is now being said, we must think this very same thing — that it is difficult to discover all such matters beyond dispute, yet there is much good hope that the Greeks will come to care for all these gods, in a way truly more beautiful and more just than the report and worship that has come from foreign peoples, making use of education and of the oracles from Delphi and of every form of worship prescribed by law. But let none of the Greeks ever fear this — that mortals ought never to concern themselves with divine matters — rather let everyone think the complete opposite: that the divine is never without understanding, nor is it ignorant of human nature in any way, but knows that when it teaches, humanity will follow along and learn what is taught. And that it teaches us this very thing — number, and how to count — surely it knows this too. For it would be the most senseless of all beings were it ignorant of this — for then, as the saying goes, it would truly be ignorant of itself, growing angry at one capable of learning, rather than rejoicing without envy when, through the god, someone comes to a good state. There is indeed a long and fine account to be given here — at the time when the first thoughts about the gods arose among men, of how they came to be and what they became, and what sort of deeds one of them undertook — an account not in keeping with sound minds, nor a friendly one, nor like that of those who came second, among whom the oldest things spoken of were fire and water and the other bodies, and only later the things of the wondrous soul, and the motion belonging to it, greater and more honorable, which body was allotted to carry by heating and cooling and all such means, rather than soul carrying both body and itself. But now, when we say that soul, whenever it comes to be within a body, moves and carries this body and itself around, it is no wonder, nor does soul distrust us on any reasonable ground, as though it were incapable of carrying any weight at all. Therefore now too, when we hold that soul is the cause of the whole, and that all good things are of one such sort, and bad things again of another sort like it, it is no wonder that soul is the cause of all motion and movement, and that the motion and movement toward the good belongs to the best soul, while that toward the opposite is its opposite — and that the good things must have prevailed, and must prevail, over those that are not such.
ATHENIAN: We have now said everything about the punishment that overtakes the impious. As for what we set out to establish, we cannot doubt that the good man must be wise, and that this wisdom, which we have long been seeking, we ought to see clearly, whenever we manage to conceive it, whether by education or by some skill — the wisdom whose lack leaves us ignorant of what is just, and, being such, unreasonable. I think we can see it, and it should be stated: for by searching high and low, wherever it has become clear to me, I will try to make it plain to you as well. The greatest part of virtue, when not practiced rightly, has, I think, been the cause of our trouble — as what has just been said strongly suggests to me. Let no one ever persuade us that anything is greater for mortal beings than reverence toward the divine; and we must say that this has failed to arise in the best natures because of the greatest ignorance. The best natures are those hardest to produce, yet of the greatest benefit when they do arise: for a soul that accepts what is slow and what is its opposite with moderation and gentleness would be easygoing, admiring courage, obedient toward self-control, and — most important — capable of learning within these very natures and retentive in memory, so that it could take real delight in these things and thereby become a lover of learning. Such natures are not easy to produce, and even when they are produced and receive the nurture and education they need, most of them, even the inferior ones among them, could be brought, through right thought, action, and speech concerning the gods, to do and say each thing as one should and when one should regarding sacrifices and purifications owed to gods and to men — not contriving through outward show, but honoring virtue in truth, which is indeed the greatest thing of all for the whole city. This, then, we say, is by nature the most authoritative part, and capable, if someone should teach it, of being learned as finely and as well as possible. But no one could teach it unless a god were guiding the way; and if someone does teach it, but does not do so in the proper manner, it is better not to learn it at all. Yet from what has now been said, it is necessary that I too learn to describe such a nature, and indeed the best one. Let us try, then, to go through in speech what these things are, of what sort, and how they must be learned, according to my ability as the speaker and the ability of those able to listen — by what manner one will learn true reverence toward the divine, and what it consists in.
ATHENIAN: It is perhaps a strange thing to hear, though we do name it ourselves — something no one would ever expect, out of unfamiliarity with the subject: astronomy. Whoever is ignorant of it does not realize that the true astronomer must be the wisest of men — not the one who does astronomy in Hesiod's fashion and like all such people, merely observing settings and risings, but the one who studies the seven circuits within the eight orbits, each one traveling its own circle in a way that no nature could easily come to observe unless it shared in a wonder beyond the ordinary. What we have just mentioned we shall also explain — as we say — in what way and how one must learn it. Let this be said first: the moon completes its own circuit fastest, marking out the month and the first full moon. Second, one must understand the sun, which completes its turnings throughout its whole circuit, and along with it those bodies that travel with it. And so that we do not repeat ourselves many times about the same things, the other paths we went through earlier are not easy to grasp; and in preparing natures capable of grasping them, one must, through much prior teaching and habituation, work at it constantly from childhood into youth. Hence there is need of certain studies. The greatest and first of these concerns numbers themselves — not numbers attached to bodies, but the whole generation and power of the odd and the even, and how much these contribute to the nature of things that exist. After learning these, next in order comes what people call by the quite ridiculous name of geometry — the likening, through numbers that are not naturally alike to one another, of the domain of plane figures, made evident; a wonder not human but manifestly divine to anyone able to grasp it. After this comes the study of numbers raised three times over and made like solid nature; and the further study that likens numbers which have become unlike one another, by another art, the one people who happened upon it called solid geometry — a thing divine and wonderful to those who look closely and reflect on how, as the power revolving always around the double, and its opposite counterpart, according to each proportion, shapes and forms the whole of nature.
ATHENIAN: The first proportion of the double, moving by ratio in numbers as one to two, while that expressed by power is the double of that; and the one extending into the solid and tangible is again double, proceeding from one to eight; while the mean between the double — equally exceeding the lesser and being exceeded by the greater, the one term exceeding and being exceeded by the same fraction of the extremes (and midway between six and twelve there occur the ratios of one-and-a-half and one-and-a-third) — this mean, turning in both directions between these very terms, has granted to humankind a use that is harmonious and well-proportioned, for the sake of play, rhythm, and harmony, given for the joyful dance of the Muses. Let all this, then, come about and stand as it is in this way. But beyond these things, the goal that follows is that we must proceed to the divine coming-into-being and to the fairest and most divine nature of visible things — as much as god has granted to men to behold; which nature no one, without having grasped what has just been set out, should ever hope to lay hold of easily. Beyond this, one must apply, in every gathering, the one alongside the many kinds, questioning and testing whatever has not been well said; for this becomes, in every way, the finest and truest touchstone for human beings, whereas all the labor of those who claim to test without truly doing so is the most futile of all. Further, we must grasp the precision of time, how precisely it brings to completion everything that happens in the heavens, so that one who has come to believe that this account is true — that the soul is both older and more divine than the body — may judge it altogether finely and adequately said that all things are full of gods, and that we are never overlooked through forgetfulness or neglect by the higher powers. And concerning all such matters one must understand this: that if one grasps each of them rightly, great benefit comes to the one who takes them up properly; but if not, it is always better to call upon god. And the manner is this — for this much at least must be stated — every diagram of number, every system of harmony, and the whole agreement of the revolution of the stars must be shown to be one single thing to the one who learns it in the proper way; and it will be shown, if, as we say, one learns rightly by looking to that one thing—
ATHENIAN: — for a single bond, naturally binding all these things together, will become apparent to those who reflect on it. But if anyone handles these matters in some other way, one must call it chance, as indeed we do say. For without these studies, no nature could ever become happy within cities; rather, this is the manner, this the nurture, these the studies — whether difficult or easy, this is the path one must travel. It is not permitted to neglect the gods, once the report concerning all of them, rightly told, has become plain and fortunate. The one who has grasped all these things in this way, him I call the truly wisest — of whom I insist, half in play and half in earnest, that when such a person fulfills his own portion by death, if indeed he still is once he has died, he will no longer share in the many perceptions he has now, but having partaken of a single portion only and having become one out of many, he will be happy and wisest and blessed all at once — whether he lives blessed on the mainland or on the islands — and he will forever share in such fortune, whether he pursues these things in public life or lives out his life privately; the same things, in the same way, he will receive from the gods. And what we said at the beginning still holds true now — that it is not possible for human beings to become completely blessed and happy except for a few — this has been rightly said. For as many as are divine and self-controlled, sharing by nature in the rest of virtue as well, and beyond this have grasped all that belongs to blessed learning — and we have said what that is — to these alone has everything belonging to the divine been sufficiently allotted and is possessed. To those, then, who have worked through these things in this way, we say, both privately and publicly we lay down by law, that when they reach the end of old age they must be handed the greatest offices; and that the rest, following along with them, should speak well of all the gods and goddesses together, and that the nocturnal council, having come to know and test this wisdom sufficiently, should rightly summon us all to it.
Plato to Dionysius, greetings. Having spent so much time with you, and having been entrusted with the administration of your government more than anyone else, while you people reaped the benefits, I put up with the slanders, hard as they were to bear — for I knew that none of the harsher measures would be thought to have been done with my consent; all who shared in your government are witnesses for me, many of whom I fought for and freed from no small penalties. And though I safeguarded your city time and again as a man with full authority, I was sent off with less honor than you owe even a beggar you're dismissing and ordering to sail away, after I had spent so long a time in your company. Well then, from now on I will manage my own affairs in a more guarded, less trusting way, while you, being the kind of tyrant you are, will live alone. As for the fine gold you gave me for my journey home, Baccheius, who carries this letter, is bringing it back to you; it was not enough to cover my travel expenses, nor of any use for the rest of my life, and it would bring the greatest disgrace on you, the giver, and not much less on me if I took it — so I am not taking it. It plainly makes no difference to you whether you give or receive such a sum, so take it back and use it to court some other companion, the way you courted me — for I have been courted quite enough by you already. And here I might fittingly quote Euripides, that if some other trouble should ever befall you — you will wish such a man were standing at your side. I want to remind you too that most of the other tragic poets, when they bring on stage a tyrant dying at someone's hand, make him cry out—
"Friendless, wretched, I am dying!" — but no one has ever shown a man dying for want of gold. And that other verse seems to men of sense not badly put: "Bright gold is not the rarest treasure in a mortal's uncertain life, nor adamant, nor silver couches dazzling to the eye when set before men for judging, nor the rich, self-sufficient acres of the broad earth's teeming soil — nothing is worth so much as the understanding shared among good men." Farewell, and know how far you have fallen short of us in this, so that you may deal better with others in the future.
Plato to Dionysius, greetings. I heard from Archedemus that you think not only I but also my close associates ought to keep quiet and refrain from doing or saying anything ill of you — except that you make Dion the one exception. Now this claim, that Dion alone is exempt, implies that I do not control my own associates; for if I really did control the others, and you, and Dion, in this way, there would be more good for all of us and for the rest of the Greeks besides — or so I maintain. But as things stand, my greatness consists in this: I offer myself as someone who follows his own reasoning. And I say this because Cratistolus and Polyxenus have not told you anything sound — one of them, they say, claims to have heard at Olympia a number of people in my company speaking ill of you. Perhaps his hearing is sharper than mine, for I heard nothing of the kind. What you ought to do from now on, it seems to me, is this: whenever anyone says such a thing about any of us, send me a letter and ask me directly — for I will neither hesitate nor be ashamed to tell you the truth. As for how things actually stand between you and me, they are like this: there is hardly a Greek to whom we are unknown, so to speak, and our association together is no secret. Nor should it escape you that it will not be kept secret in time to come either, since those who have inherited the story are the kind of people they are, given that it was no small or quiet affair. What, then, am I saying just now? I will explain, starting from the beginning.
It is the nature of things that wisdom and great power tend to come together, and that they are forever pursuing each other, seeking each other out, and keeping company. And besides, people take pleasure in discussing such pairs, both talking about them themselves and hearing others do so, both in private gatherings and in poetry. Take, for instance, whenever people talk about Hiero and Pausanias the Spartan — they enjoy bringing up Simonides' company with them, what he did and said in their presence. And they are in the habit of celebrating Periander of Corinth and Thales of Miletus together, and Pericles and Anaxagoras, and again Croesus and Solon as wise men, and Cyrus as a man of power. And imitating this, the poets pair Creon with Teiresias, Polyeidus with Minos, Agamemnon with Nestor and Odysseus and Palamedes — and, as I see it, the earliest people paired Prometheus with Zeus in much the same way — showing some of these pairs falling into conflict with each other, others into friendship, and others sometimes into friendship and sometimes into conflict, singing of them now in harmony, now at odds. Now I say all this wanting to show one thing: that once we die, the talk about us will not fall silent either — so it is something we must attend to. It seems we are bound by nature to care about the time after us as well, since it happens that the most slavish natures give it no thought at all, while the most decent do everything they can to be well spoken of in later times. And this I take as evidence that the dead have some perception of what goes on here; for the best souls have a sense that this is so, while the most corrupt deny it — and the divinations of godlike men carry more authority than those of lesser men. I think, for my part, that the men of former times, concerning whom I speak, would have been very eager, if it were possible for them, to set right their own associations, so that better things might be said of them than are said now. This, then, is still within our power, god willing — if anything has not been done rightly in our past association, to set it right both in deed and in word. For I hold that concerning true philosophy, the reputation and account of it will be better if we conduct ourselves decently, and the opposite if we behave badly. And indeed, in giving our care to this we could do nothing more pious, nor, by neglecting it, anything more impious. Now I will state how this ought to be done, and where justice in the matter lies.
I came to Sicily with a reputation for surpassing others by far in philosophy, and I wanted, once in Syracuse, to have you as a witness to confirm this, so that philosophy might be honored by the general public too. But this turned out not to be a happy venture for me. I will not name the cause that most people would give, but rather this: you plainly did not fully trust me, but seemed to want somehow to send me away and summon others instead, and to inquire into what exactly my business was, suspicious of me, as it seemed to me — and there were many shouting about this, saying that you had come to despise me and were eager for other things. This much has been widely reported. What is right to do after all this, listen, so that I may also answer what you ask — how you and I ought to stand toward each other. If you have come to despise philosophy altogether, let it go; but if you have heard something better from someone else, or found it yourself, better than what came from me, honor that instead; but if what comes from me pleases you, then you must honor me above all. Now then, just as at the beginning, you take the lead and I will follow; for if I am honored by you, I will honor you in return, but if not, I will hold my peace. Moreover, if you honor me and take the lead in this, you will be seen as honoring philosophy, and the very fact that you examined the matter carefully will bring you great esteem among many as a lover of wisdom. But if I honor you while you do not honor me, I will seem to be admiring and chasing after wealth, and we both know that carries no fine name among anyone. To put it briefly: if you do the honoring, it is an ornament to us both; if I do, it is a reproach to us both. So much, then, for this matter. As for the little sphere, it is not in proper order; Archedemus will explain to you when he comes. And concerning that other matter, which is more precious and more divine than this, and which he must explain to you very carefully — the question you sent about, being at a loss over it. You say, according to what he reports, that you have not been given a sufficient demonstration about the nature of the First. I must speak to you in riddles, so that if anything should happen to this letter in the folds of sea or land, whoever reads it will not understand. It is this: around the King of all things everything exists, and everything is for his sake, and he is the cause of all that is good; and around a second, the things of a second order; and around a third, the things of a third order.
The human soul, then, longs to learn what these things are, looking to what is akin to itself, of which nothing it possesses is adequate. Concerning the King and the things I have named, there is nothing of that kind — that is what the soul next asks. "But what, then, is it?" This, son of Dionysius and Doris, is the question that is the cause of all evils — or rather, the birth-pang that arises over it in the soul; and unless someone rids himself of it, he will never truly attain the truth. You yourself once told me, in the garden under the laurels, that you had thought this out and that it was your own discovery. And I said that if this really seemed so to you, you had freed me of a great deal of argument. But I said I had never met anyone else who had discovered this, and that my own great labor had gone into just this question. You, perhaps, had heard it from someone, or perhaps by some divine chance you had set out toward it — but then you failed to bind fast the proofs of it, as though holding it securely; instead it flits about for you, now one way, now another, around the mere appearance of the thing, when it is nothing of the kind. And this has happened not to you alone — be assured that no one who first hears from me has any other experience than this at the start; some free themselves from it only with much trouble, others with less, and hardly anyone with little. Given that this is how things stand, we have pretty much discovered, in my opinion, what you asked in your letter — how we ought to stand toward each other. For since you are testing these matters, both by consorting with others and comparing them against what others say, and also on their own merits, now, if the test is a true one, these things will take root in you, and you will become at home both with them and with us. How, then, will this come about, and everything I have said? You did well just now in sending Archedemus, and in the future, once he has come to you and reported what I have said, other difficulties will perhaps occur to you afterward. Send Archedemus back to me again, then, if you judge rightly, and he will make the journey and come back once more; and if you do this two or three times and test thoroughly what has been sent from me, I would be surprised if what now troubles you does not seem very different then from now.
So take courage and act accordingly; for neither you nor Archedemus will ever conduct a finer or more god-pleasing traffic than this. Be careful, though, that this never falls into the hands of uneducated people; for in my opinion there is nothing more laughable to the many when they hear of these things, nor, on the other hand, anything more wondrous and inspiring to those of good natural gifts. Spoken of again and again, and heard over many years, it is refined only with much labor, the way gold is purified. But hear the remarkable thing about it. There are people who have heard these things, quite a few of them, capable of learning, capable of remembering, and of judging them thoroughly after testing them every way — men now old, who have heard them for no less than thirty years, and who say that what once seemed to them utterly unbelievable now appears most believable and clearest of all, while what once seemed most believable now appears the opposite. Bearing this in mind, then, be careful that you never come to regret having let out, unworthily, what you now hold. The greatest safeguard is not to write it down but to learn it by heart; for it is not possible for what is written not to leak out. That is why I myself have never written anything on these matters, and there is no treatise by Plato, nor will there ever be; what is now called by his name belongs to a Socrates grown young and fair. Farewell, and heed me — and after reading this letter now, many times over, burn it. So much for that. As for Polyxenus, you were surprised that I sent him to you; but about Lycophron too, and the others in your court, I have said the same thing all along and say it now: in the practice of dialectical discussion, both by nature and by method of argument, you far surpass them all, and none of them is refuted willingly, as some suppose, but against their will. And you seem, indeed, to have handled and rewarded them quite fairly. So much on that score, said at some length given the subject. As for Philistion, if you yourself have use for him, make full use of him; but if it can be managed, lend him to Speusippus and send him over. Speusippus needs you too; and Philistion has promised me that, if you release him, he will come eagerly to Athens.
You did well to release the man from the quarries. Your request about his household, and about Hegesippus son of Ariston, is a small thing to grant — you wrote to me that if anyone wrongs either him or them and you learn of it, you will not allow it to stand. And it is worth telling the truth about Lysicleides: alone among those who came back to Athens from Sicily, he has never changed his account of the time you and I spent together — he keeps speaking well of it, and puts the best face on what happened.
Plato to Dionysius, greetings — or would I hit the mark better if, following my own custom, I wrote 'do well,' the way I usually greet friends in my letters? For you, as those who were on pilgrimage at the time reported, addressed even the god at Delphi with that very flattering phrase, and wrote, so they say, 'Greetings, and keep living the pleasant life of a tyrant.' I would not urge even a human being to do that, let alone a god — not a god, because I would be commanding something against nature, since the divine is set apart from both pleasure and pain; and not a human being either, because pleasure and pain mostly breed harm, producing in the soul dullness, forgetfulness, folly, and arrogance. Let that be my word on the greeting; read it and take it however you like. Not a few people say you tell some of the envoys who visit you that once, when you were speaking of your intention to resettle the Greek cities in Sicily and lighten the burdens on the Syracusans by turning your rule from tyranny into kingship, I heard you and talked you out of it — even though you were, as you say, eager to do it — and that now I am teaching Dion to do these very things, and that through your own ideas we are stripping you of your rule. Whether you gain anything from talking this way, you know best yourself; but you certainly wrong me by saying the opposite of what actually happened. I have already been thoroughly slandered to the mercenaries and to the mass of the Syracusans by Philistides and many others, on the grounds that I stayed on in the citadel, and that whenever anything went wrong, the outsiders blamed it all on me, claiming that you did everything I told you to.
But you yourself know perfectly well that of all political matters, I willingly took part with you in only a few, and that at the start, when I thought I might accomplish something more — a few small things, and I gave modest attention to the preambles to the laws, apart from whatever you or someone else added afterward, for I hear that some of you later reworked them; in any case both versions will be plain to anyone able to judge my style. But as I just said, I do not need to defend myself against slander before the Syracusans, or before whoever else you persuade by repeating this story — I need far more to defend myself against the earlier slander, and against this new one now growing bigger and fiercer than the first. I must make my defense on two counts: first, that I was right to avoid sharing in the city's affairs with you, and second, that this counsel, or this obstruction, which you say I gave when you meant to found Greek cities, was never mine. Hear first, then, the beginning of what I have to say about the first point. I came to Syracuse summoned by you and by Dion — Dion, a man I had already tested and who had long been my guest-friend, at a settled middle age, exactly the kind of man needed by anyone with even a little sense who was about to deliberate on matters as weighty as yours were then; you, on the other hand, were very young, with a great deal of inexperience in the things you needed to have already mastered, and you were quite unknown to me. After that, whether it was a man, a god, or some stroke of fortune, Dion was driven out along with you, and you were left alone. Do you think, then, that I could at that point have shared political affairs with you — having lost my sensible partner, and seeing the senseless one left behind among many worthless men, not ruling but thinking he ruled, while actually ruled by such men? In these circumstances what was I to do? Was it not necessary, as I in fact did, to let political matters go from then on, being wary of the slanders born of envy, and instead to try, though the two of you had become estranged and were at odds, to make you as much friends to each other as I possibly could?
Of this you yourself are witness, that I never once slackened in pressing exactly that. And with difficulty, but still, we came to an agreement: that I would sail home, since war held you both back, but that once peace came, Dion and I would return to Syracuse, and you would summon us. That is how things stood regarding my first journey to Syracuse and my safe return home. But the second time, once peace had come, you did not summon me according to our agreement — you wrote asking me alone to come, and said you would send for Dion later. Because of this I did not go, and I even fell out of favor with Dion over it, since he thought it better for me to go and comply with you. After that, a year later, a trireme arrived along with letters from you, and the letters began by saying that if I came, all of Dion's affairs would go exactly as I wished, but if I did not come, the opposite. I am ashamed to say how many letters came at that time, from you and from others because of you, out of Italy and Sicily, and from how many of my own household and acquaintances, all urging me to go and begging me by all means to obey you. It seemed to everyone, starting with Dion, that I ought to sail and not be soft about it. And yet I pointed out my age to them, and I insisted about you that you would not be able to hold out against those slandering us and wanting us at odds — for I saw then, and I see now, that great and overgrown fortunes, whether of private men or of monarchs, nourish all the more, the greater they are, slanderers in ever greater numbers, men who deal in pleasure joined with shameful harm, than which wealth and the power that comes with unchecked authority breed no greater evil. Nevertheless, I let all this go and came, reasoning that none of my friends should be able to blame me for their ruin, when it might have been avoided, because of my own laziness. And once I arrived — for you know everything that happened from that point on — I expected, of course, according to what the letters had promised, that you would first bring Dion home and restore our friendship, explaining that closeness which, had you trusted me in it then, things might well have turned out better than they have for you, for Syracuse, and for the rest of the Greeks, or so my judgment foretells.
Next, I expected that Dion's household would keep his property, and that those who had divided it among themselves — men you know well — would not keep the division. Beyond this, I thought that the yearly income he was accustomed to receive should be sent to him, and even more generously now that I was there, not less. Getting none of this, I asked to leave. After that you persuaded me to stay the year, saying that you would sell off all of Dion's property and send half of it to Corinth, leaving the rest for his son here. There is much I could say about promises you made and never kept, but I will cut it short given how many there are. For after selling all the property — without persuading Dion, though you had said you would not sell without his consent — you capped off, my astonishing friend, all your promises with the boldest stroke of all: you devised a scheme, neither honorable nor clever nor just nor useful, meant to frighten me into thinking I was ignorant of what was then going on, so that I would not even ask that the money be sent. For when you drove out Heracleides — an act neither the Syracusans nor I thought just, since together with Theodotes and Eurybius I had begged you not to do it — you seized on this as a sufficient pretext and said that you had long seen through me: that I cared nothing for you, only for Dion and Dion's friends and household, and that since Theodotes and Heracleides, being Dion's kin, were now under attack, I was scheming every way I could to keep them from paying the penalty. So much, then, for our political partnership, yours and mine; and if you saw any other estrangement growing in me toward you, you naturally suppose all of it came from this. Do not be surprised — I would rightly look base to any man of sense, if, swayed by the greatness of your power, I had betrayed an old friend and guest-friend suffering harm because of you, a man no worse than you, if I may put it that way, and had instead chosen you, the wrongdoer, and done whatever you commanded, plainly for the sake of money — for no one could claim any other cause for my change of heart, had I changed. But this is how things happened, and it is because of you that this wolfish counterfeit of friendship, this failure of partnership between us, came about.
This brings my account, almost without a break, to the very point I said I still had to defend myself on. Look closely now, and pay full attention, in case I seem to you to be lying anywhere and not telling the truth. I say that you, in the presence of Archedemus and Aristocritus in the garden, about twenty days before I sailed home from Syracuse, said the very things you now charge me with — that I cared more for Heracleides and everyone else than for you. And in front of these same men you asked me whether I remembered — from when I first arrived — urging you to resettle the Greek cities. I agreed that I remembered, and that I still think this the best course now. But I must also report, Dionysius, what was said next on that occasion. I asked you whether that was the only advice I was giving you, or something else besides; and you answered me, very angrily and, as you thought, quite scornfully — which is why that insult of yours has now turned from a dream into a waking reality — you said, laughing in a very put-on way, if I remember, that you told me to do all this, or not do it, only once I had been properly educated. I said you remembered perfectly. 'Educated in geometry, you mean?' you said. What I meant to say next I did not say, afraid that for the sake of one small remark my voyage home, which I was expecting, might narrow instead of opening wide before me. But the whole point of saying all this is just this: do not slander me by claiming I was the one who forbade you to resettle the Greek cities being ravaged by barbarians, or to relieve the Syracusans by turning tyranny into kingship. You could never truthfully charge me with anything less fitting to me than this; and beyond that, I could offer even clearer proof, should any adequate tribunal ever appear, that I urged these very things and you were the one unwilling to carry them out. And indeed it is not hard to state plainly that these things, had they been carried out, would have been the best course for you, for Syracuse, and for all Sicily. But, my good man, if you deny having said what you did say, I have my case; and if you admit it, then, thinking Stesichorus wise for what came after, imitate his recantation, and turn from falsehood back to the true account.
Plato to Dion of Syracuse, greetings. I think it has been clear the whole time how eager I was about the affairs that have come to pass, and how much effort I put into seeing them through to completion, for no reason more than my love of honor in noble things; for I hold it just that people who are truly good and act accordingly should meet with the reputation that fits them. As for the present, then, thank god, things stand well; but as for what is to come, the greatest struggle still lies ahead. For in courage and speed and strength, other people too might be thought to excel, but in truthfulness and justice and magnanimity, and in the good bearing that goes with all these, one would agree that those who lay claim to such things are rightly set apart from the rest. Now what I mean is obvious, but still we must remind ourselves that it is fitting for us to stand apart from other men more than grown men stand apart from children — men you surely know whom I mean. We must show ourselves to be exactly what we claim to be, especially since, god willing, it will be easy. For it has fallen to other men of necessity to wander over much ground if they are to become known; but your situation now is such that people from the entire inhabited world — if it is not too bold to say — are looking toward a single place, and within that place, above all, toward you. So, since you are watched by everyone, prepare to make that old Lycurgus look ancient news, and Cyrus too, and anyone else who has ever seemed to excel in character and statesmanship — especially since many, indeed almost everyone here, say there is a strong likelihood that once Dionysius is removed the whole business will collapse on account of your rivalry for honor, and Heracleides' and Theodotes' and the other associates'.
Above all, then, let there be no such man; but if one should arise after all, show yourself as one who heals him, and you would arrive at the best outcome. Perhaps this seems laughable to you, that I should say it, since you yourself are not ignorant of it; but I see even in the theaters how competitors are spurred on by children, let alone by friends whom one supposes to be urging them on earnestly out of goodwill. So now, carry on the contest yourselves, and if you need anything from us, write. Things here are much as they were when you were present. Write also about what has been accomplished by you, or what you happen to be doing, since we hear a great deal and know nothing. Even now letters have arrived from Theodotes and Heracleides at Sparta and Aegina, while we, as I said, hear a great deal about affairs there and know nothing. Bear in mind too that some think you fall somewhat short of the attentiveness that is called for; do not let it escape you that action itself depends in part on pleasing people, while self-will keeps company with isolation. Farewell.
Plato to Perdiccas, greetings. I advised Euphraeus, as you instructed, to spend his time attending to your affairs; and it is right that I should give you as well the counsel that is called guest-counsel and sacred counsel, both about the other matters you may put to me and about how Euphraeus ought to be employed just now. The man is useful in many ways, but the greatest is in the very thing you now lack, both because of your age and because young men do not have many advisers on this subject. There is, in fact, a kind of voice belonging to each form of government, as if to different living creatures — one voice for democracy, another for oligarchy, and yet another for monarchy. Very many people would claim to understand these voices, but apart from a few they fall far short of actually grasping them. Whichever government speaks its own proper voice toward gods and men, and makes its actions follow that voice, always flourishes and is preserved, but if it imitates another, it is destroyed.
In view of this, then, Euphraeus could prove especially useful to you, capable as he also is in other matters; for I expect that he, of all the men occupied with your pursuits, will be particularly able to help work out the reasoning proper to monarchy. If you make use of him for this, then, you will benefit yourself and be of the greatest help to him as well. But if someone, hearing this, should say: Plato, it seems, pretends to know what benefits a democracy, yet though he had the chance to speak in the assembly and give it the best advice, he never once stood up and spoke — to this one should reply that Plato came late to his own city and found the people already grown old and accustomed by earlier leaders to acting in many ways quite unlike his advice; since he would have been glad, above all things, to advise it as a father would, had he not thought he would risk it in vain and accomplish nothing further. And I think my own advice would fare the very same way. For if we should seem incurable, one might bid us a hearty farewell and have nothing further to do with advising me or my affairs. Farewell.
Plato to Hermeias and Erastus and Coriscus, greetings. It seems to me that some god is preparing a good fortune for you, if you receive it well, kindly and amply; for you live as neighbors to one another and have need of each other for the greatest benefits. For Hermeias, no abundance of horses nor any other alliance in war, nor even an increase of gold, could give him greater power for everything than friends who are steadfast and of sound character; while for Erastus and Coriscus, beyond that fine wisdom about the Forms, I say, old man that I am, they need in addition a wisdom that guards against wicked and unjust men, and some power of defense. For they are inexperienced in this, having spent so much of their lives with us, who are moderate and not wicked men; that is why I said they need these things, so that they may not be forced to neglect true wisdom while attending more than they should to the human and necessary kind.
This latter power, it seems to me, Hermeias has acquired partly by nature, in matters he has not yet had experience of, and partly by skill through experience. What, then, am I saying? To you, Hermeias, who have had more experience of Erastus and Coriscus than they of you, I say and declare and bear witness that you will not easily find characters more trustworthy than these neighbors of yours; I advise you, then, by every just means to hold fast to these men, not counting it a side matter. And to Coriscus and Erastus in turn I advise holding fast to Hermeias, and trying, by holding fast to one another, to arrive at a single web of friendship. And if any of you should ever seem to be loosening this bond — for human affairs are never wholly secure — send here to me and my circle a letter accusing the fault; for I think that words coming from us here, framed with justice and respect, would be more likely than any incantation to knit and bind you back together into your former friendship and fellowship, provided whatever was undone has not turned out to be something great. If all of us, both we and you, practice philosophy, each as far as he is able and as circumstance allows, then what has just been prophesied will hold true. But what will happen if we do not do this, I will not say; for I foresee a good outcome, and I say that we shall make all these things turn out well, if god is willing. This letter all three of you must read, best of all together, but if not, then two at a time, sharing it as far as possible as often as you can, and you must treat it as a covenant and binding law, which is just, swearing by that god who is the leader of all things that are and are to be, and by the lord and father of that leader and cause, whom, if we truly practice philosophy, we shall all come to know clearly, so far as is possible for happy men.
Plato to the household and companions of Dion, greetings. You wrote to me that I ought to consider your purpose the same as Dion's, and indeed you urged me to share in it, so far as I am able, in deed and in word.
As for me, if you truly hold the same judgment and desire that he held, I agree to share in it; but if not, I shall have to deliberate many times over. What his judgment and desire were, I could tell you not by conjecture but as one who knows clearly. For when I first arrived at Syracuse, being about forty years old, Dion was of the age Hipparinus is now, and the conviction he held then he kept holding to the end — that the Syracusans ought to be free, living under the best laws; so it is no wonder if some god should also bring this young man to share the same conviction about government as that man held. What the manner of its coming about was is not unworthy of being heard by young and old alike, and I will try to relate it to you from the beginning; for now is the fitting occasion. When I was young, I once felt what many feel: I thought that as soon as I became my own master, I would go straight into the public affairs of the city. And certain turns of the city's fortunes happened to fall out for me in this way. The constitution then in place was denounced by many, and a change came about; and of this change fifty-one men took the lead as rulers, eleven in the city and ten in the Piraeus — each group in charge of the market and whatever needed managing in the towns — while thirty were established as rulers over everything with absolute power. Some of these happened to be relatives and acquaintances of mine, and indeed they invited me at once to join them, as if this were fitting work for me. And I felt nothing surprising for a young man: I thought they would manage the city by leading it from some unjust way of life to a just manner, so that I attended closely to what they would do. And watching these men, in a short time, make the previous government look like gold by comparison — among other things, they sent an older friend of mine, Socrates, whom I would hardly be ashamed to call the most just man of that time, along with others, after one of the citizens, to bring him by force to be put to death, so that he might be made complicit in their affairs whether he wished it or not —
he would not be persuaded, and risked suffering anything rather than become a partner in their unholy acts. Seeing all this, and other things of the sort no less serious, I was disgusted and withdrew myself from the evils of that time. Not long after, the rule of the Thirty fell, and with it that whole government; and again, though more slowly, the desire to engage in public and political affairs drew me back. There were, even in that troubled time, many things happening that one might be disgusted by, and it was no wonder that in the upheavals some took harsher vengeance on certain enemies than was fitting — though those who returned then in fact showed a great deal of moderation. But by some chance, certain men in power brought our companion Socrates here into court, laying against him a most unholy charge, and one that suited Socrates least of all men: some brought the charge of impiety, others voted to condemn, and they put to death the very man who, at the time of that unholy summons, had refused to take part in bringing in one of the friends then in exile, when those exiles were themselves suffering misfortune. As I considered these things, and the men engaged in public affairs, and the laws and customs too, the more I examined them and the further I advanced in age, the harder it appeared to me to manage public affairs rightly. For it was not possible to act without trusted friends and companions — and these were not easy to find ready-made, since our city was no longer governed by the customs and practices of our fathers, while to acquire new ones was impossible with any ease — and the very letter of the laws and customs was being corrupted and was worsening at an astonishing rate, so that I, who at first had been full of eagerness to engage in public affairs, when I looked at all this and saw things being swept along every which way, ended up growing dizzy,
And while I never stopped examining whether some better course might emerge, both on these very points and on the whole matter of government, I kept holding off from actually doing anything, always waiting for the right occasion, until in the end I realized that all the cities of today are badly governed, every one of them: the state of their laws is nearly incurable without some extraordinary combination of preparation and luck. So I was forced to say, in praise of true philosophy, that only from it can one see clearly what is just, both in politics and in private life; and that the human race will not stop suffering evils until either the class of those who philosophize rightly and truly comes into political power, or those who hold power in cities come, by some divine allotment, to practice philosophy in earnest. Holding this conviction, I went to Italy and Sicily when I first arrived there. And once there, the life called happy in that country did not please me in the least — a life stuffed with Italian and Syracusan tables, filled twice a day, never sleeping alone at night, and all the other habits that go along with such a life. No one raised from youth in these practices could ever become wise, however remarkable his nature — such a mixture would not permit it — nor could he ever come close to being temperate; and the same holds for the rest of virtue as well. No city could ever be at peace under its laws if its people think they must spend everything to excess, and then, once done, believe they should do nothing at all except toil away at feasts, drinking bouts, and the pursuit of sex. Such cities are bound to keep cycling endlessly through tyrannies, oligarchies, and democracies, and those who hold power in them will never so much as tolerate hearing the name of a just and equal constitution. With these thoughts added to what I already believed, I crossed over to Syracuse — by chance, perhaps, though it looks now as though some higher power was then setting in motion the beginning of everything that has since happened concerning Dion and the affairs of Syracuse. And I fear there may be still more to come, unless you now listen to me as you did not the first time I gave you advice.
How, then, do I claim that my arrival in Sicily at that time was the beginning of it all? When I spent time with Dion, who was young then, and explained to him in discussion what seemed to me the best things for people, urging him to put them into practice, I failed, I think, to notice that I was in effect engineering the overthrow of a tyranny, without realizing it myself. Dion, being remarkably quick to learn — both in general and especially in response to the arguments I made at that time — took to them so eagerly and so thoroughly that no young man I had ever met came close; and he chose to live the rest of his life differently from most Italians and Sicilians, having come to value virtue more highly than pleasure and every other luxury. Because of this he lived a life more burdensome to those who followed the ways of tyranny, right up to the death of Dionysius the elder. After that he came to think that this conviction, which he himself had come to hold through right argument, should not remain in him alone; he noticed it arising in others too — not many, but some — and he judged that Dionysius the younger might, with the gods' help, become one of them. And if that came about, he believed his own life and the lives of all the Syracusans would turn out to be blessed beyond measure. Beyond this he thought it essential that I come to Syracuse as quickly as possible by any means, to share in the work, remembering how easily our own time together had brought him to desire the finest and best kind of life. If he could accomplish the same thing now in Dionysius, as he was attempting, he had great hopes of establishing a happy and genuinely good life throughout the whole country, without bloodshed, deaths, or the evils that have now occurred. Reasoning rightly along these lines, Dion persuaded Dionysius to send for me, and he himself begged me, in letter after letter, to come as quickly as possible by any means, before others could get to Dionysius and turn him toward some other, lesser life. His plea, to put it briefly though it deserves a longer account, ran like this: 'What greater occasion,' he said, 'could we ever wait for than the one now placed before us by some divine stroke of fortune?'
He went through the extent of his power in Italy and Sicily and his own influence within it, the youth of Dionysius, and how strong his enthusiasm was, he said, for philosophy and education; he pointed out that his own nephews and relatives could easily be won over to the kind of life and argument I always spoke of, and were most capable of drawing Dionysius in as well — so that if ever there was hope of philosophers and the rulers of great cities turning out to be one and the same people, it was now. These were his appeals, and many others like them in great number. As for my own judgment, I had real fear about how things would turn out with these young men — the desires of people like that move quickly and often pull against themselves — but I knew Dion's character, that his soul was by nature steady and already at a reasonably mature age. So as I weighed it, uncertain whether I should go and comply or not, I nonetheless came down on the side that if anyone was ever going to try to carry out in practice what had been thought through about laws and government, now was the time to attempt it; if I could persuade just this one man thoroughly, I would have achieved everything good. With this reasoning and this resolve I set out from home — not for the reasons some imagined, but chiefly out of shame before myself, for fear I might seem to myself to be nothing but words, a man who would never willingly lay a hand to any deed, and that I might risk betraying, first of all, my bond of guest-friendship and comradeship with Dion, who was truly in no small danger. Suppose he had suffered some harm, or been driven out by Dionysius and his other enemies and come to us as a fugitive, and asked, 'Plato, I have come to you in exile, not because I need hoplites or cavalry to fight off my enemies, but because I need words and persuasion — the very things you, I knew better than anyone, were able to use to turn young men toward the good and the just, and toward friendship and fellowship with one another. It is for want of these, on your part, that I now leave Syracuse behind and stand here. My own disgrace matters less to you; but philosophy, which you are always praising, and which you say is treated with contempt by the rest of humankind — has it not now been betrayed, so far as it depended on you, along with me?'
And if we had happened to be living in Megara, you would surely have come to help me in what I asked, or you would have thought yourself the most worthless of men. But now, do you imagine that by pointing to the length of the journey and the size of the voyage and the effort involved, you will ever escape the reputation of cowardice? Far from it. Had such things been said to me, what dignified answer could I have given? None. So I went, and reasonably so, and as justly as a man possibly could, abandoning my own pursuits here, which were not without honor, to place myself under a tyranny that seemed unfitting both for what I taught and for me. By going I freed myself in the eyes of Zeus, guardian of guests, and kept the calling of philosophy free of reproach — reproach it would have deserved had I grown soft and, out of cowardice, taken on some share of shame. And once there — there is no need to draw this out — I found everything around Dionysius full of factional strife and slander directed at Dion before the tyrant. I defended him as far as I was able, though I could do little; and after about the fourth month, Dionysius, accusing Dion of plotting against his rule, put him on a small boat and threw him out in disgrace. After that all of us who were Dion's friends were afraid that he might accuse one of us in turn and punish us as accomplices in Dion's supposed plot. A rumor even went around Syracuse that I had been put to death by Dionysius as the cause of everything that had happened. Dionysius, noticing all of us in this state of alarm and fearing something worse might come of our fear, took everyone back in a friendly manner; he reassured me in particular, urged me to take heart, and pleaded with me to stay in every way, since it did him no good at all for me to flee from him, whereas my staying — this is exactly why he made such a show of pleading. We know that the pleading of tyrants is mixed with compulsion; and it was by contriving just this that he kept me from sailing away, bringing me instead up to the citadel and settling me there, from which no ship's captain could have taken me out, not even if Dionysius had not been actively blocking it, let alone against his wishes — no, not even if he himself had sent orders that whoever wished should take me away.
No merchant, and none of the officials stationed at the country's points of departure, would have let me pass through alone without seizing me at once and bringing me straight back to Dionysius — especially since word had already gone round, quite the opposite of what it had been before, that Dionysius was showing me remarkable favor. And what was the truth of it? I must tell it plainly. His favor did grow, as time went on, more from our being together and coming to know each other's character and temper; but he wanted me to praise him rather than Dion, and to regard him as a friend far more than Dion, and he competed for this with remarkable eagerness. Yet the one way this could have come about most honorably, if it was going to come about at all — by learning and listening to arguments about philosophy and growing close to me through them — this he shrank from, afraid of what his slanderers were saying, lest he be hindered somehow and Dion's whole plan be brought to completion. I endured all of it, holding to the same purpose I had come with, in the hope that he might somehow come to desire the philosophic life; but he won out against me in his resistance. And so the first period of my residence and stay in Sicily came about, for all these reasons. After that I went abroad and came back again, at Dionysius's urgent and repeated summons; why I did so, and all that I did, as being reasonable and just, I will explain later, once I have first advised you on what must be done given what has now happened — this for the sake of those who keep asking what I wanted in coming a second time, so that these secondary matters do not get treated by me as if they were the main business. So here is what I say: to a man who is ill and living on a harmful regimen, an adviser must first tell him, above all, to change his way of life; if he is willing to listen, one may then go on to give the rest of the advice, but if he is not, I would consider a man who walks away from giving such advice to be a real man and a true physician, and one who stays and keeps giving it to be no man at all, and no craftsman. The same holds for a city too, whether it has one ruler or many: if the government, moving along a right and proper path, asks advice on some fitting matter, then it is the mark of good sense to give that advice.
As for those who step entirely outside the right kind of constitution and are unwilling to set even a foot on its path, but instruct their adviser to leave the constitution alone and not disturb it — on pain of death if he does — and bid him instead serve their wishes and desires and advise them how these might come about most easily and quickly and last forever, such a man, if he complies with advice of that sort, I would consider unmanly, while the one who refuses to comply I would call a real man. Holding this view myself, whenever someone consults me about some matter of real importance concerning his own life — say, the acquiring of money, or the care of his body or soul — if it seems to me that he lives his daily life in some reasonable way, or that he would be willing to follow advice about the things he brings to me, I give my advice eagerly and don't stop merely to satisfy some formal obligation. But if he doesn't consult me at all, or if it's clear that he won't follow my advice in any way, I don't go to such a person uninvited to offer counsel, and I certainly wouldn't force it on him even if he were my own son. To a slave I might give advice, and even press it on him against his will; but a father or mother I don't think it right to coerce, unless they're gripped by some disease of madness. If they're living according to some settled way of life that pleases them but not me, I shouldn't alienate them by pointless scolding, nor yet should I flatter them and serve their wants by supplying satisfactions for desires which, embracing them myself, I wouldn't want to live by. In just the same way a sensible man ought to think and live regarding his own city: he should speak up, if the way it's governed doesn't seem good to him, provided he isn't going to speak in vain or get himself killed for speaking; but he shouldn't use force on his fatherland to bring about a change of constitution when the best one cannot come about without banishing and slaughtering men — rather, he should keep quiet and pray for good things, both for himself and for the city. This, then, is the manner in which I would advise you, and in which Dion and I advised Dionysius as well: to live one's daily life, first of all, so as to become as much as possible master of oneself, and to acquire trustworthy friends and companions, so that he might not suffer what his father suffered,
who, having taken over many large cities of Sicily that had been devastated by the barbarians, was unable to resettle them and establish in each a government of loyal companions — not from anywhere among strangers, nor even from brothers whom he himself had raised from boyhood, whom he had made rulers out of private citizens and rich men out of poor ones. Of these he could win over not a single one to a genuine share in his rule, by persuasion, teaching, favors, or kinship, and so he turned out seven times worse than Darius, who, trusting not brothers whom he himself had raised but only men who had shared with him in overthrowing the Mede and the eunuch, divided all of Sicily's equivalent into seven parts, each larger than any single share, and used these partners as trustworthy men who did not attack either him or one another, and showed the model of what a good lawgiver and king ought to be — for by establishing laws he has preserved the Persian empire even to this day. Consider further the Athenians: they did not found the many Greek cities they took over — cities already invaded by barbarians but still inhabited — yet they preserved their empire for seventy years by having friendly men in each of those cities. But Dionysius, having gathered all Sicily into one city, and trusting no one out of his own so-called cleverness, barely survived — for he was poor in loyal, trustworthy friends, and there is no greater sign of virtue or vice than whether a man has such friends or lacks them. This is exactly what Dion and I advised Dionysius, since, given how things had turned out for him through his father, he had grown up without any contact with education and without the fellowship proper to his station. Our first advice, having started from this point, was that he should acquire other friends among his own kin and age-mates who were in harmony with him regarding virtue, and above all that he should become a friend to himself — for in this respect he was astonishingly lacking. We did not put it so plainly, since that would not have been safe, but we hinted at it, arguing that in this way every man would save both himself and those he came to lead, while turning away from this path he would bring about the opposite of everything. And if he went the way we described, and made himself a man of sense and self-control, then were he to resettle the depopulated cities of Sicily and bind them together with laws and constitutions so that they were loyal to him and to one another against the incursions of the barbarians, he would not merely double his father's empire but multiply it many times over —
for, once this had been achieved, it would be entirely possible to enslave the Carthaginians far more thoroughly than they had been enslaved after the time of Gelon, rather than, as things now stand, having his own father agree to pay them tribute. These were the words we spoke and the counsel we pressed, we who were plotting against Dionysius, as such talk was reported to have spread from many quarters — talk which, once it gained the upper hand with Dionysius, led to Dion's banishment and threw us into fear. But to compress into a short space matters that took no short time to unfold: Dion came from the Peloponnese and Athens and admonished Dionysius through actual deeds. And once he had freed the city and restored it to the Syracusans twice over, they then treated Dion just as Dionysius had treated him, at the very time he was trying, by educating and raising him, to make him a king worthy of the office and to share with him his whole life. But those who slandered Dion, saying that in doing everything he did at that time he was plotting for the tyranny, made it so that Dionysius, bewitched in mind by education, would neglect his rule and hand it over to Dion, while Dion would seize it for himself and drive Dionysius from power by trickery. This slander won out then, and a second time among the Syracusans, in a victory both strange and shameful for those responsible for it. Those who now call on me regarding the present situation must hear how it happened. I came, an Athenian, a companion of Dion and his ally, to the tyrant, so as to bring about friendship in place of war; but struggling against the slanderers, I was defeated. When Dionysius tried, with honors and money, to make me his own, so that I might serve as witness and friend lending respectability to Dion's banishment, he failed entirely in this. Later, when Dion returned home, he took on two brothers from Athens, friends made not through philosophy but through that circle of so-called companionship most people have, which men cultivate by playing host, and by initiating and being initiated into mysteries; and indeed these two, who had helped bring him home, became his companions out of this circle and out of the service they rendered toward his return.
When they came to Sicily, once they perceived that Dion had been slandered among the Sicilians he had freed as plotting to become tyrant, they not only betrayed their companion and guest-friend, but became virtually the murderers themselves, standing armed alongside the actual killers as their accomplices. As for the shameful and impious act itself, I neither pass over it nor say anything more about it — for many others make it their business to sing of these things, and will continue to do so in time to come. But I do want to lift from the Athenians the charge people bring against them, that these two men brought shame on the city; for I say that the other man too was an Athenian, the one who did not betray this same Dion, though he could have taken money and many other honors. He had not become Dion's friend through some vulgar attachment, but through a partnership rooted in a free education — and it is this alone that a man of sense ought to trust, rather than kinship of body and soul. So the two who killed Dion did not become worthy of reproach to the city, as though they had ever been men of any account. All this has been said for the sake of advising Dion's friends and kinsmen. And I have some further advice to add to this, speaking now for the third time to you three the same counsel and the same argument: do not enslave Sicily, or any other city, to human masters — that is my advice — but to laws. For it is better for neither the enslavers nor the enslaved, for themselves and for their children's children and their descendants; the attempt is utterly ruinous, and it is the mark of small and unfree souls to be fond of snatching such gains, men who know nothing of what is good and just, whether for the future or the present moment, in matters divine or human. These are the things I first attempted to persuade Dion of, second Dionysius, and now third, you. And do listen to me, for the sake of Zeus the Savior, third in the toast, and then look to Dionysius and Dion: of these, the one who did not listen lives now dishonorably, while the one who did listen died honorably; for whatever a man suffers in reaching after the finest things, both for himself and for his city, is altogether right and good.
For none of us is by nature immortal, and even if one of us should happen to be, he would not thereby be happy, as most people think; for nothing good or bad worth mentioning belongs to things without soul, but this will happen to each soul either while it is joined with a body or when separated from it. We must truly always trust the ancient and sacred accounts, which reveal to us that the soul is immortal, and has judges, and pays the greatest penalties, whenever it is released from the body; wherefore we ought to consider it a lesser evil to suffer great wrongs and injustices than to commit them. The man who loves money and is poor in soul neither listens to this, nor, if he does hear it, does he, laughing at it as he supposes, shamelessly snatch from every side whatever he thinks he can, like some beast, to eat or drink, or to provide himself, in that slavish and graceless business wrongly called the pleasure of Aphrodite, with satisfaction to the point of glutting himself — blind, and not seeing what impiety attends his plunder in every case, an evil that must always follow each act of wrongdoing, which the wrongdoer is forced to drag along with him, both while wandering above the earth and after returning beneath it, on a journey utterly dishonored and wretched in every way. It was by saying these and other such things that I tried to persuade Dion, and I would be perfectly justified in feeling anger, in some way quite similar, at both his killers and at Dionysius; for both, one might say, have done the greatest harm to me and to virtually everyone else — the killers, by destroying a man who wished to make use of justice, and Dionysius, by refusing throughout his whole reign to make any use of justice at all, though he held the greatest power, in which, had philosophy and power truly come together in the same place, shining sufficiently through all mankind, both Greek and barbarian, it would have established in everyone the true belief that no city and no man could ever be happy who does not pass his life under justice together with wisdom, whether by possessing it in himself or by being nurtured and rightly educated under the rule of righteous men. This is the harm Dionysius did; all else would be small harm to me compared to this. But the man who killed Dion does not know that he has done the very same thing as Dionysius did.
I know clearly, as clearly as one human being can affirm anything about another, that if Dion had held power, he never would have turned it to any other shape of rule than this: first he would have set Syracuse, his own homeland, shining and free, once he had cleared away her slavery, and then, once she stood established in freedom, he would have used every device to array her citizens under laws that were fitting and best of all. Next he would have set his heart on settling all Sicily and freeing it from the barbarians, driving some out and subduing others more easily than Hieron had done. And with all this accomplished through a man just, brave, self-controlled, and philosophical, the same opinion about virtue would have taken hold among ordinary people that would have taken hold, had Dionysius been persuaded, and saved -- one might almost say -- the whole human race. But as it is, some divinity or some avenging spirit fell upon him with lawlessness, godlessness, and, worst of all, the reckless daring of ignorance -- the root from which every evil takes hold in every soul and sprouts, and later brings forth for those who bred it the bitterest fruit -- and this same thing overturned and destroyed everything a second time. Now, for the sake of a good omen, let us speak well of the third attempt. All the same, I advise you, his friends, to imitate Dion in his devotion to his homeland and in the disciplined way he lived, and, under better auspices, to try to bring to completion the things he wished for -- and what those were you have heard clearly from me. Whoever among you cannot live in the Dorian manner, according to your ancestral ways, but instead pursues the life of Dion's murderers and the ordinary run of Sicilian living, him you should neither invite in nor suppose that he could ever do anything trustworthy or sound. The rest you should invite to join in settling and giving equal law to all Sicily, drawing on Sicily itself and on the whole of the Peloponnese together, and you need not fear even Athens, for there too are men who surpass all others in virtue and who hate the reckless daring of those who murder their own guest-friends. But if all this must wait until later, and the many, many kinds of civil strife springing up every day press hard upon you now, then every man to whom some divine fortune has granted even a small share of right judgment ought to know this: there is no rest from evils for those caught in civil strife until the victors in the battles, the banishments, and the killings put an end to nursing their grudges and turning to vengeance against their enemies,
and, mastering themselves, establish laws held in common, laid down no more for their own pleasure than for that of the defeated, and compel obedience to those laws by the two forms of constraint, reverence and fear -- fear, because they show by their strength that they are the stronger; reverence, because they show themselves superior in mastering their own pleasures and more willing and able to be servants of the law. There is no other way for a city torn by civil strife ever to find rest from its evils; rather, civil strife, hatred, enmity, and distrust are bound forever to arise again and again among such cities as long as they remain in that condition toward themselves. So the victors, whenever they truly desire safety, must always choose out from among themselves the best men in Greece that they can learn of -- first, older men, men who have wives and children at home, and as many ancestors as possible who were good and well known, and men who all possess sufficient property. For a city of ten thousand men, fifty such men are enough. These men they should summon from their own homes with entreaties and the highest honors, and once summoned and bound by oath, they should beg and instruct them to lay down laws that give no greater share to the victors than to the defeated, but equal and common rights to the whole city. And once the laws are laid down, everything depends on this: if the victors show themselves more submissive to the laws than the defeated, then everything will be full of safety and prosperity and an escape from every evil; but if not, then let no one call on me or any other partner against the man who will not obey what has now been laid down. For these things are sisters to what Dion and I once undertook together, meaning well toward Syracuse -- these are the second attempt. But the first attempt was what we first tried to accomplish together with Dionysius himself, for the common good of all, until some fortune stronger than men scattered it. Now try, with better luck, to bring these very things to pass, by good fortune and some divine chance. Let this stand as my counsel and my letter, and as the account of my first visit to Dionysius. As for the later journey and voyage, how reasonably and fittingly it came about, whoever cares to hear may go on to what follows.
The first period of my stay in Sicily, then, ran its course, as I said, before I gave any counsel to Dion's household and companions. After that I persuaded Dionysius, however I managed it, to let me go. When peace came -- for there was war in Sicily at the time -- we came to an agreement, both of us. Dionysius said he would summon Dion and me back again once he had made his rule more secure, and he asked that Dion think of what had happened not as exile but as a change of residence; and I agreed to come back on these terms. When peace came, he summoned me, but asked that Dion wait one more year, while insisting that I come by all means. Dion for his part urged and begged me to sail; indeed a great deal of talk was coming out of Sicily to the effect that Dionysius had once again become remarkably eager for philosophy, which is why Dion pressed me so earnestly not to refuse the summons. I knew well enough how often such things happen with young men quick to learn who catch a glimpse of some worthwhile subject, yet all the same it seemed safer to me at that time to let both Dion and Dionysius go their own way, and I made enemies of them both by answering that I was an old man and that none of what was now being done matched what had been agreed. It seems that after this Archytas went to Dionysius before I arrived -- for before I left I had made ties of hospitality and friendship between Archytas and the people of Tarentum and Dionysius -- and there were also others in Syracuse who had heard something from Dion, and others still who had picked up scraps of philosophical talk at second hand. These people, it seems, tried to discuss such matters with Dionysius themselves, as though Dionysius had heard everything I had ever thought. Now he is not by nature untalented when it comes to the power of learning, and he is remarkably eager for honor; so he was probably pleased by what was said to him, and ashamed to be seen as someone who had learned nothing while I was staying there. This made him at once long to hear things more clearly and pushed him on further out of ambition. The reasons why he had not heard these things during my earlier stay I explained in what I said just above --
Well then, once I had gotten safely home and had refused his second invitation, as I just said, it seems that Dionysius became altogether anxious that people might think I looked down on his nature, his character, and his way of living, now that I had come to know them, and that this was why I no longer wished to visit him -- as though out of distaste. I am bound to tell the truth and put up with it, if anyone, upon hearing what actually happened, should look down on my philosophy and judge that the tyrant had the better sense. Dionysius sent, for the third time, a trireme for me to make my journey easy, and he sent Archedemus, one of those who had been with Archytas and whom he supposed I valued most highly among the people in Sicily, along with other acquaintances of mine there. All of them brought me the same report, that Dionysius had made astonishing progress toward philosophy. He also sent a very long letter, knowing how I stood with Dion and how eager Dion in turn was for me to sail and come to Syracuse; the whole letter was framed from the start with all this in mind, and it said, in effect this -- 'Dionysius to Plato' -- and after the customary greetings, he said nothing further before this: that if I now let myself be persuaded to come to Sicily, first of all matters concerning Dion would proceed exactly as I myself wished -- and I know you will wish for what is reasonable, and I will agree to it -- but if not, none of Dion's affairs, whether concerning other matters or concerning himself, would go as I would want. That is what he said; the rest would take too long to relate and is beside the point now. Other letters kept arriving too, from Archytas and the people of Tarentum, praising Dionysius's devotion to philosophy and warning that if I did not come now, I would utterly ruin the friendship they had built with Dionysius through me, a friendship of no small importance for their political affairs. Given this kind of summons at that time, with the people of Sicily and Italy pulling me one way and the people of Athens all but pushing me out with their pleading, the same argument came round again: that I must not betray Dion, nor my guest-friends and companions in Tarentum,
and it occurred to me that there was nothing strange in a young man, quick to learn, catching wind at second hand of matters worth discussing and being seized with a longing for the best life. I thought I ought to put this to the clear test, to see which way things really stood, and that I must on no account betray it, nor make myself the cause of so grave a reproach, if these things really had been said as reported to me. So I set out, wrapping myself in this reasoning -- though full of fears and, it seems, none too happy in my forebodings. Well then, coming for the third time, I did at least accomplish this, that I made it back home safely once again by good fortune, and for this, next to god, thanks are owed to Dionysius, since when many wished to destroy me he stopped them and granted some measure of respect to my situation. When I arrived, I thought I ought first to get proof of one thing: whether Dionysius really had caught fire with philosophy, as with a flame, or whether all that talk that had reached Athens had come to nothing. Now there is a way of testing such things that is not ignoble but truly fitting for tyrants, especially tyrants surrounded by people full of secondhand chatter -- and this I noticed in Dionysius as soon as I arrived, that he had been affected by it a great deal. One must show such people that the whole undertaking is possible, and through how much labor and how much toil it comes. For the one who hears it, if he is truly a philosopher, suited to the task and worthy of it, being touched by something divine, thinks he has heard of a wondrous road, one he must now strain every nerve to follow, and that life is not worth living if he does otherwise. From then on, straining himself and the one who guides him along the road, he does not let up until he has either brought everything to its end, or gained the power to guide himself without need of the one who showed him the way. Living by this resolve and according to these principles, such a man goes on, whatever business he may be engaged in, always and above all holding fast to philosophy and to that daily regimen which will make him most quick to learn, most retentive of memory, and most able to reason soberly within himself; the opposite way of life he goes on hating to the end. But those who are not truly philosophers, only tinged with opinions -- like men whose bodies are merely sunburnt -- once they see how many subjects there are to learn, how great the labor, and how disciplined and fitting the daily regimen the task demands, judge it difficult and impossible for themselves, and so prove unable even to practice it,
Some of them convince themselves that they have heard enough of the whole and need no further effort at all. This, then, is the test that proves clear and safest against the self-indulgent, those incapable of hard work: the man who shows the way can never be blamed—only the pupil himself, for failing to practice everything the subject demands. In this way, then, what was said to Dionysius on that occasion was said. I did not go through everything, nor did Dionysius ask me to; he pretended he already knew many things, the most important ones, and had a sufficient grasp of them, thanks to garbled versions he had picked up from others. Later, I hear, he even wrote about what he heard then, putting it together as if it were a treatise of his own, containing nothing of what he actually heard—but of this I know nothing. I do know that certain others have written on these same matters; but who they are, they themselves do not know. This much, at any rate, I can declare about all who have written or will write claiming knowledge of the things I take seriously, whether they say they heard it from me or from others or discovered it themselves: it is impossible, in my judgment, that they understand anything of the matter. There is no writing of mine on these subjects, nor will there ever be. For it cannot be put into words like other studies; rather, out of long companionship with the thing itself, out of living with it, suddenly—like light kindled from a leaping flame—it is born in the soul and from then on feeds itself. And yet this much I do know: if these things were to be written or spoken, they would best be spoken by me; and if they were written badly, no one would be more pained than I. If I thought they could be adequately written down and spoken for the many, what finer work could I have done in my life than to write something of great benefit to mankind and bring the nature of things into the light for all?
But I do not think the attempt to speak of these matters is a good thing for men, except for those few who are able to discover the truth for themselves with a small hint. Of the rest, it would fill some with a misplaced contempt, in no graceful way, and others with a lofty, empty hope, as though they had learned something solemn. Still longer thoughts about these matters have come into my mind; perhaps what I am saying would be clearer once they are said. There is a true argument that stands against anyone who dares to write anything at all about such things—an argument I have stated often before, but it seems it must be stated now as well. For each thing that exists there are three things through which knowledge of it must come; the knowledge itself is a fourth; and as a fifth one must posit the thing itself, that which is knowable and truly is. First is the name; second, the definition; third, the image; fourth, the knowledge. If you want to grasp what I am now saying, take a single example and think of all things in the same way. There is something called a circle, whose name is the very word we have just uttered. Second comes its definition, composed of nouns and verbs: 'that which is everywhere equidistant from its extremities to its center' would be the definition of the thing that bears the names round, spherical, circle. Third is what is drawn and erased, turned on the lathe and destroyed—none of which happens to the circle itself, which all these concern, because it is other than they. Fourth is knowledge, intelligence, and true opinion about these things; and this whole must be set down as one thing again, residing not in sounds nor in bodily shapes but in souls—by which it is clearly different both from the nature of the circle itself and from the three mentioned before. Of these, intelligence comes nearest the fifth in kinship and likeness; the others stand farther off. The same holds for straight and curved shape alike, for color, for the good and the beautiful and the just, for every body whether crafted or naturally born—fire, water, and all such things—for every living creature, for character in souls, and for all doings and sufferings. For unless a man somehow grasps the four of these, he will never be a complete partaker of knowledge of the fifth.
Besides all this, these four attempt to show the quality of each thing no less than its being, because of the weakness of language. For this reason no man of sense will ever dare to commit his thoughts to language—least of all to language that cannot be moved, which is the fate of what is written in fixed characters. But here again you must learn what I am now saying. Every circle that is drawn in practice or turned on a lathe is full of the opposite of the fifth, for it touches the straight at every point; whereas the circle itself, we say, contains in itself neither more nor less of the contrary nature. And we say that none of their names is fixed for any of them; nothing prevents what are now called round things from being called straight and the straight round, and they will hold no less firmly for those who make the change and use the opposite names. The same account holds of the definition too: since it is composed of nouns and verbs, nothing about it is fixed with sufficient firmness. And there is an endless story about each of the four, how unclear it is—but the greatest point is what we said a little earlier: there being two things, the being and the quality, when the soul seeks to know not the quality but the what, each of the four holds out to the soul, in word and in deed, the thing it is not seeking, presenting in every case what is said and shown as easily refuted by the senses, and so fills practically every man with total perplexity and confusion. Now in matters where, through bad rearing, we are not even accustomed to seek the truth, and any image put before us suffices, we do not become laughingstocks to one another—the questioned to the questioners—though the four could be tossed about and refuted. But wherever we compel a man to answer and reveal the fifth, anyone who wishes and is able to overturn him prevails, and makes the man expounding, whether in speeches or writings or answers, appear to most of his hearers to know nothing of what he undertakes to write or say—the audience sometimes unaware that it is not the soul of the writer or speaker being refuted, but the nature of each of the four, which is flawed by birth. Only the movement through all of them, passing up and down to each in turn, barely begets knowledge of a well-natured thing in a well-natured man.
But if a man's nature is bad—and such is the condition of most souls with regard to learning and to what are called morals—or if it has been corrupted, not even Lynceus could make such men see. In a word, neither quickness of learning nor memory will ever give the power to one who has no kinship with the subject, for it does not take root at all in alien natures. So those who have no natural affinity and kinship with the just and with everything else that is beautiful—even if they learn quickly and remember other things well—and likewise those who have the kinship but learn slowly and forget, none of these will ever learn the truth of virtue to the extent possible, nor of vice. For these must be learned together, and the false and the true of the whole of being together, through all that rubbing and long time I spoke of at the beginning. Only when each of them—names and definitions, sights and perceptions—is rubbed hard against the others, tested in kindly refutations, using question and answer without envy, does understanding of each blaze out, and intelligence, straining to the very limit of human power. Therefore every serious man will beware of ever writing about the things that are serious, and casting them among men into envy and confusion. From this, in one word, one must recognize: whenever one sees a man's written compositions, whether the laws of a lawgiver or writings of any other kind, these were not his most serious concerns—if he himself is serious—for those lie stored in the fairest region he possesses. But if he really did set these down in writing as his serious concerns, then surely 'not the gods, but mortals themselves have destroyed his wits.' Whoever has followed this tale and wandering account will know well that whether it was Dionysius who wrote something about the highest and first things of nature, or someone lesser or greater, he had, on my account, neither heard nor learned anything sound about what he wrote. Otherwise he would have revered these things as I do, and would never have dared to fling them out into discord and unseemliness. He did not write it as an aid to memory—there is no danger anyone will forget it, once he has grasped it with his soul, for it lies in the briefest compass of all things—
but out of shameful ambition, if he wrote at all, whether claiming it as his own or as proof that he shared in a culture he did not deserve, loving the reputation that would come from the sharing. Now if this happened to Dionysius from our single meeting, it may be so; but how it happened, 'Zeus knows,' as the Theban says. For I went through it, as I said, once only, and never again afterward. Whoever cares to discover how things really went in this business must next consider why we did not go through it a second and a third time and more often. Does Dionysius, having heard it only once, think he knows, and know sufficiently, either by his own discovery or by earlier learning from others? Or does he think what was said is worthless? Or, the third possibility, that it is beyond him, too great, and that he would truly be unable to live devoting himself to wisdom and virtue? If he thinks it worthless, he will be at war with many witnesses who say the opposite, judges who would carry far more authority on such matters than Dionysius. If he thinks he discovered or learned it, and that it is worth the training of a free soul, how could he—unless he were an extraordinary person—have so casually dishonored the leader and master of these things? How he dishonored him, I shall tell. Not long after this, though before he had let Dion keep his own property and enjoy the income, he now no longer allowed Dion's trustees to send it to the Peloponnese, as though he had completely forgotten his letter; the property, he said, belonged not to Dion but to Dion's son, his own nephew, whose legal guardian he was. This was what had been done up to that point in that time. After these events I had seen with precision Dionysius's appetite for philosophy, and I had a right to be indignant, whether I wished it or not. It was summer by then, and the ships were sailing. It seemed I ought not to be angry at Dionysius more than at myself and those who had forced me to come a third time into the strait by Scylla, 'to measure once again destructive Charybdis,' but to tell Dionysius that it was impossible for me to stay while Dion was being treated with such contempt.
He tried to talk me out of it and begged me to stay, thinking it wouldn't look good for him if I went off in such a hurry as a messenger of these very events. When he couldn't persuade me, he said he would arrange passage for me himself. As for me, I had boarded one of the merchant ships and was planning to sail off on my own, in a rage, thinking I ought to put up with anything if I were prevented, since it was plain that I was doing no wrong but was being wronged. But when he saw that nothing would induce me to stay, he devised a scheme to keep the ships from sailing that season. He came to me the next day and made a plausible speech: let Dion and Dion's affairs, he said, be put out of the way between you and me, so we stop quarreling about them so often. For your sake I'll do the following for Dion. I'll allow him to take back his property and live in the Peloponnese, not as an exile but with the right to travel here too whenever it seems good to him, to me, and to you his friends together, provided he isn't plotting against me. You and your household, and Dion's people here, shall stand as guarantors of this, and he shall provide you security in return. As for the money he receives, let it be deposited in the Peloponnese or Athens with whomever you all agree on; let Dion have the income from it, but let him not have power to withdraw it without your consent. I don't fully trust him to act justly toward me if he has free use of that money—it isn't a small sum—but I trust you and your people more. Consider whether this pleases you, and stay on these terms for this year, and in the summer go off taking this money with you; and I know well that Dion will be very grateful to you for arranging this on his behalf. Hearing this speech I was upset, but all the same, after thinking it over, I said I would tell him the next day what I had decided about it. That was our agreement then. Afterward, left to myself, I deliberated, in great turmoil. The thought that led my deliberation was this: come now, suppose Dionysius intends to do none of what he says, and once I've left, he writes to Dion in persuasive terms, urging him and many others of his own people, the very things he's now saying to me—that he himself was willing, but I was unwilling to do what he proposed, and altogether neglected Dion's affairs—
and besides all this, suppose he's unwilling to send me off, giving no orders to any ship captain, and lets it be plainly seen by everyone that he doesn't want me to sail—will anyone then be willing to take me aboard as a passenger setting out from Dionysius's own house? For I was living, among my other troubles, in the garden around the palace, from which not even the doorkeeper would have let me go without an order sent to him from Dionysius. But if I wait out the year, I'll be able to write to Dion telling him where I stand and what I'm doing; and if Dionysius does anything of what he says, my conduct won't have been altogether ridiculous—for Dion's estate, reckoned fairly, is worth no less than a hundred talents perhaps—but if things turn out as they now seem likely to, I'm at a loss what I'll do with myself; still, it's probably necessary to labor on for one more year and try to expose Dionysius's schemes by their actual results. Having decided this, the next day I told Dionysius that I had resolved to stay; but I insisted, I said, that you not treat me as having authority over Dion, but that you send along with me letters to him making clear what has now been decided, and ask whether this satisfies him, and if not, whether he wants something else and requests it, and that you write this as quickly as possible, and that you make no new moves at all concerning him in the meantime. This was said, this we agreed on, more or less as I've now told it. The ships sailed off after this, and it was no longer possible for me to sail, when Dionysius brought up the point that half of Dion's estate ought to belong to Dion, and the other half to his son; he said he would sell it, and once it was sold, give half to me to take to Dion, and leave the other half for the boy, since that was the most just arrangement. Struck by what he said, I thought it quite absurd to argue any further, but still I said that we ought to wait for a letter from Dion and write him this proposal in turn. He, right after this, quite recklessly sold off the whole estate, however and to whomever he wished, and said not a word to me at all about it, and I likewise no longer discussed Dion's affairs with him at all; for I no longer thought I was accomplishing anything by it.
Up to this point, then, I had been helped along by philosophy and by friends. After this, Dionysius and I went on living together, I looking outward like a bird longing to fly off somewhere, he scheming how he might shake me off without giving back anything of Dion's; but we still called ourselves friends, in the eyes of all Sicily. Dionysius tried to cut the pay of the older mercenaries, against his father's custom, and the soldiers, angry, gathered together in a body and refused to allow it. He tried to force the issue by shutting the gates of the acropolis, but they made straight for the walls, raising some kind of foreign war cry; at this Dionysius, thoroughly frightened, granted everything, and even more, to the peltasts who had gathered then. A rumor soon spread that Heraclides was responsible for all this; hearing it, Heraclides kept himself out of the way, hidden, while Dionysius sought to seize him. At a loss, he sent for Theodotes and met him in the garden—I happened to be walking in the garden at that time too—and the rest of what they said I neither know nor overheard, but what Theodotes said to Dionysius in my presence I do know and remember. Plato, he said, I am persuading Dionysius here that, if I can bring Heraclides to a meeting with us about the charges now brought against him, then, should it be decided he ought not live in Sicily, I ask that he be allowed to take his son and wife and sail off to the Peloponnese, and live there doing Dionysius no harm, drawing the income from his own property. I have sent for him before, and I will send for him again now, whether he responds to my earlier summons or to this one; and I ask and beg of Dionysius that if anyone comes upon Heraclides, whether in the countryside or here, no other harm come to him, but only that he leave the country, until Dionysius decides otherwise. Do you agree to this? he said, turning to Dionysius. I agree, he said; even if he shows up right at your own house, he'll suffer no harm beyond what's now been said.
On the day after that, toward evening, Eurybius and Theodotes came to me in a remarkable state of agitation, and Theodotes said, Plato, you were there yesterday when Dionysius made those promises to me and to you about Heraclides? Of course I was, I said. Well now, he said, peltasts are running all around looking to seize Heraclides, and he's likely somewhere near here; but come with us to Dionysius, by every means. So we went and came into his presence, and the two of them stood there weeping in silence, while I said: these men are afraid you're going to do something rash against Heraclides, against what you agreed to yesterday; for it seems to me he must have somehow become obviously aware that you've turned against him. Hearing this he blazed up and went through every color a man shows in a rage; Theodotes fell before him, took his hand, wept, and begged him to do nothing of the kind. I broke in to comfort him: take heart, Theodotes, I said; Dionysius won't dare to act otherwise than what was agreed yesterday. And he, looking at me in a thoroughly tyrannical way, said: I made no agreement with you, small or great. By the gods, I said, you did make just this agreement—not to do what this man is now begging you not to do. And having said this I turned and walked out. After this he hunted Heraclides, while Theodotes sent messengers urging Heraclides to flee. Dionysius sent out Tisias with peltasts in pursuit, but Heraclides, it was said, escaped into Carthaginian territory by the narrowest margin of a day. After this, the long-standing plot of Dionysius not to give back Dion's money seemed to him to have a plausible excuse for hostility toward me, and first he sent me out of the acropolis, finding a pretext that the women needed to hold a ten-day sacrifice in the garden where I was living; he ordered me to stay outside that whole time at Archedemus's house. While I was there, Theodotes sent for me and spoke at length, indignant and full of complaints against Dionysius over what had happened; and Dionysius, hearing that I had gone to Theodotes, made this another pretext for his quarrel with me, one akin to the earlier one, and sent someone to ask me whether I had really been meeting with Theodotes at his summons. I said, absolutely. He said: tell him, then, that you're doing no good at all by always valuing Dion and Dion's friends above himself. This was said, and he no longer summoned me back into the residence, as though it were now clear that I was a friend of Theodotes and Heraclides, and his enemy, and he thought I bore him no goodwill, because Dion's money had all slipped away.
After this I lived outside the acropolis among the mercenaries; and various people came to me, among them the men serving in the ranks who were from Athens, my fellow citizens, and reported that I had been slandered among the peltasts, and that some were threatening to kill me if they caught me anywhere. So I devised the following plan for safety. I sent to Archytas and my other friends in Tarentum, telling them the situation I was in; they, on some pretext of an embassy from their city, sent a thirty-oared ship and one of their own number, Lamiscus, who came and pleaded with Dionysius on my behalf, saying that I wished to leave, and that he should by no means act otherwise. Dionysius agreed and sent me off with travel money, and as for Dion's money, I no longer asked for it, nor did anyone give it back. Arriving in the Peloponnese, at Olympia, I found Dion attending the festival and told him what had happened; calling Zeus to witness, he at once urged me and my household and friends to prepare to take revenge on Dionysius, for having betrayed us as guests—so he put it and so he meant it—and for having unjustly driven him out and exiled him. Hearing this, I told him to call on our friends if they wished, but as for me, I said: you, along with the others, in a way made me by force a messmate, housemate, and partner in sacred rites with Dionysius, who perhaps, on the word of many slanderers, thought I was plotting with you against him and his rule, and yet he did not kill me, but held back out of respect. So I'm no longer of an age to fight alongside almost anyone, and I belong to both of you in common, if ever you should want, out of friendship, to do each other some good; but as for evil, so long as you desire it, call on others. I said this because I had come to hate the whole wandering misadventure over Sicily; but disregarding this, and not yielding to my attempts at reconciliation, they themselves became responsible for all the troubles that have now occurred, none of which, so far as human affairs go, would ever have happened if Dionysius had given the money back to Dion, or even been fully reconciled with him—for I could easily have restrained Dion, both by will and by ability—but as it is, having rushed at each other, they have filled everything with troubles.
And yet Dion held exactly the wish that I would say I myself, or any other reasonable man, ought to hold concerning his own power, his friends, and his city: to become great in influence and honor by doing good with the greatest power in the greatest affairs. But a man does not do this if he makes himself, his companions, and his city rich by plotting and gathering conspirators while he himself is poor and not master of himself, beaten by cowardice before his own pleasures — if he then kills those who hold property, calls them his enemies, divides their wealth among his fellow-conspirators and friends, and urges them to see that no one accuses him of being poor. The same holds for a man who is honored by his city for doing it this kind of good — handing out by decree what belongs to the few to the many, or, if he stands at the head of a great city ruling many smaller ones, distributing the wealth of the smaller cities to his own city unjustly. In this way neither Dion nor anyone else would ever willingly go after a power that brings ruin on himself and his family forever — but rather toward a constitution and a framework of the most just and best laws, one not achieved through the fewest possible deaths and murders. This is exactly what Dion was doing now, choosing to suffer unholy acts rather than commit them first, taking every precaution not to suffer them — and still he stumbled, right at the peak of overcoming his enemies, though nothing amazing happened to him. For a holy man, in matters of unholiness, prudent and sound of mind, could never be wholly deceived in his soul about such things — but it would not be amazing if he suffered the fate of a good ship's captain, one who would hardly fail to notice an ordinary storm coming, but who might fail to notice — and be overwhelmed by force before he noticed — a storm of extraordinary and unexpected magnitude. This same thing brought Dion down: he was not at all unaware that the men who ruined him were bad, but he failed to grasp just how great a height of ignorance and of general depravity and greed they had reached — and by that failure he was brought down and now lies dead, having wrapped Sicily in boundless grief.
As for what comes after what I have just said, the advice I have to give has been said, more or less, and let it stand as said. As for why I brought up my second voyage to Sicily, I thought it necessary to explain it because of how strange and unaccountable the events were. But if what I have now said appears to anyone more reasonable, and if someone thinks it gives an adequate account of what happened, then what I have said now will have been moderate and sufficient for our purposes.
Plato, to the household and companions of Dion, wishing you well. I will try, as far as I am able, to go through with you the things which, if you set your mind on them, would truly bring you well-being. I hope to be giving advice that serves not only you, though it serves you most of all, but second, all the people of Syracuse, and third, even your enemies and opponents — except any of them who has committed an unholy act, for such things are incurable and can never be washed clean. Consider now what I am saying. Throughout Sicily, now that tyranny has been dissolved, the whole struggle is over this very question: some want to take back power again, others want to put a final end to the escape from tyranny. Now the advice that generally seems right to most people in matters like this is that one should recommend whatever will do the greatest harm to enemies and the greatest good to friends. But it is in no way easy to do great harm to others without also suffering a great deal in return oneself. One need not go far to see this clearly — just look at what has happened here, around Sicily itself, with some attempting to act and others defending themselves against those acting. These events could serve you, whenever you tell the story, as sufficient lessons for others. Of such things there is no shortage. But as for what would actually benefit everyone alike, both enemies and friends, or at least cause the least harm to both, that is neither easy to see nor, having seen it, easy to carry out — and such advice, such an undertaking in words, is more like a prayer.
Let it then be entirely a prayer — for one ought always to begin and think everything from the gods — and may it be fulfilled, expressing to us some such account as this: at present a single kinship has ruled continuously over both you and your enemies, ever since the war began — the very kinship your fathers established when they had come to the utmost extremity, at the time when the gravest danger arose for Greek Sicily of being utterly overturned and barbarized by the Carthaginians. For at that time they chose Dionysius, as a young man skilled in war, for the tasks of the war fitting to him, and as counselor and elder, Hipparinus — naming them, for the salvation of Sicily, absolute rulers, as they say, tyrants. And whether one wishes to credit this to divine fortune and a god, or to the virtue of the rulers, or to both together along with the citizens of that time as the cause of their salvation — let it be however one supposes; salvation, at any rate, is what came to those who lived then. Given, then, that this is how things stood, it is surely right to feel gratitude toward those who saved everyone. But if in the time since, the tyranny has misused the city's gift wrongly, for some of this it has already paid the penalty, and for some it should still pay. What penalties, then, would necessarily be just, given the present circumstances? If you were able easily to escape them, without great dangers and hardships, or they were able easily to seize back power again, then it would not even be possible to give the advice about to be given. But as things stand, both of you need to consider and recall how many times each side has come to hope that you were nearly there, lacking, so you thought, only some small thing to bring everything to pass as you wished — and how this small thing, each time, turns out to be the cause of great and countless evils, and no end is ever reached, but an old ending that seems final always joins onto a new beginning growing out of it — and by this cycle both the whole tyrannical line and the whole democratic party risk perishing utterly, and, if things go as is likely and as one would pray against, Sicily as a whole risks becoming empty of the Greek tongue, turned over to some Phoenician or Oscan dominion and power. Against this, all Greeks must apply, with all eagerness, a remedy.
If someone has something more correct and better than what I am about to say, let him bring it forward, and he will most rightly be called a friend of the Greeks. But what seems to me the case at present, I will try to set out, using complete frankness and a kind of shared, just reasoning. I am speaking, in a way, as an arbitrator addressing two parties — the man who has ruled as tyrant and the man who has been ruled by a tyrant — offering to each alike my old advice. And even now my counsel would be this: for every tyrant, to flee both the name and the deed itself, and to change, if it is at all possible, into kingship. It is possible, as a wise and good man showed in practice — Lycurgus, who, seeing his own kinsmen in Argos and Messenia pass from kings into the power of tyrants, and ruin both themselves and their cities, each pair alike, and fearing for his own city and family together, brought in as a remedy the rule of the elders and the binding check of the ephors upon kingly power, as a saving measure — so that for so many generations now it has been preserved with good repute, since law became master, king over men, rather than men being tyrants over laws. This same counsel of mine now urges everyone: those who long for tyranny should turn away and flee, in utter flight, from that insatiable and mindless notion of human happiness, and should try instead to change into the form of a king, and become servant to kingly laws, thereby gaining the greatest honors from willing men and from the laws themselves. And to those who pursue free ways of life and flee the yoke of servitude as an evil, I would advise them to be on guard, lest, through some untimely insatiable hunger for freedom, they fall into the sickness of their ancestors, which those men suffered through excessive lack of rule, using an unmeasured passion for freedom. For the Sicilian Greeks before the rule of Dionysius and Hipparinus lived, as they thought, in happiness — indulging themselves, and at the same time ruling their own rulers. They even stoned to death the ten generals who came before Dionysius, condemning them by no lawful judgment at all, so that they might be slave to no one, whether by justice or by law, as master, but be free in every way, entirely — and from this their tyrannies arose for them.
For slavery and freedom, each carried to excess, are wholly bad, while in due measure both are wholly good; measured servitude is service to god, unmeasured servitude is service to men; and god is law to men of sound mind, while pleasure is law to the mindless. Since this is how these things stand by nature, I urge Dion's friends to declare to all the Syracusans this advice — his and mine together, held in common. I will speak as an interpreter of what he, were he still alive and able, would say to you now. What counsel, then, one might ask, does Dion's advice reveal to us concerning the present situation? This: Above all else, Syracusans, accept laws that do not appear to you to turn your minds toward money-making and wealth out of desire, but rather, since there are three things — soul, body, and, third, possessions — that make the virtue of the soul the most honored, second the virtue of the body, placed beneath that of the soul, and third and last the honor of wealth, in service to both body and soul. And the ordinance that brings this about would rightly stand for you as law, truly making happy those who follow it; whereas the doctrine that calls the wealthy happy is itself a wretched doctrine — a mindless notion fit for women and children — and it makes those who are persuaded by it just as wretched. That what I urge is true, you will know by experience if you put to the test what is now being said about laws — for that is the truest touchstone in all such matters. And having accepted such laws, since danger now grips Sicily, and you neither hold power sufficiently nor are held down decisively either, it would perhaps be both just and advantageous for all of you to cut a middle path — granting to those who shrink from the harshness of one-man rule relief from it, and to those who still long for that rule, a share in it — whose ancestors once, and this is the greatest thing, saved the Greeks from the barbarians, so that it is even possible now to hold discourse about government at all; for had they been swept away, no word, no hope whatsoever would have remained anywhere. Let there now be, then, freedom for the one side together with kingly rule, and for the other, kingly rule accountable to law — with the laws as masters over the other citizens and over the kings themselves, should they do anything unlawful.
And over and above all this, with honest and sound judgment, together with the gods, set up a king — first, my own son, in return for a twofold favor, the one from me and the one from my father — for he freed the city from barbarians in that earlier time, and I have now twice freed it from tyrants, of which you yourselves have been witnesses. Second, make king the man who bears the same name as my father, son of Dionysius, in gratitude for his present help and for his righteous character — for he, born son of a tyrant father, willingly frees the city, thereby gaining for himself and his line honor that lasts forever, in place of a tyranny that is unjust and lasts only a day. Third, you must invite to become king of Syracuse — willingly, of a willing city — the man now commanding the enemy camp, Dionysius son of Dionysius, should he be willing to pass willingly into the form of a king, fearing the turns of fortune, and taking pity on his fatherland, on the neglect of its temples and its tombs, lest through sheer contentiousness he lose everything utterly and become a source of delight to the barbarians. Having these three as kings — whether you grant them Spartan-style power or take it away by mutual agreement — establish them in some such manner as has been described to you before, but hear it again even now. If the line of Dionysius and Hipparinus is willing, for the salvation of Sicily, to put an end to the evils now present, receiving honors for themselves and their descendants both now and hereafter, then on these terms summon — as was said before — whatever envoys they are willing to accept as authorities over the reconciliation, whether drawn from here, or from abroad, or both, and as many as they agree to. Let these men, once arrived, first establish laws and a constitution of the sort in which it is fitting for kings to have authority over sacred matters and whatever else belongs to men who have once been benefactors, and let them appoint, as rulers over war and peace, law-guardians numbering thirty-five, together with the people and the council. Let there be different courts for different matters, but let the thirty-five preside over cases of death and exile; and in addition, let there be chosen judges from among those who have held office the previous year, one from each office, the man judged best and most just; and let these men judge, for the coming year, all cases involving death, imprisonment, and the removal of citizens.
The king in such matters must not be allowed to act as judge, any more than a priest may involve himself in bloodshed, imprisonment, or exile. This is what I intended to bring about for you while I lived, and what I still intend now, and had I prevailed over our enemies then, with your help, had foreign furies not stood in the way, I would have established things just as I planned, and afterward, had my designs been carried into action, I would have resettled the rest of Sicily as well, taking from the barbarians the land they now hold except for those who fought for our common freedom against the tyranny, and restoring the earlier inhabitants of the Greek regions to their ancient ancestral homes. This same course I now urge upon all of you together to consider, to carry out, and to press upon everyone else, and to regard as a common enemy anyone unwilling. Nor is this impossible. What lies within the reach of two minds, and is readily found by careful reasoning to be best, only someone lacking sense would judge impossible. I mean the two minds of Hipparinus, son of Dionysius, and of my own son. If these two come to agreement, I think all the rest of the Syracusans who care for the city will approve as well. Give honor and prayer to all the gods, and to all else that ought to be honored alongside the gods, and by persuasion and invitation, both gently and by every means, do not let friends and rivals alike hold back, until what has now been said by us, like a divine dream appearing to men awake, is brought to clear and fortunate completion.
Plato to Archytas of Tarentum, greetings. Archippus and Philonides and their party have come to us, bringing the letter you gave them, and reporting what you had to say. The matters concerning the city they managed without difficulty—indeed they were not especially troublesome—and they related to us what came from you, saying that you are somewhat vexed at being unable to free yourself from public business.
That doing one's own work is the most pleasant thing in life, especially when one chooses to do work such as yours, is plain to nearly everyone. But you must also bear this in mind: none of us is born for himself alone. Our birth is shared in part by our country, in part by our parents, in part by our other friends, and much is also owed to the circumstances that happen to seize hold of our lives. When our country itself calls us to public service, it would perhaps be strange to refuse; for at the same time it happens that we leave the field open to inferior men, who do not come to public affairs from the best motives. On these matters, then, enough has been said. As for Echecrates, we are looking after him now and will continue to do so in the future, both for your sake and for his father Phrynion's, and for the young man's own sake.
Plato to Aristodorus, greetings. I hear that you are, and have always been, one of Dion's closest companions, showing the wisest character among those devoted to philosophy. For what is steadfast, trustworthy, and sound—this I say is true philosophy, while the other skills and cleverness aimed at other ends I think are rightly called mere accomplishments. Farewell, and remain in the character you now hold.
Plato to Laodamas, greetings. I wrote to you before that it would make a great difference to everything you speak of if you yourself came to Athens. Since you say this is impossible, the next best thing was whether I or Socrates might come, as you proposed. But as it stands Socrates is troubled by his strangury, and it would be unseemly for me to come there and not accomplish what you ask. As for myself, I do not have much hope that this could happen—the reasons would require another long letter to explain fully—and besides, at my age I am no longer fit in body to wander about and face the dangers one meets by land and sea, and nowadays all journeys are full of danger.
I can, however, offer advice to you and to the founders of the colony—advice which, Hesiod says, would seem trivial coming from me to state, but is hard to grasp. If it is possible for a constitution ever to be well established by the laying down of laws, of whatever kind, without there being some authority in the city charged with overseeing the daily conduct of life, so that it remains disciplined and manly among both slaves and free—those who think otherwise are mistaken. And this can only happen if there are already men worthy of holding such authority; but if instruction is still needed, then, as I see it, you have neither anyone to teach nor anyone to be taught, and for the rest you must pray to the gods. Indeed nearly all earlier cities were founded in just this way, and only afterward came to be governed well, once, through the convergence of great events—in war and in other undertakings—a man both noble and good arose in such circumstances, possessed of great power. Before that stage is reached you must be eager and must strive, yet you should think of things as I describe them, and not act foolishly by supposing that something can be easily accomplished. Good fortune to you.
Plato to Archytas of Tarentum, greetings. The notes you sent us we received with wonderful delight, and we admired their author as much as possible; the man seemed to us worthy of those ancient forebears. For these men are said to be the Myrioi—those who were among the Trojans driven out under Laomedon—good men, as the traditional story shows. As for the notes in my keeping, about which you wrote, they are not yet in good enough shape, but such as they are I have sent them to you. On the matter of safekeeping we are of one mind, so there is no need to urge it further. (This letter is disputed as not Plato's.)
Plato to Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, greetings. Let this be the opening of my letter, and at the same time a token that it comes from me. Once, when you were entertaining the young men of Locri, reclining far from me, you got up and came over to me, and in friendly spirit said something rather fine, which struck me—and the man reclining beside you, one of the handsome ones, said at the time: no doubt, Dionysius, you gain a great deal in wisdom from Plato—and you replied: and in many other things too, since even from the very act of sending for him, the fact that I sent for him, I gained benefit at once. This, then, must be preserved, so that the benefit we gain from one another may keep on increasing. And now, working toward just that end, I am sending you the Pythagorean treatises and the divisions, and also a man whom, as we agreed at the time, you and Archytas—if Archytas has indeed come to you—could make good use of. His name is Helicon, by birth from Cyzicus, a pupil of Eudoxus and thoroughly skilled in everything of his master's; he has also kept company with one of Isocrates' pupils and with Polyxenus, one of Bryson's associates. And what is rare besides these qualities, he is neither unpleasant to meet nor does he seem malicious, but would rather strike one as light-hearted and good-natured. I say this with some caution, since I am giving my opinion of a human being, not a trivial creature but one prone to change, except in a very few respects and a very few people. In this case too, out of caution and some distrust, I made my own inquiries, meeting him myself and asking about him among his fellow citizens, and no one had anything bad to say of the man. Look into it yourself as well, and be careful. Best of all, if you have any leisure at all, learn from him and pursue philosophy in other matters too; if not, have someone else instructed by him, so that, learning at your leisure, you may improve and gain good repute, so that the benefit owed to me may not go to waste for you. So much, then, for that.
As for the things you wrote asking me to send, I have had the statue of Apollo made, and Leptines is bringing it to you—a young and skilled craftsman; his name is Leochares. He had another piece in his workshop that seemed to me quite fine, so I bought it, wishing to give it to your wife, since she looked after me, both in health and in sickness, in a manner worthy of both of us. Give it to her, then, unless you decide otherwise. I am also sending twelve jars of sweet wine for the children, and two of honey. We came too late for the storing of the dried figs, and the myrtle berries that were put away have spoiled; but we will take better care another time. Leptines will tell you about the plants. For these purposes, and for certain contributions to the city, I took money from Leptines, telling him what seemed to me the most seemly and truthful account, namely that the money we spent on the Leucadian ship, some sixteen minas, was rightfully ours; so I took that sum, and having taken it I both used some myself and sent the rest on to you. Now hear how matters stand concerning money, both yours in Athens and my own. I will use your money, as I told you before, just as I use that of my other close friends, drawing on it as sparingly as I can, only for what seems to me necessary, just, or fitting, both to me and to whoever I am borrowing from. As it happens, this is my situation now. I have four grandnieces, daughters of the nieces who died at the time when I was not wearing the victor's crown, though you urged me to—one now of marriageable age, one eight years old, one just past three, and one not yet a year old. These I must see given in marriage, I and my close friends, to whichever of them I live to see grown; for those I do not, let them fare as they may. And whichever of them come to have fathers wealthier than I am need not be provided for by me; but as things stand now I am the best-off among them, and I also arranged the marriages of their mothers, along with others and along with Dion. One, then, is being married to Speusippus, being his sister's daughter. For her nothing more than thirty minas is needed; that is the modest dowry we set for ourselves. And further, if my mother should die, no more than ten minas would be needed for building her tomb.
As for these matters, my own necessary expenses stand roughly as I have described for now; but if any other expense arises, private or public, on account of my coming to you, then, as I said before we must do, I will strive to keep the expense as small as possible, and whatever I cannot manage, let it be your outlay. Now I turn to what I have to say about the spending of your own money in Athens. First, if I should need to spend anything on a chorus or something of that sort, you have no foreign friend, as far as we supposed, who would provide it; and further, if anything matters greatly to you yourself, such that spent promptly it would do good, but if not spent, and instead delayed until someone comes from you, it would do harm—besides the difficulty, such a thing would also be shameful for you. I looked into this myself, sending Erastus to Andromedes the Aeginetan, from whom you told me to take whatever I might need, since he is your family friend, wanting also to send the other, larger things you had written about. He gave a reasonable and very human answer, that having previously spent money for your father he had barely gotten it back, and that now he would give a little, but no more. So I took the money from Leptines instead; and Leptines deserves praise for this, not simply because he gave it, but because he gave it readily, and in everything else concerning you, in word and deed, he was plainly devoted, showing himself a true friend. For I must report such things, and their opposite too, whatever each person shows himself to be toward you as it appears to me. On the matter of the money, then, I will speak frankly to you; that is only right, and besides I have experience of your affairs. Those who report to you from time to time are unwilling to report what they think would count as an expense, for fear of becoming unpopular; accustom them, then, and compel them, to tell you both this and everything else. You must know everything as far as possible, and be the judge, and not shrink from knowing. This will be the best thing for you with a view to your rule; for spending rightly and repaying rightly, both in other matters and in the very acquisition of wealth, you yourself say is a good thing, and will go on saying so. So do not let those who claim to care for you set you against other people; for this brings you neither good nor honor in reputation, only the appearance of being hard to deal with. Next I will speak about Dion. On the rest I cannot yet speak until the letters come from you, as you said; but on the matters you told me not to mention to him, I neither mentioned them nor discussed them, though I tried to gauge whether he would take it hard or easily if they came about, and it seemed to me he would be considerably distressed if they did happen. In everything else concerning you, in word and in deed, Dion seems to me moderate.
Let us give Cratinus, Timotheus's brother and a friend of mine, a set of light infantry armor, and to Cebes's daughters three linen tunics reaching to the ankles -- not the expensive Amorgian kind, but the linen ones made in Sicily. You know the name Cebes well enough: he appears in the Socratic dialogues alongside Simmias, conversing with Socrates in the discourse on the soul -- a man devoted and well-disposed to all of us. Now, about the code we use for letters, both the ones I send seriously and the ones I don't, I think you remember it, but think it over anyway and pay close attention: there are many people urging me to write, and it isn't easy to turn them down openly. A god presides over the serious letter, but the lesser gods preside over the other kind. The ambassadors kept asking me to write to you, and reasonably so -- everywhere they praise you and me most enthusiastically, and not least Philagros, who at the time had a weak hand. And Philaides too, arriving from the Great King, spoke about you; if it wouldn't make the letter too long I would have written down what he said, but as it is, ask Leptines about it. If you send the armor, or anything else I've asked for, send it either through someone of your own choosing, or else give it to Terillus; he's one of those who are always sailing back and forth, a good friend of ours, and a man of taste where philosophy is concerned too. He's a relative of Teiso, who was the city magistrate at the time we sailed away. Farewell, and keep at philosophy, and urge the other young men to do the same, and greet the ball-players for me, and give instructions to Aristocritus and the others that if any word or letter comes to you from me, they should see to it that you learn of it as quickly as possible, and remind you to attend to what's written in it. And now don't neglect to pay Leptines back the money -- pay it back as soon as you can, so that others, seeing how you treat him, will be more eager to serve us as well. Iatrocles, the man freed by me along with Myronides, is now sailing with those sent from me; find him some paid position, since he's well-disposed toward you, and if you need anything, make use of him. And keep this letter, or a copy of it, safe, and be the same man yourself.
ATHENIAN: Is it a god, gentlemen, or some human being who gets the credit for laying down your laws? CLEINIAS: A god, stranger, a god — that is the most honest way to put it. Among us it is Zeus; among the Spartans, where this man comes from, I believe they name Apollo. Isn't that so? MEGILLUS: Yes. ATHENIAN: So you follow Homer, then — that Minos used to go every ninth year to commune with his father, and that it was according to the oracles he received from him that he established the laws for your cities?
CLEINIAS: That is indeed the story among us. And what is more, his brother Rhadamanthys — you know the name — is said to have been the most just of men. We Cretans, at any rate, would say he earned that praise fairly, from the way he administered justice in those days. ATHENIAN: A fine renown, and very fitting for a son of Zeus. And since both you and this man here were raised in such law-abiding traditions, I expect you would not find it disagreeable to pass the time today discussing government and laws, talking and listening as we walk. In any case the road from Cnossus to the cave and sanctuary of Zeus is, so we hear, a long one, and there are no doubt resting places along the way — shady spots under the tall trees, welcome in this stifling heat — and at our age it would be fitting to rest in them often, easing the whole journey with conversation and so getting through it comfortably. CLEINIAS: There are indeed, stranger: as you go on there are cypresses in the groves of astonishing height and beauty, and meadows where we could pause and pass the time. ATHENIAN: Well said. CLEINIAS: Quite so — and when we see them we will say it still more. Come, let us set out, and good fortune go with us. ATHENIAN: So be it. Now tell me: on what principle has your law prescribed the common meals, the gymnastic training, and the style of weapons you keep? CLEINIAS: Our customs, stranger, are easy enough for anyone to grasp, I think. You can see that the nature of the whole country of Crete is not flat like Thessaly; that is why they mostly use horses and we use running — our terrain is uneven, better suited to training in foot-races. In such country your weapons must be light, so you can run without being weighed down; and the lightness of bows and arrows seems the right fit. All these things of ours are equipped for war, and the lawgiver, it seems to me, had his eye on war in arranging every one of them. Even the common meals he probably instituted because he saw that whenever men are on campaign, the situation itself forces them to eat together for that whole period, for their own protection. He was, I think, condemning the folly of the many, who fail to understand that everyone is engaged in a continuous, lifelong war against all other cities.
CLEINIAS: And if in wartime men must mess together for security, with officers and rank-and-file organized as their guards, then the same must be done in peace. For what most people call peace is only a name; in fact every city is, by nature, in a permanent undeclared war with every other city. Look at it this way, and you will pretty well find that the Cretan lawgiver arranged all our institutions, public and private, with a view to war, and handed down the laws to be kept on that principle: that nothing else is of any use — not possessions, not pursuits — unless one prevails in war, since all the goods of the defeated pass to the victors. ATHENIAN: You have clearly been well trained, stranger, in understanding Cretan institutions. But explain this to me more precisely: the definition you gave of a well-governed city — you seem to be saying it must be organized so as to defeat other cities in war. Yes? CLEINIAS: Certainly; and I imagine this man agrees. MEGILLUS: How else could any Spartan answer, my excellent friend? ATHENIAN: Then is this standard right for cities against cities, but different for village against village? CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: The same, then? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And what about household against household within the village, and man against man, one on one — still the same? CLEINIAS: The same. ATHENIAN: And a man in relation to himself — should he think of himself as enemy against enemy? Or how do we put it now? CLEINIAS: Athenian stranger — for I would not want to call you Attic; to my mind you have earned instead a name taken from the goddess — you have made the argument clearer by carrying it back correctly to its starting point. So you will the more easily see that what we said just now was right: all are enemies of all in public, and in private each man is an enemy to himself. ATHENIAN: What do you mean, my remarkable friend? CLEINIAS: Just this, stranger: here too, to conquer oneself is the first and best of all victories, and to be defeated by oneself is of all things the most shameful and the worst. This means that each of us is at war with himself.
ATHENIAN: Then let us turn the argument back around. Since each one of us is either stronger than himself or weaker, should we say that a household, a village, and a city have this same thing within them, or should we not? CLEINIAS: You mean that one is stronger than itself, another weaker? ATHENIAN: Yes. CLEINIAS: A good question, too — for such a thing very much exists, and not least in cities. Wherever the better people prevail over the mass and over the worse, that city could rightly be called stronger than itself, and would most justly be praised for such a victory; and the opposite wherever the opposite happens. ATHENIAN: Whether the worse can ever really be stronger than the better we may leave aside — that would take a longer discussion. But I now understand what you are saying: that sometimes citizens, kinsmen of the same city, being unjust and many, will band together and try to enslave by force the just, who are fewer; and when they win, the city may rightly be called weaker than itself and bad, but where they lose, stronger and good. CLEINIAS: A very strange thing to say, stranger — and yet we can hardly avoid admitting it. ATHENIAN: Hold on. Let us consider this case too. There might be many brothers, sons of one father and one mother, and it would be no wonder if the majority of them turned out unjust and the minority just. CLEINIAS: No wonder at all. ATHENIAN: And it would not be proper for you and me to hunt after this point — that when the wicked win, the household and this whole family would be called weaker than itself, and stronger when they lose. For we are not now examining fine or clumsy expressions by the standard of ordinary speech; we are asking about the rightness and error of laws — what that is, in nature. CLEINIAS: Very true, stranger. MEGILLUS: Well put, in my judgment too — so far, at least. ATHENIAN: Then let us look at this as well: could these brothers we just mentioned have some judge? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Which judge would be better — the one who destroyed all the bad ones among them and ordered the better to govern themselves, or the one who made the good ones rule while letting the worse live, and got them to accept being ruled willingly?
ATHENIAN: And let us name a third judge in point of excellence, if such a one could exist: a judge who, taking in hand a single divided family, would destroy no one, but reconcile them, and by laying down laws for them for the time to come, could keep watch over their relations with one another so that they remained friends. CLEINIAS: Such a judge and lawgiver would be far better. ATHENIAN: And yet the laws he laid down for them would aim at the very opposite of war. CLEINIAS: That is true. ATHENIAN: And what of the man who harmonizes the city? Would he order its life with a view to external war, rather than to the war that arises within the city itself from time to time — what we call civil strife? That is the war everyone would most wish never to see in his own city, and, if it came, to be rid of as quickly as possible. CLEINIAS: Clearly with a view to the latter. ATHENIAN: And which would one prefer: that peace after civil strife come through the destruction of one side and the victory of the other, or that friendship and peace be brought about by reconciliation, with attention then necessarily turned to enemies abroad? CLEINIAS: Everyone would wish the latter for his own city rather than the former. ATHENIAN: And so would the lawgiver? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Now, would not every lawgiver enact all his measures for the sake of what is best? CLEINIAS: How could he not? ATHENIAN: But the best is neither war nor civil strife — those are things to pray we never need — but peace with one another together with goodwill. And even a city's victory over itself, it turns out, belongs not among the best things but among the necessary ones. It is as if someone thought a sick body that had received a medical purge was thereby in its finest condition, and never gave a thought to a body that needed no treatment at all. Likewise, anyone who thinks this way about the happiness of a city or an individual will never be a true statesman — looking only and first to external wars — nor a precise lawgiver, unless he legislates matters of war for the sake of peace rather than matters of peace for the sake of war. CLEINIAS: The argument sounds right somehow, stranger; and yet I would be amazed if our institutions, and Sparta's too, were not framed with all their zeal directed at these things.
ATHENIAN: Perhaps so. But we must not battle them harshly now; let us question them gently, since both we and they take these matters very seriously. Follow the argument with me. Let us bring forward Tyrtaeus — Athenian by birth, but made a citizen of these men's city — who of all men was most in earnest about these things, saying: I would not mention a man nor count him as anything — not even, he says, should he outstrip every man alive in riches, not even if he possessed many good things (and he lists nearly all of them) — unless he always proved himself the best in war. You too have surely heard these poems; and this man, I imagine, is saturated with them. MEGILLUS: Certainly. CLEINIAS: Yes, they have reached us too, brought over from Sparta. ATHENIAN: Come then, let us question this poet together, something like this: Tyrtaeus, most divine of poets — you seem to us wise and good, since you have praised so surpassingly those who surpass in war — now I and this man and Cleinias of Cnossus here happen, we think, to agree with you emphatically on this point; but we want to know clearly whether we are speaking of the same men or not. Tell us: are you as certain as we are that war falls into two distinct forms? Or how do you see it? In answer to this, I imagine even a man far inferior to Tyrtaeus would state the truth — that there are two: one is what we all call civil strife, the harshest of all wars, as we said just now; and the other kind of war, I think we would all agree, is the one we wage in our quarrels with outsiders and foreigners, a much milder thing than the first. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then, which men, and which war, were you praising when you praised some so extravagantly and blamed others? Foreign war, it would seem; at any rate you have said in your poems that you cannot at all abide men who do not dare to look upon bloody slaughter and, standing near, reach out at the enemy. So we would then say: you, Tyrtaeus, it appears, are chiefly praising those who distinguish themselves in the foreign, external kind of war. He would agree to that, presumably, and admit it?
CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: But we for our part say that, good as those men were, the ones who prove themselves best in the greatest war are clearly still better. We too have a poet as witness, Theognis, a citizen of the Megarians in Sicily, who says: 'When faction rages bitter, Cyrnus, a man you can trust outweighs silver and gold in the balance.' This man, we say, shows himself far better in the harsher war of civil conflict than the other kind of man is in ordinary war — about as much better as justice, self-control, and wisdom, joined together with courage, are better than courage alone. For a man could never prove trustworthy and sound in factional strife without the whole of virtue; whereas among the mercenaries Tyrtaeus describes, who cross into battle willingly and are ready to die, there are plenty, but most of them turn out reckless, unjust, violent, and about as senseless as anyone — except for a very few. Now where does this argument of ours end up, and what point was it meant to bring into the open? Clearly this: that the lawgiver here, under Zeus, and any lawgiver worth even a little, will always frame his laws looking above all to the greatest virtue, not to anything less. And this greatest virtue, as Theognis says, is trustworthiness in dangers, which one might call complete justice. As for the virtue Tyrtaeus praised most highly, it is a fine thing, and the poet dressed it up well for the occasion, but it would most correctly be ranked fourth in both number and worth. CLEINIAS: Stranger, we're relegating our own lawgiver to the rank of a lawgiver from far away. ATHENIAN: Not we, my excellent friend, but ourselves — whenever we suppose that Lycurgus and Minos, in laying down the customs of Sparta and of Crete, were looking chiefly to war. CLEINIAS: Then how should we have put it? ATHENIAN: The way, I think, that truth and justice require when one is discussing things divine — not as though he were legislating with an eye to some fragment of virtue, and the meanest fragment at that, but with an eye to the whole of virtue; and we should look for their laws arranged by these kinds, not in the way people nowadays go about proposing 'kinds.'
ATHENIAN: For each person now sets forth and pursues whatever he happens to need — one man the laws on inheritances and heiresses, another the law on assault, and others countless other particular topics; but we say that the proper inquiry into laws is the kind we ourselves just began. And I admire very much the way you set about explaining the laws: to begin from virtue, saying that the lawgiver framed his laws for its sake, is correct. But when you went on to say that he was legislating with all this referred to some fragment of virtue, and the smallest fragment at that, there you no longer struck me as speaking rightly, and that is exactly why I said everything I just said. So how, then, would I have wanted you to divide the matter and state it, and how would I myself want to hear it stated? Shall I tell you? CLEINIAS: Please do. ATHENIAN: Stranger, you ought to have said: it is not for nothing that the laws of the Cretans stand out above all others in reputation among the Greeks; they are right, because they make those who live by them happy. For they provide all good things. Now good things are of two kinds: some human, some divine; and the human ones depend on the divine — a city that receives the greater goods gains the lesser as well, but if not, it is deprived of both. Of the lesser goods, health leads, beauty is second, and third is strength for running and for all the other bodily movements, and fourth is wealth — not blind wealth, but wealth that sees clearly, provided it is joined with wisdom. And of the divine goods in turn, wisdom stands first and leads the way; second is a sound, self-controlled disposition of soul; from these, blended with courage, comes justice as third; and fourth is courage itself. All these stand, by nature, ahead of the lesser goods, and the lawgiver too must rank them in this order. After this, he must direct the citizens toward all the remaining ordinances with these in view, the human goods pointing to the divine, and the divine, all of them, pointing to the ruling intelligence — governing everything to do with marriages contracted between people, and afterward the begetting and raising of children, both male and female, from youth through old age, watching over them properly, honoring some and dishonoring others,
ATHENIAN: and in all their dealings with one another, keeping watch over their pains, pleasures, and desires, and the intensity of every kind of passion, and through the laws themselves rightly blaming and praising. Likewise in matters of anger and fear, and all the disturbances that misfortune stirs up in the soul, and the escapes from such things that come with good fortune, and whatever experiences befall people through sickness, war, poverty, or their opposites — in every such case he must teach and define, for each condition, what is noble and what is not. After this the lawgiver must, of necessity, watch over the citizens' property and expenditures, however these come about, and oversee their partnerships and dissolutions of partnership with one another, whether willing or unwilling, in whatever dealings they conduct with each other of this kind — noting where justice is present and where it is lacking, granting honors to those who obey the laws, and fixing penalties for those who disobey — until, having gone through the whole design of the constitution to its very end, he sees what manner of burial is fitting for the dead in each case, and what honors ought to be paid them. And once he has surveyed all this, the one who lays down the laws will set guardians over it all, some proceeding by wisdom, others by true opinion, so that intelligence, binding all these things together, may show them following upon self-control and justice, rather than wealth or ambition. This, strangers, is how I wished you to go through the subject, and I still wish it now — to explain how, in the laws attributed to Zeus and to Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus established, all this is present, and how, arranged in some order, it stands revealed to one skilled in the art of law — or in certain customs — even though to the rest of us it is nowhere apparent. CLEINIAS: Then how, Stranger, should we proceed from here? ATHENIAN: I think we should go through it again from the beginning, just as we started, first the practices bearing on courage, and then we shall go through a second kind of virtue, and then another, if you wish; and however we go through the first, let us take it as a model, and in this way, discussing the rest as we go, make the whole journey a kind of pleasant conversation, and afterward, looking back to everything we have now gone through, show how it bears on virtue as a whole — god willing.
MEGILLUS: Well said — and try first to judge this admirer of Zeus for us. ATHENIAN: I shall try — to judge both you and myself, since the argument belongs to us both. Tell me then: do we say that common meals and gymnastic exercises were devised by the lawgiver for the sake of war? MEGILLUS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And a third practice, or a fourth? Perhaps we ought to count in this way concerning the parts — or whatever one should call them — of the rest of virtue as well, simply naming what each one points to. MEGILLUS: A third, then, I would say — and so would any Spartan — is hunting. ATHENIAN: Let us try to name a fourth, or a fifth if we can. MEGILLUS: A fourth I too would try to name: the endurance of pain that is widely practiced among us, both in hand-to-hand contests with one another and in certain forms of raiding that regularly involve a great many blows. There is also what is called the 'crypteia,' a marvelously grueling exercise in endurance — going barefoot in winter, sleeping without bedding, serving oneself without attendants, roaming the whole countryside by night and by day. And again in the naked contests of the young there is fearsome endurance among us, as they fight it out against the power of the heat; and there are a great many other such things, so many that one could hardly finish listing them all. ATHENIAN: Well said, Spartan friend. But come, what shall we say courage is? Is it simply, in this way, a struggle against fears and pains alone, or also against desires and pleasures, and certain terrible flatteries that turn even the spirits of men who think themselves solemn into wax? MEGILLUS: I think it is this — against all of these together. ATHENIAN: If indeed we recall our earlier discussion, this man here spoke of a city, and likewise a man, being weaker than itself. Is that not so, Cnossian stranger? CLEINIAS: It certainly is. ATHENIAN: Now then, do we call the one defeated by pains bad, or the one defeated by pleasures as well? CLEINIAS: The one defeated by pleasures, I think, more so — and I suppose we all more readily call the man overcome by pleasures shamefully weaker than himself than the man overcome by pains.
ATHENIAN: Then surely the lawgiver of Zeus and the Pythian lawgiver did not legislate a lame courage, capable of resisting only on the left, but powerless against what comes from the right, against the smooth and flattering things — did they? Or against both? CLEINIAS: Against both, I would say. ATHENIAN: Then let us say again: what practices are there in both your cities that give people a taste of pleasures instead of avoiding them — just as they did not avoid pains, but led men straight into their midst, and by compulsion and persuasion, backed by honors, made them masters of them? Where in your laws is the same thing arranged with regard to pleasures? Let it be said what it is that produces in you, alike with regard to both pains and pleasures, the same men courageous — winning where they must win, and in no way weaker than the enemies nearest and most dangerous to themselves. MEGILLUS: Well, Stranger, whereas I could name many laws set up against pains, I would perhaps not be so well supplied when it comes to speaking of great and conspicuous instances concerning pleasures; though in small matters perhaps I could manage. CLEINIAS: Nor could I myself point to anything so clearly analogous in the laws of Crete. ATHENIAN: Best of strangers, that is nothing to be surprised at. But if one of us should find fault with something in the other's laws at home, wishing to see both the truth and the best course, let us receive each other's criticism gently rather than harshly. CLEINIAS: Rightly said, Athenian stranger, and we must obey it. ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias, for it would not befit men of our age to do otherwise. CLEINIAS: No indeed. ATHENIAN: Whether one rightly or wrongly finds fault with the Spartan or Cretan constitution is another matter; but as to what is commonly said, I might perhaps be able to speak of it better than either of you. For among you, if your laws are even reasonably well constructed, one of the finest of them would be this: not to allow any of the young to inquire which of their institutions are good and which are not, but with one voice and out of one mouth to agree, all of them, that everything is well established, since gods laid it down — and if anyone says otherwise, not to tolerate hearing it at all; whereas if some old man has thoughts about any of your institutions, he is to raise such matters only before a ruler or a man of his own age, and never in front of a young person.
CLEINIAS: That's exactly right, Stranger. Like a seer who wasn't there when the lawgiver worked these things out, you now seem to me to have hit the mark quite well, and to be speaking the plain truth. ATHENIAN: So then, since there are no young people here now, and we ourselves have been let off by the lawgiver, on account of our age, to talk among ourselves, alone with each other, about these very laws — there'd be nothing improper in that? CLEINIAS: That's so. And on this point, don't hold back at all from criticizing our laws. Knowing about something that isn't admirable brings no dishonor — rather, a cure comes out of it, for someone who takes what's said not with resentment but with goodwill. ATHENIAN: Well said. Still, I won't speak of criticizing the laws just yet, not before I've examined them as thoroughly as I can — I'm more at a loss than anything. You see, your lawgiver, alone among Greeks and non-Greeks that we know of, ordered you to hold off from the greatest pleasures and games and not so much as taste them, while about pains and fears — which we've just gone through — he judged that if a person flees from them all his life from childhood on, then whenever he comes up against necessary hardships, fears, and pains, he'll flee before the people who've been trained in those very things, and become their slave. Now I think that same lawgiver had to think the same way about pleasures too, telling himself that if our citizens grow up from childhood inexperienced in the greatest pleasures, and get no practice in holding firm against pleasures and never being forced to do anything shameful, then, because of their soft indulgence toward pleasure, they'll suffer the same thing as those who are overcome by fears — they'll be enslaved, in a different and even more shameful way, to those who can hold firm amid pleasures, to people who have mastered such things, sometimes utterly bad people — and their soul will be part slave, part free, and they won't deserve, without qualification, to be called courageous and free men. Consider, then, whether any of what's now being said seems to you to be said as it should be. CLEINIAS: It seems so to us, at least as the argument is being made. But to put our trust so readily and so quickly in matters of this weight would be more the mark of the young and foolish.
ATHENIAN: Well, if we go through what comes next in our proposal, Cleinias, and you too, Stranger of Sparta — after courage, let's talk about self-control — will we find anything in these constitutions that's different from constitutions run at random, the way we just did with matters of war? MEGILLUS: That's not easy to say. Still, the common meals and the gymnasiums do seem to have been well devised for both. ATHENIAN: It does seem, Strangers, to be a hard thing to make what's said about constitutions match what's actually done, beyond dispute. It's risky — just as with bodies, it seems impossible to prescribe one regimen for one body without it turning out to harm some parts of our bodies while benefiting others. Take these gymnasiums and common meals — right now they benefit our cities in many other ways, but where factional strife is concerned they're dangerous — the young men of Miletus, Boeotia, and Thurii make that plain. And besides, this practice seems to have corrupted an old and natural law — the pleasures of sex, not just among humans but among animals too. And of all people, one would blame your cities first for this, and whichever others take most to the gymnasiums. Whether we should think of such things playfully or seriously, we should bear in mind that when female and male nature come together for the purpose of procreation, the pleasure involved in that seems to be assigned according to nature, but male with male or female with female seems contrary to nature, and the audacity of the first ones to do it came from a lack of self-control before pleasure. We all accuse the Cretans of inventing the story about Ganymede — since their laws were believed to have come down from Zeus, they say, people added this story about Zeus so that, following the god's example, they could enjoy this pleasure too. Well, let the story go its way — but when people are examining laws, nearly the whole inquiry concerns pleasures and pains, in cities and in the characters of individuals. These are the two springs let loose by nature to flow — whoever draws from them where he should, when he should, and as much as he should, is happy, whether a city, a private person, or any living creature, while whoever draws without understanding and outside the right occasions lives the opposite kind of life.
MEGILLUS: What you say sounds well put, Stranger — even so, it leaves us at a loss for what to say in response. Still, it seems right to me that the lawgiver at Sparta directs people to flee from pleasures, while our friend here can speak up, if he's willing, about the laws at Knossos. As for Sparta, it seems to me that our arrangements concerning pleasure are the finest among men. Where people fall hardest into the greatest pleasures, into insolence and every kind of folly, that's exactly what our law has driven out of our whole territory — you won't see it in the fields, nor in the towns that matter to Spartans, any drinking parties or anything that goes along with them stirring up every pleasure they can. And there's no one who, coming across a man reveling in drunkenness, wouldn't at once impose the harshest penalty on him — not even the excuse of a Dionysian festival would get him off, the way I once saw happen among your people, in wagons; and at Tarentum, among our own colonists, I once watched the whole city drunk at the Dionysia. Among us there's nothing of the kind. ATHENIAN: Stranger of Sparta, all such restraints are praiseworthy where there's some capacity to hold firm, but where things are let loose, they're rather feeble-minded. Someone defending our own ways could quickly seize on you in turn, pointing to the license granted to women among you. To all such objections — whether at Tarentum, among us, or among you — there seems to be one single answer that clears the practice of being wrong and shows it to be right: everyone answering a foreign visitor who's astonished at seeing something unfamiliar in their customs will say, 'Don't be astonished, Stranger — this is our law; perhaps you have a different one about these very things.' But our discussion now, friends, isn't about people in general — it's about the vice and virtue of lawgivers themselves. So let's say more about drunkenness as a whole, since it's no small practice, and no trivial matter to judge correctly. I don't mean the drinking of wine at all, whether or not — I mean drunkenness itself: whether one should indulge in it the way the Scythians and Persians do, and the Carthaginians too, and the Celts, Iberians, and Thracians — all warlike peoples — or the way you Spartans do. You, as you say, abstain from it altogether, while the Scythians and Thracians indulge in unmixed wine without any restraint at all — the women too, right along with the men — and pour it over their clothes, and consider this a fine and blessed practice to follow. The Persians indulge heavily too, in other luxuries besides, the ones you reject, but with more order than those others.
MEGILLUS: My good man, we chase all those peoples off, once we take up arms in our hands. ATHENIAN: My excellent friend, don't say that. Many routs and pursuits have happened, and will happen, whose outcome tells us nothing certain — so we could never call that a clear standard, but rather a disputed one, when it comes to deciding what practices are admirable and what aren't, if we're going by victory and defeat in battle. After all, larger cities beat smaller ones in battle and enslave them — the Syracusans beat the Locrians, who are thought to have had the best-governed laws of anyone in that region, and the Athenians beat the Ceans. We could find countless other examples like that. So let's try to persuade ourselves by discussing each practice on its own merits, and for now set victories and defeats outside our discussion — let's say instead that this sort of thing is admirable, and that sort isn't. First, hear me out on how we ought to examine what's beneficial and what isn't in questions of just this kind. MEGILLUS: What is your point, then? ATHENIAN: It seems to me that everyone who takes up some practice in argument, and sets out right away to blame or praise it as soon as it's mentioned, is going about it in entirely the wrong way — they're doing the same thing as someone who, when another person praises wheat as good food, immediately criticizes it without first finding out how it's grown and prepared, in what manner, for whom, together with what, in what condition, and how it's meant to be served. That's exactly what we seem to be doing right now in our discussion — as soon as we hear the mere word 'drunkenness,' some of us blame it outright, others praise it, and both quite absurdly. Each side calls up witnesses and supporters to back its praise — some think it settles the matter because they can produce many such witnesses, others because they see that people who don't drink win in battle; and this too is disputed among us. If we're going to go through every other custom in this same way, it won't turn out to my liking at all. Instead, in a different way — the way that seems right to me — I'm willing to speak about this very thing, drunkenness, trying, if I can, to show you the correct method for examining all such matters, since countless peoples upon countless peoples dispute about them, and could argue endlessly against the two of you, cities as you are.
MEGILLUS: Well, if we have any correct way of examining such things, we shouldn't shrink from hearing it. ATHENIAN: Let's examine it, then, somewhat like this. Suppose someone praises the raising of goats, and the animal itself as a fine possession, while someone else, who's seen goats grazing loose without a goatherd doing damage in cultivated ground, criticizes them for it — and having seen any creature at all without a ruler, or under bad rulers, faults it on that basis — would we think such a person's fault-finding was ever sound, about anything whatsoever? MEGILLUS: How could it be? ATHENIAN: And is a ruler on board ship a good one if he simply has seamanship, whether or not he gets seasick — or how should we put it? MEGILLUS: Not at all, if along with his skill he also suffers from that very thing you mention. ATHENIAN: What about a commander of armies? Is he fit to command just because he has military knowledge, even if he's a coward who gets seasick with fear the moment danger appears? MEGILLUS: How could he be? ATHENIAN: And what if he lacks the skill besides, and is a coward too? MEGILLUS: You're describing someone thoroughly worthless — no commander of men at all, but fit to command certain very womanish women. ATHENIAN: And what of someone who praises or blames any partnership whatsoever — one that's naturally suited to have a leader, and is beneficial together with that leader — while the one doing the praising or blaming has never once seen it working rightly, joined together under a leader, but has only ever encountered it leaderless or under bad leaders? Do we suppose such observers of such partnerships will ever praise or blame anything soundly? MEGILLUS: How could they, having never seen or taken part in any such partnership rightly formed? ATHENIAN: Hold on, then — among the many kinds of partnership, should we count drinking companions and drinking parties as one sort of gathering? MEGILLUS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: Now has anyone ever yet seen this kind of gathering happening rightly? For the two of you it's easy to answer that you never have at all — since it's not your custom or your law — but I myself have come across many such gatherings, in many places, and moreover I've made inquiries of pretty much all of them, and I can say I've scarcely seen or heard of a single one conducted rightly as a whole — only small, occasional parts of one here and there, while for the most part, one might say, the whole business goes wrong from start to finish.
CLEINIAS: What exactly do you mean by this, stranger? Put it more plainly. Because we, as you said, are so unpracticed in such things that even if we met with them we probably wouldn't right away recognize what's correct and what's not in them. ATHENIAN: Fair enough. But try to follow as I explain. You'd agree that in every gathering, every partnership formed for any purpose whatsoever, it's right that each such group have a leader? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And we said just now that where there's fighting, the leader must be a man of courage. CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: And a courageous man is less rattled by fear than a coward is. CLEINIAS: That too. ATHENIAN: Now if there were some way to put in command of an army a man who felt no fear at all and was never rattled, wouldn't we do everything we could to arrange it? CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: But right now we're not talking about someone who'll command an army, men facing enemies in war. We're talking about friends at peace sharing goodwill with friends. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: And a gathering of that kind, if it involves drinking, is anything but free of commotion, is it? CLEINIAS: Certainly not — quite the opposite, I'd say. ATHENIAN: So here too, first of all, a leader is needed? CLEINIAS: Yes indeed — for this business more than for any other. ATHENIAN: Should we then try, if at all possible, to provide such a group with a leader who himself stays free of the commotion? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And surely he also needs to be a sensible man where the gathering itself is concerned — since he becomes the guardian of the friendship already present among them, and further sees to it that the occasion strengthens rather than damages it. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So we must set over drinking men a leader who is sober and wise, not the reverse? Because a leader who is himself drunk, and young besides, and not wise, presiding over drunken men — unless he's extraordinarily lucky — will end up doing some great harm. CLEINIAS: Extraordinarily lucky indeed. ATHENIAN: So if someone finds fault with such gatherings when they're managed in cities as correctly as they can be, and objects to the practice itself, his objection might well be justified. But if someone attacks a custom he sees being practiced as badly as it could possibly be practiced, plainly he doesn't realize, first, that this very thing is being done wrong, and second, that anything at all will look rotten when it's carried on without a sober master and leader in charge.
ATHENIAN: Or don't you see this — that a drunken helmsman, or any leader at all who is drunk, capsizes everything, whether it's ships or chariots or an army, whatever it is he's steering? CLEINIAS: What you've just said is absolutely true, stranger. But tell us next: if this custom concerning drinking is carried out correctly, what good would it actually do us? Take what we said just now — if an army has the right leadership, victory in war results for those who follow, which is no small good, and so on for the rest. But if a drinking party is properly conducted, what great benefit could come of it for private citizens or for the city? ATHENIAN: Well, what great benefit would we say comes to the city from the proper upbringing of one child, or even of a single chorus? If we were asked that plainly, we'd say that from one child alone the city gains only a small benefit — but if you ask more broadly what great benefit education in general brings the city through those it educates, it isn't hard to answer: well-educated people become good men, and being such, they act well in everything else, and moreover they defeat their enemies in battle. So education brings victory too, though victory sometimes brings a loss of education — many men have grown more arrogant from military victories and, through that arrogance, been filled with countless other evils. Education has never once turned out to be a 'Cadmean victory,' but plenty of victories of that ruinous sort have happened to men, and will happen again. CLEINIAS: It seems to us, my friend, that you're saying shared time spent over wine, when done rightly, contributes a great deal to education. ATHENIAN: Well, doesn't it? CLEINIAS: Could you go on, then, and show us that what's just been said is true? ATHENIAN: Whether it's actually true as I claim, stranger — that's a matter for a god to settle with certainty, since so many dispute it. But if I should say how it appears to me, there's no reason not to, seeing that we've already set out to discuss laws and government. CLEINIAS: Exactly — let's try to grasp what you think about the very points now in dispute. ATHENIAN: Then we must do this: you two must try to follow, and I must try, somehow or other, to make it clear, and let's press on with the argument. First, hear me out on this point. All Greeks assume that our city is fond of talk and talks a great deal, while they assume Sparta is a city of few words, and that Crete cultivates depth of thought more than abundance of words —
ATHENIAN: So I'm watching myself, lest I give you the impression of going on at great length about a small matter — drunkenness, a small subject — and dragging up an enormous discussion to clear it up. Yet its correction, in keeping with its nature, could never be grasped clearly or adequately in argument apart from the correctness of music, and music in turn could never be grasped apart from education as a whole — and these are matters of endless discussion. So think about what we should do: shall we set all this aside for now and move on to some other topic concerning the laws? MEGILLUS: Athenian stranger, perhaps you don't realize that our house happens to hold the office of proxenos for your city. Perhaps every child, as soon as he hears that his family holds the proxeny of some city, feels from childhood on a certain goodwill toward that city, as if it were a second homeland after his own — and that's exactly what's happened to me. Ever since I was young, whenever I heard the other boys either blaming or praising the Athenians — saying, 'your city, Megillus, did this well' or 'did this badly' — hearing that, and always fighting on your behalf against those who spoke against your city, I came to feel complete goodwill toward it. Even now your accent is dear to me, and the saying repeated by so many, that the good men among the Athenians are good in an altogether exceptional way, seems to me perfectly true — for they alone are good spontaneously, without external compulsion, truly by a divine allotment and not through mere pretense. So as far as I'm concerned, speak freely and say as much as you like. CLEINIAS: And for my part too, stranger, once you've heard and accepted what I have to say, you may speak as freely as you wish. Perhaps you've heard how Epimenides became a divine man among us — one of our own — who came to your city, in accordance with the god's oracle, ten years before the Persian Wars, and offered certain sacrifices which the god had prescribed. And when the Athenians were afraid of the Persian expedition, he told them that for ten years the Persians would not come, and when they did come, they would go away again having accomplished none of what they hoped, having suffered, and having done, more harm than good.
CLEINIAS: That's when our ancestors formed a bond of guest-friendship with yours, and from that time on both I and my forebears have held goodwill toward you. ATHENIAN: Well, it seems you're ready enough to hear about your own affairs. As for mine, I'm willing too, but it's not at all easy — still, I must try. First, then, let's define for our discussion what education actually is, and what power it has, since it's through education, we say, that the argument we've now taken up must travel, until it reaches the god. CLEINIAS: By all means, let's do that, if it suits you. ATHENIAN: As I state what we ought to call education, consider whether what I say pleases you. CLEINIAS: Go on and speak. ATHENIAN: Here is what I say: I claim that anyone who is going to be a good man at anything must practice that very thing from childhood on, both in play and in earnest, in whatever pursuits belong to it. For instance, the boy who's going to be a good farmer, or a good builder, should play at building toy buildings, and the future farmer at farming, and whoever is raising them should provide each with small tools modeled on the real ones. And they should learn beforehand whatever lessons are necessary — the boy destined for carpentry should pick up measuring and plumb-line work in his play, and the one destined for war should take up riding as a game, or do some other such thing — and through these games we should try to turn the children's pleasures and desires toward that final goal which they must reach as adults. We say, in sum, that the chief point of education is the right upbringing, one that will most draw the soul of the one at play into a love for that very thing in which he'll need to be perfect once he's grown into a man. So consider whether, up to this point at least, what I've said pleases you. CLEINIAS: Of course it does. ATHENIAN: But let's not leave what we're calling education undefined either. Right now, when we praise or blame someone's upbringing, we say that one of us is educated and another uneducated — even applying 'educated' sometimes to men thoroughly trained in retail trade or shipping or other such things. But our present discussion, it seems, isn't concerned with that kind of thing as education — it means, rather, education toward virtue from childhood, which makes one desire and long to become a perfect citizen, knowing how to rule and be ruled with justice.
ATHENIAN: This upbringing, marked off from the rest, is what our argument now, I think, wants to call education alone — while the training aimed at wealth, or at physical strength, or at some other cleverness devoid of mind and justice, it would call vulgar, ignoble, and not worthy at all to be called education. Let's not quarrel with each other over the name, though — let the point we've just agreed on stand: that a right education makes men good, as a general rule, and that education must never be dishonored anywhere, since it's the first of the finest things that comes to the best of men. And if it ever goes astray, but can be set right, that correction must be pursued by everyone throughout life, as far as each is able. CLEINIAS: Rightly said, and we agree with what you say. ATHENIAN: And indeed we agreed long ago that those capable of ruling themselves are good, and those who aren't are bad. CLEINIAS: Quite rightly put. ATHENIAN: Let's take up again, then, still more clearly, just what we mean by this. And allow me to try to make it clear to you through an image, if I can manage it. CLEINIAS: Go on and speak. ATHENIAN: Shall we set down each one of us as a single self? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And as possessing within himself two opposed and unwise advisers, which we call pleasure and pain? CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: And in addition to these two, beliefs about the future, which share the common name of expectation, but individually: fear, when expectation looks toward pain, and confidence, when it looks toward the opposite. And over and above all these, calculation as to which of them is better or worse — and when this becomes a shared decision of the city, it's given the name law. CLEINIAS: I'm following, though with some difficulty — go on, though, as if I were keeping up. MEGILLUS: I'm in the same state myself. ATHENIAN: Let's think about these things this way. Let's suppose each of us living creatures is a divine puppet, whether framed as a plaything of the gods or for some serious purpose — that we don't know. But this much we do know: that these feelings within us, like cords or strings, pull at us and, being opposed to one another, drag us toward opposite actions, and it's exactly there, at that dividing line, that virtue and vice lie.
ATHENIAN: The argument says that a person must follow one pull alone without ever deserting it, and use it to pull back against all the other cords—that this is the golden and sacred leading-string of reasoning, called the city's common law, while the others are hard and iron, and this one is soft, since it's golden, and the rest resemble every sort of thing. So one must always join in with the finest leading-string, that of law. For since reasoning is beautiful but gentle rather than violent, its guidance needs assistants, so that the golden kind in us may conquer the other kinds. And so the story about us being puppets of a sort would be preserved as an image of virtue, and the notion of being stronger or weaker than oneself would become somehow clearer in what it really means—and that a city and a private person alike, once they have grasped a true account within themselves about these pulls, must live following it; while a city must take that account either from some god or from the person who has understood these things, and having laid it down as law, use it in dealing with itself and with other cities. In this way both vice and virtue would be more clearly articulated for us. And once that becomes more evident, education too and the other pursuits will probably become clearer as well—including this business about spending time with wine, which might seem, at first, a great deal of talk wasted on something trivial, but may turn out, perhaps, not unworthy of all those words after all. CLEINIAS: Well said—let's finish whatever is worth pursuing in our present discussion. ATHENIAN: Go on, then: if we hold this puppet up against drunkenness, what exactly do we find it produces? CLEINIAS: What are you aiming at with that question? ATHENIAN: Nothing in particular yet—I only want to know, taken as a whole, what sort of thing results when the two come together. Let me try to put what I mean more clearly. I'm asking this: does drinking wine intensify pleasures and pains, angers and desires? CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: And what about perceptions, memories, opinions, and thoughts? Are these likewise intensified—or do they abandon a person entirely, once he is thoroughly steeped in drink? CLEINIAS: Yes, they abandon him entirely. ATHENIAN: So he arrives at the very same condition of soul he was in as a young child? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: At that moment, then, he would be least in control of himself.
CLEINIAS: Least of all. ATHENIAN: So we'd say such a man is at his very worst? CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: It seems, then, that not only the old man becomes a child a second time, but the drunk man does too. CLEINIAS: Beautifully put, stranger. ATHENIAN: Is there any argument, then, that will try to persuade us that we ought to taste this practice, rather than flee it with all our might? CLEINIAS: There seems to be—you yourself said so, and you were ready to make the case just now. ATHENIAN: You remember correctly. And I'm ready now too, since the two of you said you'd be eager to hear it. CLEINIAS: Of course we'll listen—if for no other reason, then out of sheer wonder and strangeness, that a man should ever willingly hurl himself into utter degradation. ATHENIAN: You mean degradation of soul? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: But what about the body, my friend—into weakness, ugliness, and incapacity? Would we be surprised if someone willingly arrived at such a state? CLEINIAS: Of course we would. ATHENIAN: Well then—do we imagine that people who walk into doctors' offices to drink medicine are unaware that shortly afterward, and for many days, they'll have a body such that, if they had to keep it that way permanently, they wouldn't choose to go on living? Or don't we know that people who go to the gymnasium and take up hard labor become weak, for the moment? CLEINIAS: We know all that. ATHENIAN: And that they go there willingly, for the sake of the benefit that comes afterward? CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: Shouldn't we think about the other practices in the same way? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So we ought to think about spending time with wine in the same way too, if indeed it's possible to think rightly about it along these lines. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: If it turns out to offer some benefit no less than what bodily training offers, then right from the start it beats physical exercise in this respect: the one comes with pain, the other does not. CLEINIAS: Rightly said—though I'd be amazed if we could discover anything of the sort in it. ATHENIAN: That's exactly what we must now try to explain. Tell me: can we make out two kinds of fear, more or less opposite to each other? CLEINIAS: Which kinds do you mean? ATHENIAN: These: we fear bad things, expecting them to happen to us. CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And we often fear a reputation, thinking we'll be thought bad if we do or say something shameful—this fear, at least, we call shame, and I think everyone else does too. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: These, then, are the two fears I meant. One of them is opposed to pains and the other fears, and opposed too to most of the greatest pleasures. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: So doesn't the lawgiver—indeed anyone of even the smallest use—hold this fear in the highest honor, and call it reverence, naming the boldness opposed to it shamelessness, and reckon it the greatest evil for every person alike, private and public? CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: And doesn't this fear save us in countless great matters besides, and does nothing so powerfully produce victory and safety in war, one against one, as this? For two things bring about victory: boldness before the enemy, and fear of shameful disgrace before one's friends. CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: Each of us, then, must become both fearless and prone to fear—for the reasons we've now distinguished. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And indeed, when we want to make someone fearless of many fears, we produce that result by leading him into fear together with law. CLEINIAS: So it appears. ATHENIAN: And what about when we try to make someone prone to fear rightly? Mustn't we pit him against shamelessness and train him to conquer it in a struggle against his own pleasures? Or is it that only by fighting the cowardice within himself and conquering it can anyone become complete in courage—while whoever is inexperienced and untrained in such contests can't become even half himself as regards virtue; and can anyone become fully temperate without having fought and conquered, through reason and action and skill, both in play and in earnest, against the many pleasures and desires that urge him toward shamelessness and wrongdoing—rather than remaining untouched by all such things? CLEINIAS: That, at least, would not be a reasonable account. ATHENIAN: Well then?
ATHENIAN: Is there some god who gave mankind a drug against fear, such that the more one is willing to drink of it, the more, with every drink, he comes to think himself unlucky, and fears everything present and to come, until at last even the most courageous man falls into utter terror—but once he sleeps it off and is rid of the drink, he becomes himself again each time? CLEINIAS: And what drink of that sort, stranger, could we say has ever existed among men? ATHENIAN: None. But if such a thing did somehow exist, would it be of any use to a lawgiver for producing courage? For instance, we could put a case to such a lawgiver something like this: Come now, lawgiver—whether you're legislating for Cretans or for anyone else—would you want to be able, first of all, to test your citizens for courage and cowardice? CLEINIAS: Clearly everyone would say yes. ATHENIAN: And what about this—safely, and without great risks, or with the opposite? CLEINIAS: Everyone will agree to that too—safely. ATHENIAN: And would you use it, leading them into these fears and testing them under such experiences, so as to compel them to become fearless—urging them on, admonishing them, honoring the one, and dishonoring whoever refuses to become the sort of person you demand in every case; and would you let anyone who trains well and bravely go without penalty, but impose a penalty on one who trains badly? Or would you not use it at all, holding nothing against the drink? CLEINIAS: Of course he'd use it, stranger. ATHENIAN: Such training, my friend, compared to what we have now, would be marvelously easy—one could do it alone, or with a few, or with as many as one pleased at any time. And whether a man, alone in solitude, out of shame, thinking he shouldn't be seen before he was in good shape, trained himself against fears in this way—preparing just this one drink in place of countless troubles—he'd be acting rightly. Or if someone, trusting in his own nature and practice to be well prepared, felt no hesitation in training openly, displaying his power to outrun and master the necessary confusion of the drink among a larger group of drinking companions, so that through excellence he never once stumbled badly or was changed for the worse by any unseemliness—but withdrew before reaching the final round of drinking, fearing defeat at the hands of the drink, a thing that defeats every man—
CLEINIAS: Yes—such a man, acting that way, would indeed be showing self-control, stranger. ATHENIAN: Let's say this again to the lawgiver: Well then, lawgiver—no god has given mankind such a drug against fear, nor have we devised one ourselves (I don't count sorcerers at a feast)—but is there a drink for fearlessness, for excessive and untimely boldness in things one shouldn't be bold about, or how do we put it? CLEINIAS: He'll say there is, no doubt, meaning wine. ATHENIAN: And doesn't this work the very opposite of what we just described? Doesn't it, the moment a man drinks it, make him more cheerful with himself right away than before, and the more he tastes of it, the more he becomes filled with high hopes and a sense of power, in his own estimation? And in the end, doesn't such a man become full of complete outspokenness, thinking himself wise, and of complete freedom, and of complete fearlessness, so that he speaks anything at all without hesitation, and likewise acts just as boldly? Everyone, I think, would agree to this. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Let's remember, then, that we said two things in our souls need cultivating: one, that we become as bold as possible; the other, on the contrary, that we become as fearful as possible. CLEINIAS: What you called the matter of shame, I believe. ATHENIAN: Well remembered. Now, since courage and fearlessness must be trained through fears, we must consider whether the opposite quality ought to be cultivated through its opposite. CLEINIAS: That's likely, at any rate. ATHENIAN: So in those conditions that naturally make us exceptionally bold and rash, it would seem we ought to train ourselves to be as little shameless and full of rashness as possible—and instead fearful of ever daring to say, suffer, or do anything shameful. CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: And aren't all these the conditions in which we are like that: anger, lust, insolence, ignorance, love of gain, cowardice—and further, wealth, beauty, strength, and everything that intoxicates and drives people out of their senses through pleasure? Now, as a cheap and relatively harmless way, first, to put these to the test, and then to train against them—apart from the testing-ground and play of wine—what pleasure can we name that is better measured, provided it's approached with any degree of caution at all?
ATHENIAN: Let's think it through. Take a soul that's difficult and wild, the sort from which countless wrongs spring — is it riskier to test it by putting it into business dealings, gambling on the outcome, or by keeping company with it under the license of Dionysus? Or take a soul that gives way before sexual pleasure — is it riskier to put it to the proof by handing over your own daughters and sons and wife, so that you're gambling with what you hold dearest in order to observe the soul's true character? I could go on citing countless cases, but no one could ever fully capture how much better it is to examine character through play than to examine it any other way, without pay, and at a costly risk. On this point at least, I don't think the Cretans or anyone else in the world would dispute that this is a fair way for people to test one another, and that it beats every other kind of trial for cheapness, safety, and speed. CLEINIAS: That's true. ATHENIAN: This, then, would be one of the most useful things — knowing the natures and dispositions of souls — for the art whose business it is to look after them. And that art is, I think we'd agree, the political art. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: Absolutely.
ATHENIAN: The next thing we need to examine, it seems, is this question about our drinking companions: is the only benefit we get from this that we come to see how our natures really are, or is there also, in the correct use of wine-drinking gatherings, some real advantage worth taking seriously? What shall we say? Our argument seems to want to say there is such a benefit. But let's listen carefully and pay close attention to where and how, so we don't get tripped up by it. CLEINIAS: Go on, then.
ATHENIAN: I want to go back and remind us what we've been saying correct education actually is. As I guess things now, the safety of this whole practice, when it's carried out well, depends on getting that right. CLEINIAS: That's a large claim. ATHENIAN: What I mean is this: a child's very first awareness is pleasure and pain, and it's in these that virtue and vice first arrive in the soul. Wisdom and firm true judgments — a person is lucky if these arrive even by old age. A person who has reached old age possessing all these good things is complete. Now by education I mean the virtue that comes to children first: when pleasure and affection, pain and hatred, arise rightly in souls that are not yet able to grasp reason, and then, once they do grasp reason, come into harmony with it, having been trained by the right habits to feel that harmony — this concord, viewed entire, is virtue. Yet that portion of it which concerns the right training of pleasures and pains, so that a person hates what should be hated from the very start right through to the end, and loves what should be loved — if you cut that piece out and give it a name of its own, calling it education, I think you would be naming it correctly. CLEINIAS: Yes, stranger, both what you said earlier about education and what you're saying now seem right to us. ATHENIAN: Good. Now, since these correctly trained pleasures and pains are the substance of education, they get loosened and corrupted in many ways over the course of people's lives. So the gods, taking pity on the human race, born as it is for toil, established as rest from their labors the cycle of festivals in honor of the gods, and gave us the Muses, with Apollo their leader, and Dionysus as fellow celebrants, so that these festivals, held together with the gods, might set us right again. We should look and see whether the account we're now praising is true to nature, or how it stands. It says that every young creature — practically without exception — is unable to keep its body or its voice still, but is always seeking to move and to make sounds: leaping and bounding as if dancing for joy and playing about, and uttering every kind of noise.
ATHENIAN: Now the beasts have no sense of the order, or the disorder, in their motions — the things we call rhythm and harmony. But to us, the gods we said were given as fellow-dancers are the very ones who gave us the perception of rhythm and harmony together with pleasure, by which they move us and lead us in dance, linking us to one another through songs and dances — and they named these 'choruses' from the word for joy built into that name. Shall we accept this as a starting point — that education first comes to us through the Muses and Apollo? CLEINIAS: Let's accept it. ATHENIAN: So the uneducated person will be one without a chorus for us, and the properly educated person one who has been trained well in the chorus? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And the chorus, taken as a whole, consists of dance and song. CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: So the person who has been well educated would be capable of singing and dancing well. CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: Let's look at what we've just said. CLEINIAS: What exactly? ATHENIAN: We say someone sings well and dances well. Should we add: only if what he sings and dances is itself beautiful — or not? CLEINIAS: Let's add that. ATHENIAN: But what about someone who believes beautiful things are beautiful and ugly things ugly, and treats them accordingly? Will such a person be better educated in chorus and music than one who is able, in body and voice, to serve well whatever he has in mind as beautiful, but who takes no pleasure in beautiful things and feels no hatred for ugly ones? Or is it rather the person who, even if not fully capable of getting it right in voice and body, or in his thinking, nevertheless gets it right in his pleasure and pain — embracing whatever is beautiful and being repelled by whatever is not? CLEINIAS: You're describing a huge difference in education, stranger. ATHENIAN: Well then, if the three of us know what's beautiful in song and dance, we can also correctly recognize who is educated and who is not. But if we're ignorant of that, we won't even know whether there's any safeguard for education, or where to find one. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: So after this, like hounds on a scent, we must track down beautiful form, beautiful melody, song, and dance. And if these things slip past and escape us, any further talk about correct education, whether Greek or foreign, will be pointless. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Well then — what should we say a beautiful form or melody actually is? Consider: when a courageous soul is caught up in hardships, and a cowardly one in the very same circumstances, do the same postures and utterances result in both cases? CLEINIAS: How could they, when not even the complexions are the same? ATHENIAN: Well put, my friend. But in music there are indeed postures and melodies, since music concerns rhythm and harmony, so one can speak correctly of a melody or a posture as rhythmic and well-harmonized — but one can't, the way chorus-trainers do when they liken things to colors, speak of a melody or posture as having 'good color.' But the posture or melody of the coward and of the brave man do exist, and it's correct to call those of brave men beautiful, and those of cowards ugly. And so that we don't get bogged down in a long discussion of all this, let's simply say: everything connected with virtue of soul or body — whether the virtue itself or some image of it — every posture and melody of that kind is beautiful, and everything connected with vice is, on the contrary, altogether the opposite. CLEINIAS: You're right to put it that way, and let's take that as settled for now. ATHENIAN: One more question: do all of us take equal pleasure in every kind of dance, or is that far from true? CLEINIAS: Very far from true. ATHENIAN: What then shall we say has led us astray? Is it that the same things aren't beautiful to all of us, or that they are the same, but don't seem to be? For surely no one will claim that the dances of vice are ever more beautiful than those of virtue, or that he himself takes pleasure in the postures of depravity while everyone else responds to some opposite Muse. And yet most people say that the correctness of music lies in the pleasure it provides to souls. But that claim is neither tolerable nor pious to utter at all — no, something else is more likely to be misleading us. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: Since the performances involved in choral dancing are imitations of characters, occurring amid actions of every sort and amid fortunes, with each performer working through them by disposition and imitation — for those to whom the words, melodies, or dance movements suit their own character, whether by nature or by habit or by both, it is inevitable that they take pleasure in these, praise them, and call them beautiful. But for those to whom they run contrary to nature, character, or some habit, it's impossible for them to take pleasure in them or praise them — they call them ugly instead.
ATHENIAN: But there are those in whom what is correct by nature and what is correct by habit come apart — where nature is right but habit is opposed to it, or habit is right but nature opposed to it — and such people give praise that runs contrary to their pleasures. They say these things are pleasant, yes, but base; and in front of others whom they consider wise, they're ashamed to move their bodies that way, and ashamed to sing such things as though seriously declaring them beautiful — yet privately they enjoy them. CLEINIAS: Perfectly true. ATHENIAN: Does the person who takes pleasure in base postures or melodies suffer any harm from it, and does the person who welcomes the opposite pleasures gain some benefit? CLEINIAS: Probably so. ATHENIAN: Is it merely probable, or actually inevitable, that it works the same way as when someone who keeps company with base characters and wicked men doesn't come to hate them, but takes pleasure in accepting them, criticizing them only half-jokingly, as if dreaming through their depravity? In such a case, surely, the one who takes pleasure is bound to become like whichever kind he takes pleasure in, even if he's ashamed to praise it openly. And yet what greater good or evil could we say results for us, by sheer necessity, than this? CLEINIAS: I don't think there's anything greater. ATHENIAN: In places where laws concerning education and play in the arts of the Muses are well established, or will be so in the future, do we suppose poets will be allowed to teach — in the choruses, to the children and young people of a well-governed city — whatever gives the poet himself pleasure in composing, in rhythm or melody or word, regardless of whether it happens to produce virtue or vice? CLEINIAS: That surely makes no sense at all — how could it? ATHENIAN: Yet at present that's practically what's allowed to happen in nearly every city, except in Egypt. CLEINIAS: And how, exactly, do you say this has been regulated by law in Egypt? ATHENIAN: It's astonishing even to hear about. Long ago, it seems, they came to recognize the very principle we're stating now: that the young people in their cities must be trained, through habitual practice, in beautiful postures and beautiful melodies. Having settled on these, they displayed exactly which ones, and of what kind, in their temples, and beyond these it was not permitted — not for painters, nor for anyone else who produces figures and works of that kind — to innovate or devise anything other than the traditional forms. Nor is it permitted even now, either in these arts or in music as a whole.
ATHENIAN: If you look, you'll find there works painted or sculpted ten thousand years ago — not loosely speaking, but literally ten thousand years — that are no more beautiful and no more ugly than what's produced today; they're made with the very same art. CLEINIAS: That's astonishing. ATHENIAN: It shows exceptional skill in lawgiving and statesmanship. You'd find other things there that are inferior, but this fact about their music is true and worth pondering: it was actually possible to legislate confidently on such matters, fixing melodies that possess correctness by nature. That would take a god, or some divine man — just as they say there that the melodies preserved over that vast stretch of time were compositions of Isis. So, as I was saying, if someone could somehow grasp their correctness, one should confidently turn them into law and fixed order — since the pursuit of pleasure and pain, in always seeking novel forms of music, has hardly any real power to corrupt the dancing once it has been consecrated, merely by claiming it as 'old-fashioned.' At any rate, in that country it doesn't seem to have been able to corrupt it at all — quite the opposite. CLEINIAS: It appears things stand that way, from what you've just said. ATHENIAN: Can we then confidently say that the correct use of music and play together with dance is something like this: we feel pleasure when we think we're doing well, and whenever we feel pleasure, we in turn think we're doing well? Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: And indeed, in that state, feeling pleasure, we're unable to keep still. CLEINIAS: That's true. ATHENIAN: So isn't it the case that among us, the young are themselves ready to dance, while we older people think it fitting to spend our time watching them, taking pleasure in their play and festivity, since the nimbleness that was once ours has now left us — and, longing for it and cherishing its memory, we set up contests for those who are most able to rouse us, through memory, back toward our youth? CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Do we think, then, that what most people say about festival-goers is entirely pointless — that the one who gives us the most delight and pleasure should be judged wisest and win the prize? For surely, since we've given ourselves over to play on such occasions, the one who makes the most people feel the most pleasure ought to be honored most highly and, as I just said, carry off the victor's prize.
ATHENIAN: Isn't this rightly said, and would it come about this way if it were done rightly? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: But, my good man, let's not judge such a thing too quickly. Let's break it into parts and examine it like this. Suppose someone were to set up a contest with no rules at all — nothing marked off as athletic, or musical, or equestrian — but gathered everyone in the city together and announced, offering prizes, that anyone who wanted could come and compete purely for pleasure, and whoever delighted the spectators most, with no restriction on method, and won simply by producing the most delight, and was judged by the audience to have been the most pleasing of the competitors — what do we suppose would result from such an announcement? CLEINIAS: What are you getting at? ATHENIAN: Presumably one man would perform an epic recitation, like Homer, another would sing to the lyre, another would put on a tragedy, another a comedy, and it wouldn't be surprising if someone doing conjuring tricks thought he had the best chance of winning. With all these kinds of competitors, and countless others, showing up, could we say who ought fairly to win? CLEINIAS: That's a strange question. Who could answer that without having heard each of the performers himself, with his own ears? ATHENIAN: Well then — do you two want me to give you that strange answer myself? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: If it were very small children judging, they'd pick the conjuror, wouldn't they? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: If it were older children, they'd pick the comic performer. Tragedy would be chosen by educated women, young men, and probably most people generally. CLEINIAS: Probably so. ATHENIAN: But the recitation of the Iliad and Odyssey, or something of Hesiod's, done well — we old men would likely hear that with the greatest pleasure and declare it the winner by far. So who would be the rightful winner? That's the next question, isn't it? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Clearly you and I are bound to say that those judged winners by people our age would be the rightful winners. For it seems to me that the custom of people our generation is by far the best one found in any city, anywhere. CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Now, I'll concede this much to the majority — that music should be judged by pleasure, though not just anyone's pleasure. Rather, the finest Muse is roughly the one that delights the best people, those adequately educated — and above all the one that delights a single man outstanding in virtue and education. That's why we say the judges of these things need virtue: they must share in good judgment generally, and especially in courage. A true judge shouldn't take his cues from the theater, learning from it, overwhelmed by the noise of the crowd and his own lack of education. Nor, on the other hand, should he, out of cowardice and lack of nerve, declare his judgment carelessly and falsely, straight from the same mouth with which he just called on the gods before judging. For the judge sits there properly not as a pupil of the spectators but as their teacher, and he ought to oppose those who offer the audience pleasure improperly or wrongly. In fact the old Greek law allowed exactly this — unlike the current Sicilian and Italian practice, which hands the matter over to the majority of spectators and picks the winner by show of hands. That practice has corrupted the poets themselves — since they compose to suit the judges' pleasure, which is a poor thing, so that the audience ends up educating itself — and it has corrupted the pleasures of the theater itself. For whereas the audience ought always to be hearing characters better than their own and thereby acquiring better pleasure, in fact the very opposite happens to them from what they themselves have brought about. Now what do we want this line of argument, run through again just now, to point to? Consider whether it's this. CLEINIAS: What? ATHENIAN: It seems to me the argument has circled back, for the third or fourth time, to the same point: that education is the pulling and leading of children toward the right principle, as declared by the law, and agreed by the most respectable and oldest people, through experience, to truly be right. So that the child's soul may not become accustomed to feeling joy and pain in ways contrary to the law and to those persuaded by the law, but may follow along, feeling joy and pain at the same things as the old man does — for this purpose, the things we call songs have really become incantations for souls, earnestly aimed at producing just this kind of harmony we're speaking of. But since young souls can't bear earnestness, these things get called and treated as play and song —
ATHENIAN: — just as with the sick and physically weak, those who care for them try to administer wholesome nourishment in pleasant foods and drinks, while giving harmful things an unpleasant taste, so that patients will embrace the one and rightly learn to hate the other. In just the same way the true lawgiver will persuade the poet — using fine and praiseworthy words, and if persuasion fails, will compel him — to compose rightly, portraying in rhythm the postures, and in harmony the melodies, of temperate, courageous, and altogether good men. CLEINIAS: Now then, by Zeus, stranger, do you think this is actually how things are done in other cities? As far as I can tell, apart from among us and the Spartans, I don't know of what you're describing being practiced anywhere. Instead there are always some new things happening in dancing and in music generally, changed not by laws but by a kind of disorderly pleasure-seeking — nothing like the fixed, unchanging practices you describe from Egypt, but never the same twice. ATHENIAN: Very well put, Cleinias. But if I gave you the impression I was describing what actually happens now, I wouldn't be surprised if that's because I failed to make clear what I actually have in mind. I described things the way I want them to be regarding music, and perhaps put it in such a way that you thought I was describing current practice. Blaming things that are incurable and far gone in error is never pleasant, but sometimes necessary. Since you agree with this much, tell me — do you say that such things happen among your people and the Spartans more than among other Greeks? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And what if they happened this way among the others too? Would we say things would be finer that way, or as they actually happen now? CLEINIAS: There's a world of difference, surely, if things happened as they do among us and the Spartans — and even more so if they happened as you just said they should. ATHENIAN: Well then, let's agree on this point now. Isn't the following true of your whole system of education and music? You compel your poets to proclaim the good man — temperate and just as he is — happy and blessed — whether he's big and strong or small and weak, whether he's rich or not. And if he happens to be richer than Cinyras or Midas, but unjust, he's wretched and lives a painful life.
ATHENIAN: And, as your poet says — if he's right — 'I would neither remember nor count as a man worth speaking of anyone who does not do and possess all that is called noble along with justice, and who, being such, reaches for it standing near the enemy line — while if he is unjust, let him neither dare to look on bloody slaughter nor outrun the Thracian north wind in a race, nor may any other so-called good thing ever come to him.' For the things the many call goods are not rightly called so. It is said that health is best, beauty second, wealth third, and countless other things are called goods besides — sharp sight and hearing, and full function of all the senses; and further, being able as a tyrant to do whatever one desires; and the crowning point of all happiness, to have acquired all these things and become immortal as quickly as possible. But you and I, I think, say instead that all these things are the best possessions for just and pious men, but the worst possible things for unjust men, starting with health itself. Indeed, seeing, hearing, perceiving, and simply being alive at all are the greatest evils for one who is immortal for all time and possesses all the so-called goods except justice and virtue entirely — though a lesser evil if such a person lives only a very short time. I believe your poets will, under your persuasion and compulsion, say just what I am saying, and further, matching this with fitting rhythms and harmonies, will educate our young in this way. Isn't that so? Consider it. I say plainly that the things called evils are good for the unjust and bad for the just, while the things called goods are truly good for the good and bad for the wicked. So — to return to my question — do you and I agree, or not? CLEINIAS: In some respects we seem to, in others not at all. ATHENIAN: Suppose a man possesses health, wealth, and absolute power continuously — and I'll add for you outstanding strength and courage, together with immortality, with none of the so-called evils ever coming to him — but he has injustice and insolence alone within him. Living such a life, am I perhaps failing to persuade you that he is not happy but plainly wretched? CLEINIAS: What you say is perfectly true.
ATHENIAN: Very well. What must we say comes next? Surely a man who is courageous, strong, handsome, and rich, and who does whatever he wants his whole life through — don't you think that if he is unjust and insolent, he must necessarily live shamefully? Or would you at least grant this much — that he lives shamefully? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And what about living badly as well? CLEINIAS: That one I wouldn't grant so readily. ATHENIAN: And what about living unpleasantly, and to his own disadvantage? CLEINIAS: How could we still grant even that? ATHENIAN: How, indeed — unless some god, my friends, were to grant us harmony, since as things stand we're pretty much singing out of tune with one another. To me these conclusions seem as necessary as anything can be, dear Cleinias — surer, even, than Crete's being an island. And were I the one framing laws, I would set about compelling the poets, and everyone in the city, to speak this way, and I would set nearly the harshest penalty for anyone in the country who declared that there exist wicked people who live pleasantly, or that some things are profitable and advantageous while others are more just — and I would persuade my citizens to say many things at odds with what is currently said by Cretans and Spartans, and, it seems, by everyone else too. Come now, best of men, by Zeus and Apollo — if we were to ask the very gods who gave you your laws: is the most just life also the most pleasant, or are there two lives, one that happens to be most pleasant and another that is most just? If they said there were two, we might, if we questioned rightly, ask them again which of the two we should call the happier — those who live out the most just life, or those who live out the most pleasant one. If they said the most pleasant, that would be a strange thing for them to say. But I'd rather not put this in the mouths of gods — better to put it to fathers and lawgivers instead. So let the earlier question be asked of a father and lawgiver, and let him answer that the man who lives the most pleasant life is the most blessed. Then I would say: Father, didn't you want me to live as happily as possible? Yet you never stopped urging me, all along, to live as justly as possible.
ATHENIAN: So if he sets it up that way, whether he's a lawgiver or a father, I think he'll look absurd and unable to keep his own words consistent. But if instead he declares the most just life to be the happiest, then anyone listening will surely ask what good and beautiful thing, greater than pleasure, the law finds present in it, to make it worthy of such praise. What good could there be for the just man once it's stripped of pleasure? Come now, fame and praise from men and gods—are these good and beautiful, but unpleasant, while disgrace is the opposite? Not at all, dear lawgiver, we'll say. But is neither wronging anyone nor being wronged by anyone unpleasant, though good and beautiful, while the reverse is pleasant but shameful and bad? CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: So the account that doesn't separate the pleasant from the just and the good and the beautiful is, if nothing else, persuasive enough to make someone willing to live the holy and just life. So for a lawgiver, the ugliest and most contrary thing to say would be to deny that this is how it stands. No one would willingly agree to do anything unless following it brought more joy than pain. Now, things seen from far off make everyone dizzy, so to speak—children especially—but the lawgiver will set our judgment the other way, will strip away that darkness, and will persuade us, somehow, by habits and praises and arguments, that just and unjust things are like a shadow-painting: the unjust looks opposite to the just, and seen from the unjust and evil side of oneself it looks pleasant, while the just looks most unpleasant; but seen from the just side, everything appears the reverse in both respects. CLEINIAS: So it appears. ATHENIAN: And which judgment shall we say holds the truer authority—the one belonging to the worse soul, or the one belonging to the better? CLEINIAS: The better one, surely, must prevail. ATHENIAN: Then it must be that the unjust life is not only more shameful and depraved, but in very truth less pleasant as well than the life that is just and holy. CLEINIAS: It looks that way, friends, at least by the present argument. ATHENIAN: And even if this weren't actually the case—as our argument has now shown that it is—a lawgiver worth anything at all, if he ever dared tell the young a beneficial lie, could hardly tell one more useful than this, nor one better able to make everyone do all that is just willingly rather than by force. CLEINIAS: Truth is a fine thing, stranger, and it lasts. But it doesn't seem easy to make people believe it. ATHENIAN: Well then—was the Sidonian's tale easy to make people believe, improbable as it was, and countless others like it? CLEINIAS: Which ones do you mean?
ATHENIAN: That once, from teeth sown in the ground, armed soldiers sprang up. And yet this is a great example for a lawgiver, showing that he can persuade the souls of the young of anything he undertakes to persuade them of—so that he need look for nothing else than what belief, once instilled, would do the city the greatest good, and then find every device by which the whole community will, as far as possible, keep saying one and the same thing about these matters throughout their whole lives, in songs, in stories, and in speeches. If anyone thinks otherwise, there's no ill will in disputing the point. CLEINIAS: But it doesn't seem to me that either of us could dispute it. ATHENIAN: Then it would fall to me to speak next. I say that everyone must be charmed by all three choruses while the souls of children are still young and tender, telling them all the fine things we've gone through and will yet go through, with this as their central refrain: that the same life is said by the gods to be both the most pleasant and the best. We'll be speaking the truest thing at once, and we'll persuade those we need to persuade far better than if we said things some other way. CLEINIAS: We must agree with what you say. ATHENIAN: First, then, the children's chorus of the Muses would most rightly come forward first, to sing such things in public with all earnestness before the whole city; second would come those up to thirty years old, calling on Paean as witness to the truth of what's said, and praying that he come to the young with grace and persuasion. And a third group, those from thirty up to sixty years old, must also sing. As for those beyond that age—since they can no longer bear to sing—let them be left as tellers of myths about these same characters, through a kind of divine report. CLEINIAS: But which choruses do you mean by this third group, stranger? We don't quite grasp what you intend to say about them. ATHENIAN: And yet these are pretty much the ones for whose sake most of what's been said before was said. CLEINIAS: We still haven't understood—try to explain more clearly. ATHENIAN: We said, if we remember, near the start of our discussion, that the nature of all young creatures is so fiery that it can't keep still, either in body or in voice, but is always crying out and leaping about in disorder, and that no other animal has any sense of order in either of these, while human nature alone has this.
ATHENIAN: Order in movement bears the name rhythm; order in the voice — the blending of high with low — bears the name harmony, and the combination of the two is called dance. We said that the gods, pitying us, gave us Apollo and the Muses as fellow-dancers and chorus-leaders, and, if we remember, a third besides—Dionysus. CLEINIAS: Of course we remember. ATHENIAN: The chorus of Apollo and the Muses has been discussed; the third and remaining chorus must be said to belong to Dionysus. CLEINIAS: How so? Explain—a chorus of old men belonging to Dionysus would sound quite strange to someone hearing it out of the blue, if indeed those over thirty, and even over fifty up to sixty, are going to dance for him. ATHENIAN: What you say is perfectly true. So I think an argument is needed for why this arrangement would make sense. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Do we agree on what came before? CLEINIAS: On which point? ATHENIAN: That everyone, grown man and child alike, free and slave, female and male, and the whole city addressing itself to itself, must never stop singing what we've described, changing it somehow again and again and providing every kind of variety, so that the singers never grow tired of the hymns but keep finding pleasure in them. CLEINIAS: Of course it would be agreed that this should be done. ATHENIAN: Then where is that best part of the city, the one most persuasive by both age and judgment among all in the city, going to sing the finest things and so accomplish the greatest good? Or shall we so thoughtlessly let go of the group that would have the most authority over the finest and most useful songs? CLEINIAS: It's impossible to let it go, given what's been said. ATHENIAN: Then how would this be fitting? See if it's this way. CLEINIAS: What way? ATHENIAN: Everyone, as he grows older, becomes more reluctant about singing, and takes less pleasure in doing it, and if compelled, feels more shame about it, the older and more self-controlled he becomes. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: It is. ATHENIAN: So standing upright to sing in a theater before all sorts of people would embarrass him even more—especially if, like the choruses competing for victory, trained thin and starved for the contest, such men were forced to sing; wouldn't they do it altogether unpleasantly, shamefully, and half-heartedly?
CLEINIAS: That's most certainly true. ATHENIAN: Then how shall we encourage them to be eager for these songs? Shall we not first make a law that children, up to eighteen years, are not to taste wine at all, teaching them that we mustn't pour fire on fire, in body or in soul, before they set out to face hard labor, guarding against the manic disposition of the young? After that, let them taste wine in moderation up to thirty years old, but let the young man abstain entirely from drunkenness and heavy drinking. Once he reaches forty, having feasted in the common messes, let him call on the other gods, and above all invite Dionysus to the rite and pastime of the older men—the very thing wine was given to humankind as a remedy for the harshness of old age, so that we grow young again, and by forgetting our low spirits, the temper of the soul becomes softer instead of harder, just as iron becomes more workable when put into the fire. First, then, wouldn't each man, disposed this way, be willing to sing more eagerly, feeling less shame, not before crowds but among moderate numbers, and not among strangers but among his own people? CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: So as a means of getting them to take part in song with us, this method wouldn't be altogether unseemly. CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: But what tune will these men sing? Some music, obviously, that's fitting for them? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Then what would be fitting for godlike men? Would it be the music of the choruses? CLEINIAS: We ourselves, stranger—both of us here—could sing no other song than the one we learned by growing familiar with it in the choruses. ATHENIAN: Naturally so, for you truly have never gained possession of the finest song. Yours is the constitution of an army camp, not of people settled in cities, and you keep your young men like herds of colts grazing together in a field.
ATHENIAN: None of you, taking his own colt aside, snatching it away from its fellows though it's fiercely wild and resentful, sets a private groom over it and trains it, currying and gentling it, giving it all that's proper for the rearing of the young, from which it would grow to be not only a good soldier, but capable of managing a city and its towns—the very man we said at the start would be more warlike than Tyrtaeus's warriors, honoring courage everywhere and always as the fourth part of virtue, not the first, both for private citizens and for the city as a whole. CLEINIAS: I don't know, stranger, where you're again finding fault with our lawgivers. ATHENIAN: It's not, my good man, that I'm doing this deliberately, if indeed I am; but let's follow the argument wherever it leads, if you're willing. For if we have a music finer than that of the choruses and of the public theaters, let's try to give it to those we say would be ashamed of the other kind, and who are looking for whichever music is finest, so they can share in it. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Now first, mustn't this hold for everything accompanied by some charm—that either this charm itself is its most important feature, or else there is some correctness in it, or third, some benefit? For instance, I mean that with eating and drinking and food generally, charm accompanies them, which we might call pleasure; but correctness and benefit are what we call the healthfulness of what's consumed each time, and this is exactly what is most correct in such things. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And likewise with learning, pleasure follows along as the charm, but correctness and benefit and goodness and excellence are what truth brings to completion in it. CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: And what of the arts of image-making, all those that produce likenesses? If they achieve their aim, isn't pleasure, when it occurs as an accompaniment, most rightly called charm? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And the correctness of such things would, speaking generally, be produced by equality to the thing imitated, in quantity and quality, rather than by pleasure. CLEINIAS: Well put. ATHENIAN: So only that thing could rightly be judged by pleasure which yields neither benefit nor truth nor likeness — though no harm either — but exists only for the sake of that very thing which accompanies the others, the charm, which one might most fittingly call pleasure, when nothing else follows along with it. CLEINIAS: You mean a harmless pleasure only. ATHENIAN: Yes, and I say this same thing is play, whenever it neither harms nor benefits anything worth serious concern or account. CLEINIAS: What you say is very true.
ATHENIAN: So, from what we've just been saying, wouldn't we say that no imitation at all should be judged by pleasure, or by mere opinion that isn't true — and the same goes for equality in general? It isn't the case that something equal becomes equal, or something well-proportioned becomes well-proportioned, just because someone thinks so, or takes pleasure in it. Rather, everything should be judged above all by what's true, and hardly at all by anything else. CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: And we say that all music is representational and imitative? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: So whenever someone says music should be judged by pleasure, that claim must be rejected outright, and we shouldn't go looking for the kind of music that merely happens to be pleasant — if such a thing even exists — but rather the kind that resembles a truly beautiful thing being imitated. CLEINIAS: Perfectly true. ATHENIAN: And so those who are searching for the finest song and the finest music must look, it seems, not for whatever is pleasant, but for whatever is correct. And correctness in imitation, as we've said, means reproducing the thing imitated in its proper size and character. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: And everyone would agree about music, at least on this point — that everything composed in it is imitation and representation. Wouldn't poets, listeners, and performers all agree on that? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Then anyone who's going to avoid mistakes about a given composition needs to know what exactly it is. Someone who doesn't grasp its essence — what it's meant to be, and what it's really supposed to be an image of — will hardly be able to tell whether its intention has been carried out correctly or has gone wrong. CLEINIAS: Hardly indeed — how could he? ATHENIAN: And could someone who doesn't know whether something is correct ever be able to tell whether it's good or bad? I'm not putting this very clearly — let me try to say it more plainly. CLEINIAS: How? ATHENIAN: There are, I suppose, countless likenesses available to our sight. CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Well then — suppose someone doesn't know, among these imitations, what each particular body is supposed to represent. Could he ever tell whether it had been made correctly? I mean something like this: whether it has the right proportions of the body and the right placement of each part, how many there are and which lies next to which in the proper arrangement — and further, the colors and shapes — or whether all this has been done in a jumbled, disordered way. Do you think anyone could ever judge that while being totally ignorant of what living creature the image was supposed to represent? CLEINIAS: How could he?
ATHENIAN: But what if we did know that the painted or sculpted figure was a human being, and that it had received all its proper parts, colors, and shapes from the artist's skill? Would someone who knew that much then also be able to readily judge whether it was beautiful, or in what way it fell short of beauty? CLEINIAS: We'd practically all recognize the beautiful ones among living creatures, stranger. ATHENIAN: Quite right. So mustn't anyone who's going to be a sound judge of any image at all — whether in painting, in music, or anywhere else — have these three things: first, knowing what the thing is; second, knowing whether it's been made correctly; and third, whether it's been made well, in whatever words, melodies, and rhythms make up the image? CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: Then let's not give up on discussing the difficult part concerning music. Since it's praised more extravagantly than any other kind of image, it demands the greatest caution of all images. A mistake here does the greatest harm, because it makes people fond of bad character, and it's the hardest mistake to notice, because poets are worse artists than the Muses themselves. The Muses would never make such a mistake as to compose words fit for men and then set them to a woman's tone and melody, or to compose a noble melody and rhythm and then fit it with the gestures of slaves and low men, or to take rhythms and a free man's bearing and then set them to a melody or speech that contradicts those rhythms. Nor would they ever combine the voices of animals, humans, and instruments, and every kind of noise, into one piece as though imitating a single thing. But human poets, weaving such things together and mixing them up thoughtlessly, would make themselves ridiculous to anyone Orpheus says has 'reached the season of delight.' They see all of this jumbled together — and worse, poets tear rhythm and melodic shape apart from words, setting bare speech to meter, and again set melody and rhythm without words, using the bare cithara or flute alone — in which case it's extremely hard to tell, without words, what a given rhythm or harmony means and what worthwhile model it resembles.
ATHENIAN: No — we have to recognize that all of this is full of gross crudeness, insofar as it loves speed, precision, and an animal-like sound, so as to use the flute or cithara for anything beyond accompanying dance and song. Using either instrument on its own, apart from these, is pure lack of taste and mere showmanship. That much makes sense as far as it goes. But we're not asking whether people over thirty, or past fifty, should make use of the Muses at all — we're asking what use they should make of them. From what's been said, this much already seems clear to me: those in their fifties who are called on to sing need to be better trained in the choral art than most people are. They must be keenly sensitive to rhythms and harmonies, and know them well. Otherwise how will anyone judge whether a melody is correct, whether the Dorian mode is fitting for it or not, and whether the rhythm the poet has attached to it is right or wrong? CLEINIAS: Clearly he couldn't, in no way at all. ATHENIAN: It's ridiculous for the ordinary crowd to think they know well enough what's harmonious and rhythmic and what isn't, just because they've been drilled into singing along and keeping time — without realizing that they're doing this without understanding any of it. Every melody that has what belongs to it is correct; one that lacks it is flawed. CLEINIAS: Absolutely necessary. ATHENIAN: Then what about someone who doesn't even know what a piece contains? Could he ever tell, as we said, whether it's correct in any respect? CLEINIAS: How could he possibly? ATHENIAN: So this, it seems, is what we're rediscovering now: that our singers — the ones we're calling on and, in a sense, compelling to sing willingly — must be trained, at the very least, to the point where each of them can follow the steps of the rhythms and the strings of the melodies, so that by perceiving the harmonies and rhythms they're able to select what's fitting — what befits singers of their years and cast of character — and then sing it, taking harmless pleasure in it themselves as they sing, and becoming, for the young, guides to good character worthy of welcome. Trained to this extent, they would have received a more exacting education than one aimed merely at the masses, or than that given to the poets themselves.
ATHENIAN: For a poet has no real need to know the third thing — whether the imitation is beautiful or not — but knowledge of harmony and rhythm is nearly indispensable for him. Our judges, though, need all three, for the sake of choosing what's best and second best — otherwise they could never be a sufficient charm to lead the young toward virtue. And what our argument set out at the start to show — that the help given to the chorus of Dionysus is rightly praised — has, as far as it could, now been shown. Let's consider whether that's really turned out to be so. Such a gathering necessarily grows noisier as the drinking proceeds further, which is exactly what we assumed from the start would happen, in connection with what we're now discussing. CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: And every man there feels lighter than himself, filled with delight, freedom of speech, and disregard for his neighbors' words — each one thinking himself fit to rule both himself and everyone else. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Didn't we say that when this happens, the souls of the drinkers, like iron heated red-hot, become softer and younger, so that they become easy to guide for anyone who has the skill and knowledge to train and mold them, just as they were when they were actually young? And that this molder is the same one as before — the good lawgiver — whose drinking-laws must be able to take a man who has become hopeful, bold, and more shameless than he should be, unwilling to accept order and his proper turn in silence, speech, drinking, and music, and instead willing to do the exact opposite of all this — and send into him, as he enters with unbecoming boldness, a fitting and opposing fear, fought justly, the fear we've called reverence and shame, the divine fear? CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: And the guardians and co-creators of these laws should be the calm and sober men — generals over the unsober — since without them, fighting drunkenness is more formidable than fighting an enemy without sober commanders. And whoever is unwilling to obey these men and the leaders of Dionysus, those over sixty years old, should bear a shame equal to or greater than the man who disobeys the officers of Ares. CLEINIAS: Rightly said.
ATHENIAN: Well then, if drunkenness were like this, and the amusement were like this, wouldn't the drinking companions benefit from it and part from one another as better friends than before, rather than as enemies, as happens now — associating throughout the whole gathering according to law, and following along whenever the sober ones led the unsober? CLEINIAS: Rightly said, if it really were the kind of thing you're now describing. ATHENIAN: Then let's not simply criticize this gift of Dionysus any longer, as though it were bad and unfit to be admitted into a city. One could say still more in its favor. In fact, there's a certain hesitation in speaking, before the general public, about the greatest good it grants — because people tend to take it up wrongly and misunderstand it once it's said. CLEINIAS: What good is that? ATHENIAN: There's a certain story and rumor that circulates, that this god had his wits scattered by his stepmother Hera, and that's why he inflicts Bacchic frenzies and all sorts of mad, frenzied dancing on us in revenge — which is also why he gave us wine for this very purpose. I leave such stories to those who think it's safe to say such things about the gods. But this much I do know: no living creature is ever born already possessing the full measure of reason it's meant to have when mature; rather, in the time before it has acquired its proper understanding, every creature rages and cries out in disorder, and as soon as it manages to stand upright, it leaps about just as disorderly. And let's remember, we said that this was the origin of both music and gymnastics. CLEINIAS: We remember; of course. ATHENIAN: And didn't we also say that this same origin gave human beings the perception of rhythm and harmony, and that Apollo, the Muses, and Dionysus were the gods responsible for it? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And indeed, it seems, the story others tell claims that wine was given to us so we might go mad, as a punishment on mankind. But the account we're now giving says the opposite: that this medicine was given so the soul might come to possess reverence, and the body health and vigor. CLEINIAS: You've recalled that account beautifully, stranger. ATHENIAN: And let this be half of what concerns the chorus finished. The other half — however it still seems best — we'll either finish or leave aside. CLEINIAS: What do you mean, and how are you dividing the two halves? ATHENIAN: The whole choral art, I suppose, was for us the whole of education; and of this, one part concerned rhythms and harmonies — that is, the vocal side. CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Now, the body's movement and the voice's movement share rhythm between them, but shape is the body's own—whereas with the voice, the movement is melody. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So the movement of the voice, insofar as it reaches the soul for the training of virtue, we've somehow been calling music. CLEINIAS: Rightly so. ATHENIAN: And the movements of the body, which we called dancing when done in play—if such movement aims at bodily excellence, let's call the skilled guidance toward that goal gymnastics. CLEINIAS: Exactly right. ATHENIAN: As for music, we said we'd covered roughly half of choral performance and finished with it—let's leave it there for now. Shall we go on to the other half, or how and where should we proceed? CLEINIAS: My good man, you're talking with Cretans and Spartans. We've gone through music, but left out gymnastics—what do you suppose either of us would say in answer to that question? ATHENIAN: I'd say that in asking it, you've pretty much already answered it clearly—I understand this question, as I said, to be an answer, and further, an instruction to finish covering gymnastics. CLEINIAS: You've understood perfectly—so do just that. ATHENIAN: It must be done. And it isn't very hard to describe things that both of you know well, since you have far more practical experience in this art than in the other. CLEINIAS: What you say is pretty much true. ATHENIAN: So then, the origin of this form of play is that every animal is naturally accustomed to leap, while the human animal, as we said, gaining a perception of rhythm, generated and gave birth to dancing—and since melody reminds it of rhythm and stirs it up, the two combined with each other and gave birth to choral performance and play. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: And we say we've already covered one part of this subject, and we'll try to go through the rest next. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Well then, let's first put the capstone on the use of wine, if you two agree. CLEINIAS: What sort of capstone, and what do you mean? ATHENIAN: If a city treats the practice we've just described as a serious matter, governed by laws and order, using it as training for the sake of self-control, and refrains from other pleasures likewise and on the same principle, contriving always for the sake of mastering them—then this practice should be used by everyone in this way.
ATHENIAN: But if it's treated merely as play, and anyone is free to drink whenever he likes, with whomever he likes, alongside whatever other pursuits he likes, then I wouldn't cast my vote that this city, or this man, should ever indulge in drinking at all. Rather, I'd go further than the practice of the Cretans and Spartans, and side with the Carthaginian law: that no one on campaign should ever taste this drink, but should stick to water-drinking the whole time; that inside the city no slave, man or woman alike, should so much as taste it; that no magistrate should taste it during the year he holds office; that helmsmen and jurors on active duty should not taste wine at all while serving; nor should anyone attending a council meeting of any real importance; nor should anyone at all drink in the daytime, except for reasons of physical training or illness; nor at night, when a man or woman intends to conceive a child. One could mention a great many other occasions on which those possessing sound mind and correct law should not drink wine—so that, by this reasoning, no city would need many vineyards at all; the other crops, and the whole regimen of life, would be regulated, and everything to do with wine would turn out to be the most measured and the least of all things. Let this, strangers, if you agree, stand as the capstone to what's been said about wine. CLEINIAS: Well put—we agree.
ATHENIAN: So much for that. Now, what should we say was the beginning of political constitutions? Isn't this the easiest and best angle from which to see it? CLEINIAS: What angle? ATHENIAN: The same one from which we ought always to watch cities as they move toward virtue, or toward vice, together. CLEINIAS: And where is that? ATHENIAN: From the vantage of a great stretch of time, I think, and of the countless changes that occur across it. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Well — since there have been cities, and human beings living under governments, do you think you could ever grasp how much time has passed? CLEINIAS: Certainly not easily. ATHENIAN: But it would be some immense, unmanageable amount? CLEINIAS: Yes, quite. ATHENIAN: So haven't tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of cities come into being in that time, and, by the same reckoning, no fewer been destroyed? And hasn't each of them, again and again, everywhere, lived under every kind of constitution in turn — sometimes growing from smaller to greater, sometimes shrinking from greater to smaller, becoming worse from better and better from worse? CLEINIAS: It must be so. ATHENIAN: Let's try, then, if we can, to grasp the cause of this change. It might well show us the very first origin of constitutions, and how one gives way to another. CLEINIAS: Well said — and we should be eager for it, you setting out what you think about these things, and we following along.
ATHENIAN: Now then, do the old stories seem to you to hold some truth? CLEINIAS: Which stories? ATHENIAN: That mankind has been destroyed many times over, by floods and plagues and much else besides, so that only a small remnant of the human race was left. CLEINIAS: Yes, all of that sounds entirely believable. ATHENIAN: Come, then — let's picture one of these many destructions, the one that happened by flood. CLEINIAS: What are we to picture about it? ATHENIAN: That the people who escaped that destruction were more or less mountain herdsmen — small sparks of the human race kept alive somewhere on the peaks. CLEINIAS: Clearly. ATHENIAN: And such people, surely, must have been ignorant of the other arts, and of all the devices city-dwellers use against one another for greed and rivalry and whatever other mischief they contrive against each other. CLEINIAS: Likely enough. ATHENIAN: Shall we take it that the cities built on the plains and by the sea were utterly wiped out at that time? CLEINIAS: Let's take it so. ATHENIAN: And that all tools were lost, and that whatever had been carefully worked out in any craft, whether political or some other kind of wisdom, all of it perished at that time? For how, my good man, could anything new ever have been discovered if things had remained arranged exactly as they are set up now, for all time? CLEINIAS: As for that — it escaped the people of that time, it seems, for countless tens of thousands of years, while over the last thousand years, or twice that, some things have come to light through Daedalus, some through Orpheus, some through Palamedes, matters of music through Marsyas and Olympus, matters of the lyre through Amphion, and a great many other things through other people — all of it, so to speak, happening only yesterday or the day before. ATHENIAN: Excellent, Cleinias — except that you left out your friend, the one who really did come along just yesterday. CLEINIAS: You mean Epimenides? ATHENIAN: Yes, him — he leapt far ahead of everyone else, my friend, with the device that Hesiod, long ago, only prophesied in word, while that man actually carried it out in deed, as you people say. CLEINIAS: Yes, that's what we say.
ATHENIAN: Then shall we say that this is how things stood for human beings back when the destruction occurred — an immense, terrifying emptiness, a vast abundance of untouched land, other animals mostly wiped out, with a few herds surviving, and if here and there some stock of goats happened to be left, these too were scarce, and provided the herdsmen's only livelihood in those early days? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And of cities, and constitutions, and lawgiving — the very things we're now discussing — do we suppose there was, so to speak, any memory of them at all? CLEINIAS: None whatsoever. ATHENIAN: So everything we have now — cities, constitutions, crafts, laws, along with much wickedness and much virtue too — has grown out of that condition those people were in? CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Do we suppose, my dear fellow, that people back then, having no experience of the many fine things found in cities, nor of their opposites, were fully formed either in virtue or in vice? CLEINIAS: Well put — I follow what you mean. ATHENIAN: So as time went forward and our race multiplied, everything advanced to the condition it's in now? CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: Not all at once, presumably, but little by little, over an enormous stretch of time. CLEINIAS: Yes, that fits very well. ATHENIAN: Because coming down from the high places into the plains, I imagine, was something everyone still feared, fresh in memory. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And weren't they glad to see one another, precisely because there were so few of them at that time, while means of travel — so that they might go to one another by land or sea — had all but vanished along with the crafts, so to speak? So mixing with one another was, I think, hardly possible at all. Iron, bronze, and all the metals had been swallowed up and lost, so there was no way at all to extract fresh ore, and they were even short of timber to cut. For even if some tool had survived up in the mountains, it would soon wear out and disappear, and no more could be made until the art of metalworking returned to mankind again. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: How many generations later, then, do we suppose this happened? CLEINIAS: Clearly, a great many. ATHENIAN: So the crafts that need iron and bronze and all such things would have been lost for that same span of time, or even longer? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And, further, civil strife and war too had vanished in many places during that time. CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: First, they were fond of one another and treated each other kindly, out of sheer loneliness. Then, food was not something to fight over. Pasture was not scarce, except perhaps for a few at the very beginning, and pasture was the main thing they lived on in that period — they were never short of milk and meat, and hunting, too, provided food that was neither poor nor scanty. And they were well supplied, besides, with clothing and bedding and dwellings and vessels, both those that need fire and those that don't. For the plastic arts and the arts of weaving need no iron at all, and god gave these two crafts to humankind for just this purpose — so that whenever they fell into that kind of want, the human race would still have some growth and increase. So they were not, on that account, terribly poor, nor were they driven by poverty into quarreling with one another; but neither could they ever have become rich, having no gold or silver — which was exactly their situation then. And in a community where neither wealth nor poverty dwells, the noblest characters are likely to arise; for there is no room there for arrogance or injustice, nor for rivalry or envy either. So they were good, for these reasons, and also because of what's called their simplicity: hearing things called noble or shameful, in their simplicity they took what was said to be perfectly true and believed it. No one knew how to suspect a lie, the way people do now, through cleverness; instead, believing that what was said about gods and men was true, they lived by it. That's exactly why they were, in every respect, the sort of people we've just described. CLEINIAS: Well, that's how it seems to me too, and to Megillus here. ATHENIAN: Then shall we say that the many generations who lived this way, in the period before the flood, were bound to be, compared with people now, less skilled and less learned both in the other arts and in the arts of war — whether fought on land or sea — and in that art practiced only within a city, called lawsuits and factions, contrived in word and deed with every device for doing each other harm and injustice — but that they were simpler, braver, more self-controlled, and altogether more just? We've already gone over the reason for this. CLEINIAS: You're right.
ATHENIAN: Let all this, then, and everything that follows from it, stand as said, for this purpose: so that we might grasp what need people back then had of laws, and who their lawgiver was. CLEINIAS: Well said indeed. ATHENIAN: So those people had no need of lawgivers, nor was it yet the fashion, in those times, for such a thing to arise? For writing did not yet exist for the people living in that stretch of the cycle; they lived instead by following custom and what's called ancestral law. CLEINIAS: Likely enough. ATHENIAN: And this already amounts to a certain form of government. CLEINIAS: Which one? ATHENIAN: It seems to me that everyone calls the constitution of that time a chieftainship — which still exists in many places today, among both Greeks and non-Greeks. Homer, too, says it existed among the Cyclopes, when he says: 'They have no assemblies for counsel, and no established laws, but they dwell on the peaks of high mountains, in hollow caves, and each one lays down law for his children and his wives, and they take no heed of one another.' CLEINIAS: This poet of yours does seem to have been a clever one. Indeed we've gone through other passages of his that are quite charming — though not many, since we Cretans don't make much use of foreign poetry. MEGILLUS: We do use it, on our side, and this sort of poet seems to be dominant among us — though he traces out a life that's more Ionian than Spartan in style. Still, right now he does seem to bear out your account well, tracing their primitive condition back to its wildness through his storytelling. ATHENIAN: Yes, he does confirm it — let's take him as our witness that such constitutions do sometimes arise. CLEINIAS: Good. ATHENIAN: So, then — didn't these constitutions arise out of people scattered by household and by clan, because of the hardship caused by those destructions, in which the eldest rules, because his rule for them derives from father and mother, and the others, following him just as birds do, form a single flock, governed by their father's law and ruled under the most just of all kingships? CLEINIAS: Quite so.
ATHENIAN: After this, though, making larger cities by pooling several smaller ones together, they gather in greater numbers, and they turn first to farming the foothill regions, and they build stone-walled enclosures as defenses against wild animals, fashioning one large, shared household. CLEINIAS: That's likely enough to have happened that way. ATHENIAN: And what about this — isn't this too likely? CLEINIAS: What is? ATHENIAN: As these larger households grew out of the smaller, original ones, wouldn't each of the small groups be present within it still under its own eldest member as ruler, keeping its own particular customs, since they had lived apart from one another — customs differing from household to household, since their forebears and those who raised them differed, customs concerning the gods and their own conduct which they had grown used to, more orderly ones among the more orderly, more manly ones among the more manly — and each group, in this fashion, stamping their own preferences onto their children and their children's children, would arrive, as we say, at the larger community bringing their own particular laws with them. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And surely it's inevitable that each group is pleased with its own laws, and only later with those of others. CLEINIAS: Just so. ATHENIAN: So we've stumbled, it seems, without noticing, onto the very beginning of lawgiving. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: The next necessary step, then, is for these people, once joined together, to choose certain men in common from among themselves, who, having reviewed everyone's customs, will single out those that please their own people best and present them openly to the leaders and heads of the various groups — to kings, so to speak — offering them for their choice; these men will be called lawgivers, and once they've established the rulers, turning the chieftaincies into a kind of aristocracy, or perhaps some kind of kingship, they will live under this transformed form of government. CLEINIAS: Yes, that's the natural order in which it would happen, step by step. ATHENIAN: Let's describe, then, a third form of constitution arising still further on, in which every kind and every experience of constitutions and of cities alike happens to come together. CLEINIAS: And what is this one? ATHENIAN: The one that comes after the second, which Homer too pointed to, saying that the third arose in this way. For he says somewhere that Dardania was founded — since sacred Ilium was not yet built as a city on the plain, the people still living on the foothills of many-fountained Ida.
ATHENIAN: Yes, he says these things, and also what he says about the Cyclopes, in a way inspired by god and true to nature. For the poetic kind, being divine and possessed by inspiration, touches upon much of what actually happens, in company with certain Graces and Muses each time it sings. CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: Let's go further forward in the story that has come up for us now, since it may indicate something relevant to our purpose. Shouldn't we? CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: The city was founded, we say, coming down from the highlands into a great and beautiful plain—Ilium—on a hill that was not high, with many rivers flowing down from Ida above it. CLEINIAS: So they say, anyway. ATHENIAN: Don't we suppose this happened a good many ages after the flood? CLEINIAS: Of course it must have been many ages after. ATHENIAN: They seem to have had, at any rate, an extraordinary forgetfulness of the destruction we've been discussing, since they founded their city beneath so many rivers pouring down from the heights, trusting in hills that were not especially high. CLEINIAS: Clearly, then, they were altogether far removed in time from that catastrophe. ATHENIAN: And I suppose many other cities were already inhabited by then too, since mankind had multiplied. CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: And these cities, no doubt, made war on Ilium—perhaps even by sea, since by then everyone used the sea without fear. CLEINIAS: So it appears. ATHENIAN: And the Achaeans, staying about ten years, laid Troy waste. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Now during that ten-year siege of Ilium, many troubles arose at home for each of the besiegers, among the younger generation—troubles connected with civil strife. These young men did not receive the returning soldiers properly or justly, in their cities and homes, but brought about deaths, slaughters, and a great many exiles. And these exiles, driven out again, came back under a new name—called Dorians instead of Achaeans, because the man who had gathered together those exiles was named Dorieus. And from this point on, you Spartans carry the story forward and complete it in your own telling. MEGILLUS: Quite right.
ATHENIAN: So, coming back to where we first turned aside in our discussion of laws, having gotten sidetracked into music and drinking parties, we've now arrived back at the same point, as if guided by god, and the argument gives us, so to speak, a fresh handhold. For it has come round to the very founding of Sparta, which you rightly said was settled under laws that are, so to speak, sisters of Crete's. Now we have this much advantage from the wandering course of our discussion: we've gone through several constitutions and foundings of cities. We observed a first, a second, and a third city, each following the other, as we suppose, in its founding across vast stretches of time. And now here comes a fourth city for us—or if you like, a people—that was once being founded and is now established. From all of this, if we can grasp anything of what was founded well or badly, and which laws preserve what is preserved among them and which destroy what is destroyed, and what changes, replacing which practices with which, would make a city happy—Megillus and Cleinias, we should discuss these things again as if from the beginning, unless we have some objection to what's been said. MEGILLUS: Well, stranger, if some god promised us that if we take up this second inquiry into legislation, we would hear an account no worse and no shorter than what's just been said, I for one would go a long way for it, and today would seem short to me. And yet it's nearly the day the god turns from summer toward winter. ATHENIAN: Then we must look into this, it seems. MEGILLUS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Let's put our minds back to that time when Sparta, Argos, Messenia, and their allied territories had come sufficiently under the control of your ancestors, Megillus. After that, as the story goes, they decided to divide the army into three parts and found three cities: Argos, Messenia, and Sparta. MEGILLUS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And Temenus became king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messenia, and Procles and Eurysthenes of Sparta. MEGILLUS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And all the people of that time swore to these kings that they would come to their aid if anyone tried to destroy their kingship. MEGILLUS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: But by Zeus, is a kingship ever overthrown—or has any rule ever been overthrown—by anyone other than itself? Or did we just now, a little while ago when we came upon this very topic, establish that this is so, and have we already forgotten it? MEGILLUS: How could we have?
ATHENIAN: Then let's now confirm this point even more firmly. Having come upon actual events, it seems we've arrived back at the same conclusion, so that we won't be investigating something empty, but something that actually happened and holds truth. Here is what happened: three kingships, ruling three cities, swore mutual oaths to each other according to laws they had established in common for ruling and being ruled—the kings pledging not to make their rule harsher as time and generations passed, and the people, so long as the rulers kept to this, pledging never themselves to overthrow the kingships nor to allow others to attempt it; and kings would come to the aid of kings who were wronged, and peoples to the aid of peoples and of wronged kings. Isn't that how it was? MEGILLUS: Yes, that's how it was. ATHENIAN: Now wasn't this the most important feature in the constitutional arrangements set up in the three cities, whether the kings themselves were the lawgivers or others were? MEGILLUS: What feature? ATHENIAN: That the other two would always come to the aid of the one city that disobeyed the established laws. MEGILLUS: Clearly so. ATHENIAN: And indeed this is what most people demand of lawgivers—that they establish such laws as the people and the masses will accept willingly, just as if someone were to instruct trainers or doctors to treat and heal the bodies under their care pleasantly. MEGILLUS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: But it's often something to be grateful for if one can produce healthy, sound bodies with even a moderate amount of pain. MEGILLUS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And there was another advantage those men of that time had, no small one, for easing the establishment of their laws. MEGILLUS: What was that? ATHENIAN: The lawgivers didn't face the greatest of complaints—the one that arises in many other law-governed cities when someone tries to establish equality of property, and someone seeks to redistribute land and cancel debts, seeing that without these measures adequate equality could never come about. Whenever a lawgiver attempts to move anything of this sort, everyone opposes him, saying not to disturb what shouldn't be disturbed, and they curse anyone who proposes redistributing land or canceling debts, so that every man is driven to desperation. But for the Dorians, this problem didn't exist—things went well and without resentment: they divided the land without dispute, and there were no large old debts. MEGILLUS: True. ATHENIAN: Then how, best of men, did their founding and legislation turn out so badly?
MEGILLUS: What exactly are you criticizing, and how do you mean it? ATHENIAN: That out of the three settlements, two of them quickly ruined both their constitution and their laws, and only one remained—yours. MEGILLUS: That's not an easy question. ATHENIAN: But we must, in examining and investigating this now—playing this sober old man's game about laws—travel the road without pain, as we said when we began our journey. MEGILLUS: Certainly, and we must do as you say. ATHENIAN: What finer subject of study could we undertake concerning laws than these, the ones that ordered these cities? Or what cities more celebrated or greater in their foundings could we examine? MEGILLUS: It's not easy to name others in their place. ATHENIAN: Now it's fairly clear that the men of that time intended this arrangement to serve not only as protection for the Peloponnese but for all the Greeks, should any of the barbarians wrong them—just as the people living around Ilium at that time, trusting in the power of the Assyrians centered on Nineveh, grew bold enough to stir up the war against Troy. For the outward form of that empire, though diminished, was still not small; as we dread the Great King in our own day, so the men of that time dreaded that assembled power. For the second capture of Troy was a great grievance against them, since Troy was part of their empire. Against all this, the arrangement of the army of that time, divided into three cities under brother kings, sons of Heracles, was devised and organized—well, as it seemed, and better than the expedition that had gone against Troy. First, they considered the Heraclids better rulers than the Pelopids had been; and second, they held that this army was superior in courage to the one that went to Troy—for the Dorians had conquered where the Achaeans, who had been Dorians' inferiors, had been conquered themselves. Isn't this the sort of thinking with which the men of that time are supposed to have set up their arrangement? MEGILLUS: Quite so.
ATHENIAN: And it was reasonable for them to believe this arrangement would hold firmly and endure a long time, since they had shared many labors and dangers with each other, and were organized under one family of brother kings, and moreover had made use of many prophets, including the Delphic Apollo. MEGILLUS: How could it not be reasonable? ATHENIAN: Yet these great expectations, it seems, quickly flew away—except, as we just said, for the small part concerning your own region, and even that has never stopped fighting against the other two parts, right up to the present day. For if the plan of that time had held together and been in harmony as one, it would have possessed an irresistible power in war. MEGILLUS: How could it not? ATHENIAN: Then how and by what means was it destroyed? Isn't it worth examining what fortune could possibly have ruined so great and so remarkable a system? MEGILLUS: Indeed, one could hardly find any other subject whose study would reveal laws or other constitutions that preserve fine and great achievements—or, on the contrary, utterly destroy them—if one neglected this one. ATHENIAN: Then it seems we've stumbled, quite fortunately, upon a worthwhile line of inquiry. MEGILLUS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Isn't it true, my friend, that all men—including us just now—fail to notice this: each time we think we see something fine that has come about, and imagine what wonders might be accomplished if only someone knew how to use it properly, we may in fact, right now, be thinking about this very matter neither correctly nor in accordance with nature—and indeed this may be true of all men regarding everything they think about in this way? MEGILLUS: What exactly do you mean, and what do you say this remark applies to most? ATHENIAN: My good man, I laughed at myself just now. For looking at this expedition we've been discussing, it struck me as an altogether splendid and marvelous possession that fell to the Greeks—as I said, if only someone had made good use of it at the time. MEGILLUS: Well, didn't you say all that soundly and sensibly, and didn't we approve of it? ATHENIAN: Perhaps. Yet I notice that everyone who sees something great, possessing much power and strength, immediately feels this same thing—that if only its possessor knew how to use something so great and so powerful, he would accomplish many marvelous things and be happy.
MEGILLUS: Isn't that right too? Or what do you say? ATHENIAN: Consider what the person who gives this kind of praise about anything is really looking at when he speaks correctly. First, about the very thing we're now discussing: if the men who organized the army back then had known how to arrange it properly, would they have hit their mark in some way? I mean, wouldn't it be if they had built it securely and kept it safe forever, so that they themselves were free and ruled over others as they wished, and in general, among all people, Greek and non-Greek alike, could do whatever they and their descendants desired? Isn't that the reason they'd be praised? MEGILLUS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So when someone sees great wealth, or exceptional honors of birth, or anything else like that, and says the same sort of thing, isn't he looking toward this same goal when he speaks — as if because of it, everything or most of what is most worth mentioning that he desires will come to be his? MEGILLUS: It does seem so. ATHENIAN: Well then, is there some one desire common to all people, which our argument now points to, as the argument itself claims? MEGILLUS: What sort? ATHENIAN: That events should happen according to the command of one's own soul — ideally all events, but if not, at least human affairs. MEGILLUS: Of course. ATHENIAN: So since we all want this always, both as children and as old men, wouldn't we necessarily pray for exactly this, all the way through? MEGILLUS: How could we not? ATHENIAN: And surely we'd join our friends in praying for the same things they pray for themselves. MEGILLUS: Of course. ATHENIAN: A son is friend to his father, being a child to a grown man. MEGILLUS: How could he not be? ATHENIAN: And yet many of the things the son prays will happen to himself, the father would pray to the gods never happen, in line with the son's prayers. MEGILLUS: You mean when the son is foolish and still young and prays that way? ATHENIAN: And also when the father himself, whether an old man or very much a young one, understanding nothing of what's good and just, prays fervently, caught up in feelings like those that struck Theseus toward the unfortunate Hippolytus who died — but the son understands. Do you think, in that case, the son will join his father in that prayer? MEGILLUS: I follow what you're saying. You seem to mean that we shouldn't pray for, or press toward, having everything follow our own wishing — rather, our wishing should follow far more our own understanding. And this is what both a city and each one of us should pray for and strive toward: that we come to possess reason.
ATHENIAN: Yes, and I've reminded myself, and I'm reminding you too, that a statesman acting as lawgiver must always keep this goal in view when he lays down the ordering of his laws — if we remember what was said at the start. Your instruction was that the good lawgiver must frame all lawful arrangements for the sake of war. Mine was that this would have laws made with a view to just one of the four virtues, when there are four; whereas we must look to all of them, and especially to the first, the one that leads the whole of virtue — that would be wisdom, and reason, and right judgment, together with the love and desire that follow them. So the argument comes back around to the same point, and I, speaking now, say again what I said then — if you like, in play; if you prefer, in earnest — that to use prayer without having gained understanding is a dangerous thing, since it results in the very opposite of one's wishes. And if you'd rather I speak in earnest, take it that way — for I fully expect you'll now discover, following the argument we set out a little earlier, that it was not cowardice that caused the destruction of the kings and the whole scheme, nor ignorance of warfare on the part of the rulers and the ruled, but corruption arising from every other kind of vice, and above all from ignorance about the most important human affairs. That this is how things happened then, and that it still happens now wherever it does, and that in future it will turn out no differently unless you're willing to change it — this I'll try, if you wish, to track down as we proceed and to make clear to you, as friends, to the best of my ability. CLEINIAS: To praise you in words, stranger, would be rather heavy-handed; but we'll praise you thoroughly in deed — we'll follow eagerly what you say, and in that a free man's praise, or its absence, becomes most evident. MEGILLUS: Excellent, Cleinias — let's do as you say. CLEINIAS: It shall be so, god willing. Just speak. ATHENIAN: Well then, continuing along the remaining path of the argument, we say that the greatest ignorance destroyed that power back then, and that the same thing by nature still does this now — so that the lawgiver, if this is so, must try to instill as much wisdom as possible into cities, and to root out folly as far as he can. CLEINIAS: Clearly so.
ATHENIAN: What then would rightly be called the greatest ignorance? Consider whether you both agree with what I propose — I set it down as this. CLEINIAS: What is it? ATHENIAN: When someone judges something to be fine or good and does not love it but hates it, while loving and embracing what he judges wicked and unjust. I call this discord between pain and pleasure on one side and rational judgment on the other the ultimate ignorance — and the greatest, because it belongs to the mass, the multitude, of the soul. For that part of the soul which feels pain and pleasure is like the common people, the multitude, within a city. So whenever the soul opposes knowledge or judgment or reason — the parts naturally suited to rule — I call this folly; and it is the same for a city, whenever the multitude fails to obey its rulers and laws; and likewise for a single man, whenever fine principles present in the soul accomplish nothing, but rather the complete opposite occurs. All these I would call the most discordant forms of ignorance, whether in a city or in each individual citizen — not the ignorance of craftsmen, if you follow what I mean, strangers. CLEINIAS: We follow, friend, and we agree with what you say. ATHENIAN: Then let this be laid down and agreed as stated: that citizens afflicted with this kind of ignorance must never be entrusted with any office, and must be reproached as ignorant even if they are highly skilled in calculation and thoroughly trained in every clever accomplishment that quickens the soul; while those in the opposite condition must be called wise, even if, as the saying goes, they know neither their letters nor how to swim, and offices must be given to them as to people of sound mind. For how, my friends, could even the smallest form of wisdom arise without harmony? It cannot — rather, the finest and greatest of harmonies would most justly be called the greatest wisdom, and whoever lives by reason has a share in it, while whoever falls short of it will always show himself, whether as household-wrecker or as no savior at all to his city, but in every way its ignorant undoing. Let this, then, stand as said, just as we stated a moment ago. CLEINIAS: Let it stand so. ATHENIAN: Now, rulers and ruled must surely exist in cities, mustn't they? CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Very well. What then are the claims to rule and to be ruled, and how many are there, both in large cities and small, and likewise in households? Isn't one of them the claim of father and mother — that parents in general should rightly rule their offspring everywhere? CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And following this, that the well-born should rule the low-born; and third, following these, that the older must rule and the younger be ruled. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Fourth, that slaves should be ruled and masters should rule. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: Fifth, I think, that the stronger should hold rule and the weaker submit to it. CLEINIAS: That's a very compelling kind of rule you've named. ATHENIAN: And indeed the most widespread among all living creatures, and according to nature, as Pindar the Theban once said. But the greatest claim, it seems, would be a sixth: that the one without knowledge must follow, while the one who has understanding should lead and rule. And yet this, wisest Pindar, I would say is scarcely against nature, but according to it — the rule of law over willing subjects, not a rule of force. CLEINIAS: Very rightly put. ATHENIAN: And when we speak of a seventh kind of rule, favored by the gods and by fortune, we bring people forward to some kind of lottery, and say it's most just that the one drawn by lot should rule, and the one who draws badly should step aside and be ruled. CLEINIAS: Very truly said. ATHENIAN: Do you see, then, lawgiver — we might say, teasing a little, to someone who takes up lawmaking too lightly — how many claims to rule there are, and how they're by nature opposed to one another? For we've now discovered a certain source of civil strife, which you must attend to. First, examine with us how and in what way the kings of Argos and Messenia, straying from these principles, destroyed both themselves and the power of the Greeks, which at that time was remarkable. Was it not from failing to recognize that Hesiod hit the mark exactly when he observed that the half frequently amounts to more than the whole? Whenever taking the whole would be ruinous, and the half is moderate, he judged the moderate more than the immoderate, since it is better than the worse. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: Do we think, then, that this failing arises and corrupts kings first, or rather among the common people?
CLEINIAS: It's likely, and generally true, that this is a disease of kings living arrogantly amid luxury. ATHENIAN: Isn't it clear, then, that this was the first fault the kings of that time fell into — grasping for more than the laws laid down, and that what they praised in word and by oath they did not keep in harmony with themselves; and this discord, which we say is the greatest ignorance though it seems like wisdom, ruined all of that through its harsh discordance and lack of harmony? CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: Well then — what should the lawgiver at that time have been careful to guard against, to prevent this affliction from arising? By the gods, is it not something not at all wise to recognize now, nor hard to state — but if it had been foreseen back then, the one who foresaw it would have been wiser than we are? MEGILLUS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Looking at what happened among your people, Megillus, it's now easy to see, once one has observed it, and easy to say, having observed it, what should have happened back then. MEGILLUS: Speak still more clearly. ATHENIAN: The clearest way to put it would be this. MEGILLUS: What is it? ATHENIAN: If someone gives greater power to lesser things, neglecting due measure — sails to ships too large for them, food to bodies beyond what's fitting, offices of rule to souls unprepared — everything is overturned; bodies rush into disease from excess, and souls into injustice, the offspring of arrogance. So what are we really saying? Something like this: that there is no nature of a mortal soul, my friends, that will ever be able to bear the greatest rule among men while young and unaccountable, without having its understanding filled with the greatest disease, folly, and coming to hate those nearest and dearest to it — which, once it happens, quickly destroys the soul itself and wipes out all its power. Guarding against this, recognizing due measure, is the task of great lawgivers. As for what likely happened then, we can now make our best guess at the most moderate reckoning of it — and it seems to be this— MEGILLUS: What is it?
ATHENIAN: Some god who cared for you, foreseeing what was to come, planted for you a double line of kings out of a single stock and so drew it back toward due measure. And after that, a certain human nature blended with some divine power, seeing that your rule was still inflamed, mixed the sober strength of old age into the self-willed vigor of the royal blood, making the power of the twenty-eight elders equal in vote, on the greatest matters, to the power of the kings. Then your third savior, seeing the government still swelling and hot-tempered, threw a kind of curb-chain over it — the power of the ephors, brought near to a power chosen by lot. And so, by this account, kingship among you, having become compounded of the elements it needed and possessing measure, was itself preserved and became the cause of preservation for the rest. For under Temenus and Cresphontes and the lawgivers of that day — whoever those lawgivers actually were — not even Aristodemus's portion would ever have been preserved; they were not sufficiently experienced in legislation. They would hardly ever have thought that oaths could moderate a young soul that had received a power out of which tyranny could grow. But as it is, the god has shown what kind of rule needed to exist then, and needs to now, if it is to endure. That we recognize these things today, as I said before, takes no wisdom — it is not hard to see from a completed example — but if there had been someone then who foresaw all this and was able to temper the offices and make one out of the three, he would have saved every fine idea of that era, and no Persian expedition, nor any other, would ever have set out against Greece in contempt of us as people worth little. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: At any rate, Cleinias, the way they repelled the Persians was shameful. And by shameful I do not mean that the men of that day failed to win fine victories by land and sea — they did. What I call shameful then is this: first, that of those three cities only one defended Greece, while the other two were so badly corrupted that one of them actually prevented Sparta from coming to her aid, fighting her with all its might, and the other, the city of the original settlement's first rank, the one around Argos, when called upon to repel the barbarian, neither answered nor helped. One could recount many things about that war that would reflect no credit whatever on Greece.
ATHENIAN: Indeed, one could not even rightly say that Greece defended herself. If the joint resolve of the Athenians and the Spartans had not fended off the approaching slavery, by now virtually all the Greek stocks would have been mixed up with one another, and barbarian with Greek and Greek with barbarian — just as the peoples the Persians tyrannize today live scattered, dispersed and herded together in wretched fragments. These, Cleinias and Megillus, are the criticisms we can bring against the so-called statesmen and lawgivers of the past and of the present, so that by searching out their causes we may discover what ought to have been done instead. So we said just now: one must not legislate great offices, nor unmixed ones, bearing in mind that a city must be free and sensible and a friend to itself, and the lawgiver must legislate with his eye on these things. And let us not be surprised that we have several times now set up certain aims and said the lawgiver must legislate looking to them, and the aims proposed have not seemed the same each time. We must reckon that when we say one should look to temperance, or to wisdom, or to friendship, this aim is not different but the same; and many other such phrases, if they occur, should not confuse us. CLEINIAS: We will try to bear that in mind as we go back over the arguments. But now, about friendship and wisdom and freedom — tell us what you were going to say the lawgiver ought to aim at. ATHENIAN: Then listen. There are two constitutions that are, as it were, mothers, from which one would rightly say the rest are born. One is properly named monarchy, the other democracy; the Persian race holds the extreme of the former, we of the latter. Nearly all the others, as I said, are variegated blends of these. Now a constitution must and inevitably will partake of both, if there is to be freedom and friendship together with wisdom — which is what our argument means to enjoin, when it says that no city deprived of these things can ever be finely governed. CLEINIAS: How could it be?
ATHENIAN: Well then, one of them cherished the monarchic principle, the other the free, each more exclusively than it should have, and neither has kept these in due measure; but your constitutions, the Laconian and the Cretan, have done better. The Athenians and the Persians were once, in a way, moderate here, but are less so now. Shall we go through the causes? Yes? CLEINIAS: By all means — if, that is, we intend to finish what we set out to do. ATHENIAN: Then listen. The Persians, in Cyrus's day, when they kept more of a mean between slavery and freedom, first became free themselves and then became masters of many others. For as rulers who gave the ruled a share of freedom and drew them toward equality, the soldiers were friendlier to their generals and showed themselves eager in dangers; and if any among them was wise and able to give counsel, the king was not jealous but granted free speech and honored those able to advise on anything, and so made the power of wisdom a common resource, open to all. And everything then went forward for them, through freedom and friendship and a sharing of intelligence. CLEINIAS: It does seem that what is reported happened somewhat like that. ATHENIAN: How then was it ruined under Cambyses, and nearly saved again under Darius? Shall we use a kind of divination to think it through? CLEINIAS: It certainly leads toward the very question we set ourselves. ATHENIAN: My divination about Cyrus, then, is this: in other respects he was a good general and a lover of his city, but he never touched right education at all, and never turned his mind to household management. CLEINIAS: How should we take that? ATHENIAN: It seems he campaigned all his life from youth on, and handed his sons over to the women to raise. And they raised them as though they were happy already from childhood, blessed from the start and lacking nothing — forbidding anyone to oppose them in anything, on the ground that they were sufficiently blessed, and compelling everyone to praise whatever they said or did. That is the kind of men they raised. CLEINIAS: A splendid upbringing, by the sound of it. ATHENIAN: A womanish one, rather — from royal women newly grown rich, raising the children in the absence of men, who had no leisure because of wars and constant dangers. CLEINIAS: That stands to reason.
ATHENIAN: And their father meanwhile kept acquiring flocks and sheep and herds of men and much else in droves, but did not know that those to whom he was going to hand it all were not being educated in their father's craft — the Persian craft, the Persians being shepherds, offspring of a rugged country: a hard craft, capable of producing very strong herdsmen, able to sleep in the open and keep watch and campaign when campaigning was needed. He overlooked the fact that his sons were educated in the Median education, corrupted by so-called happiness, by women and eunuchs — which is why they turned out as one would expect people to turn out who were reared with a rearing that never rebuked them. So when the sons took over at Cyrus's death, stuffed with luxury and unchastened, first one killed the other, unable to bear an equal, and after that he himself, mad with drink and want of education, lost his empire to the Medes and to the man then called the Eunuch, who despised the foolishness of Cambyses. CLEINIAS: So the story goes, and it does seem to have happened roughly so. ATHENIAN: And the story further tells that rule passed back into Persian hands through Darius and the Seven. CLEINIAS: Indeed. ATHENIAN: Then let us watch how the account continues. Darius was no king's son, and was not brought up on a pampered education. He came to power, took it as one of seven, and cut the empire into seven parts, of which small dream-traces remain even now; and he thought it right to govern by laws he laid down, introducing a certain common equality, and he bound into the law the tribute Cyrus had promised the Persians, providing friendship and community to all Persians, winning over the Persian people with money and gifts. And so his armies, out of goodwill, gained for him no fewer lands than Cyrus had left. But after Darius came Xerxes, brought up once more on the royal, pampered education — Darius, one might say with perfect justice, you did not learn Cyrus's mistake, but raised Xerxes in the same habits in which Cyrus raised Cambyses! — and Xerxes, being the offspring of the same education, ended by re-enacting much the same fortunes as Cambyses. And from that time to this, hardly a single truly great king has arisen among the Persians — great in name only.
ATHENIAN: And the cause, on my account, is not chance, but the bad life which the sons of exceptionally rich men and of tyrants mostly live; for never will boy or man or old man raised on that nurture become outstanding in virtue. This, we say, is what the lawgiver must consider — and we too, in our present task. It is only just, men of Sparta, to grant your city this: that you assign no honor or nurture whatever that differs by poverty or wealth, private station or kingship, beyond what your divine founder pronounced for you from some god at the beginning. For a city should not let its highest honors go to a man simply for outstanding wealth — nor, for that matter, for speed or good looks or bodily strength unaccompanied by any virtue, nor for a virtue lacking temperance. MEGILLUS: What do you mean by that, stranger? ATHENIAN: Courage is one part of virtue, isn't it? MEGILLUS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Then hear the argument and judge for yourself: would you accept as housemate or neighbor a man extremely courageous, but not temperate — licentious rather? MEGILLUS: Say no such thing! ATHENIAN: What about a man skilled and clever in his craft, but unjust? MEGILLUS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: And yet the just character never springs up where temperance is missing. MEGILLUS: How could it? ATHENIAN: Nor does the wise man we put forward just now — the man whose pleasures and pains are in tune with right reason and follow it. MEGILLUS: No indeed. ATHENIAN: Then let us consider this further point, for the sake of the honors given in cities — which are rightly given in each case, and which not. MEGILLUS: What point? ATHENIAN: Temperance, isolated in some soul apart from all the rest of virtue — would it justly be a thing of honor or of dishonor? MEGILLUS: I do not know what to say. ATHENIAN: And you have answered fittingly. Had you said either of the alternatives I asked about, you would have struck a false note, in my view. MEGILLUS: Then it has turned out well. ATHENIAN: Quite. An accessory of the things that merit honor or dishonor deserves not speech, but rather a kind of speechless silence. MEGILLUS: You seem to mean temperance. ATHENIAN: Yes. And of the rest, whatever benefits us most, when joined with that accessory, would most rightly be honored with the highest honor, and the second in benefit with the second; and so on down the sequence — each thing, receiving in turn the honors that follow in order, would receive them rightly.
MEGILLUS: So it is. ATHENIAN: Well then, shall we say that this too belongs to the lawgiver, to distribute? MEGILLUS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: Do you want us to hand over to him the task of distributing everything, down to the smallest detail, in every single case, but to try ourselves, since we too are in some sense lovers of laws, to divide it three ways and mark off separately the first, second, and third things in importance? MEGILLUS: By all means. ATHENIAN: We say, then, it seems, that a city that is going to be preserved and to prosper, so far as is humanly possible, must and inevitably will distribute honors and dishonors correctly. And the correct way is this: the goods of the soul are to be ranked as most honorable and first, provided the soul possesses self-control; second come the fine and good things of the body; and third, the things said to belong to property and money. If any lawgiver or city steps outside this order, promoting money or honors, or ranking something that should come later ahead of something earlier, that city would be doing something neither pious nor politically sound. Shall we let this stand, or how do we see it? MEGILLUS: Let it stand, clearly stated. ATHENIAN: Our examination of the Persian constitution led us to say all this at greater length. We find that the Persians have become still worse, and we say the reason is that by stripping the common people of freedom to excess, and bringing in a degree of despotism beyond what was fitting, they destroyed the bond of friendship and community in the city. And once that was destroyed, the counsel of the rulers no longer takes thought for the ruled and for the people, but only for their own rule, so that if they think some slight advantage will fall to them at any given moment, they lay waste to cities, lay waste to friendly nations by fire, hating with hatred that knows no pity and are hated in return. And when the moment comes that they must call on the people to do their fighting, they discover among them no shared eagerness to face danger and give battle; instead, though they possess countless myriads beyond counting, all of them are useless for war, and as if short of men, they hire mercenaries, imagining that they will one day be saved by hired foreigners.
ATHENIAN: On top of this they are compelled into ignorance, showing in practice that whatever is called honorable and fine in the city is nonsense compared to gold and silver. MEGILLUS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Let that be the end of our discussion of the Persians, of how their affairs are now mismanaged because of excessive slavery and despotism. MEGILLUS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Next we ought to go through the Attic constitution in the same way, showing that total freedom released from every kind of rule is not a little worse than rule that has due measure exercised by others. In our own case, at the time when the Persian assault fell upon the Greeks—and, one might almost say, upon everyone living in Europe—we had an ancient constitution, with certain offices based on four property classes, and a kind of reverence dwelt among us like a master, in obedience to which we were willing to live under the laws then in force. And besides this, the sheer size of the expedition, by land and sea, cast upon us a helpless fear, and made us still more enslaved to our rulers and our laws, and through all this a strong bond of friendship grew up among us toward one another. For about ten years before the sea battle at Salamis, Datis arrived leading a Persian fleet, sent explicitly by Darius against the Athenians and the Eretrians, with orders to enslave and bring them back, and death threatened him if he failed to do this. And Datis in a short time took Eretria completely by force with vast numbers, and sent a frightening report to our city that not one Eretrian had escaped him; for, joining hands, his soldiers had swept the whole of Eretria as with a net. This report, whether true or however it reached us, terrified the other Greeks and especially the Athenians, and when they sent embassies everywhere for help, no one was willing to come except the Spartans. And the Spartans, held back by their war with Messenia then in progress, and perhaps by something else too—we do not know what is said—arrived too late, after the battle of Marathon had been fought, by a single day. After this, great preparations, so it was said, and countless threats kept coming from the King.
ATHENIAN: As time went on, Darius was said to have died, and his son, young and impetuous, took over the rule and by no means gave up the campaign. The Athenians thought all this preparation was aimed at them because of what had happened at Marathon, and hearing that Athos was being cut through and the Hellespont bridged, and of the great number of ships, they concluded that neither land nor sea offered them any way to safety. No one, they thought, would come to help them—remembering that even when the Persians came before and destroyed Eretria, no one had come to help them or risked fighting alongside them then; they expected the same to happen again on land. And by sea they saw every avenue of safety closed off, with more than a thousand ships bearing down on them. They thought of one refuge, thin and desperate, but the only one, looking to what had happened before: that then too victory in battle had come out of a hopeless situation. Borne along by this hope, they saw that no shelter remained to them except themselves and the gods. All this created among them a bond of friendship with one another—the fear then present, and that which had grown out of the earlier laws, the reverence under which they had lived as slaves to the former laws, which we have often in our earlier discussion called reverence, and to which we said those who are to become good must be enslaved—reverence, of which the coward is free and unafraid. If fear had not gripped them then, they would never have come together to defend themselves, nor would they have defended their temples, their tombs, their homeland, and all their own people and friends together, as they did help then; instead each of us would have been scattered then in small groups, this way and that. MEGILLUS: You have spoken well indeed, stranger, both fittingly for yourself and for your homeland. ATHENIAN: That is so, Megillus. It is right to speak of what happened in that time to you, who share by nature in the deeds of your fathers. But you and Cleinias should also consider whether what we are saying is relevant to lawgiving—for I am not going through this for the sake of storytelling, but for the sake of what I am arguing. Look: since a fate in some way the same as the Persians' befell us too—theirs leading their people to total slavery, ours in the opposite direction driving the masses to total freedom—what then shall we say next, given that our earlier discussion has, in a certain way, been well put?
MEGILLUS: You put it well. Try to make what you are now saying still clearer to us. ATHENIAN: So it shall be. Under the old laws, friends, the people were not sovereign over anything among us, but in a sense willingly made themselves the laws' servants. MEGILLUS: Which laws are those? ATHENIAN: Those concerning music, first, as it then was, so that we may go through from the beginning the excessive growth of the free life. Music at that time was divided among us into certain kinds and forms of its own: one kind of song was prayers to the gods, called by the name of hymns; and opposite to this was another kind of song—one might best call them dirges—and paeans were another kind, and another, the birth of Dionysus I believe, called the dithyramb. And they called this very name 'nomes,' songs of another sort still; these were sung to the accompaniment of the lyre. Once these and certain others were arranged in order, it was not permitted to misuse one kind of melody for another. And the authority to know these things, and having known them, to judge, and to punish the one who did not obey, was not a pipe, nor tuneless shouts from a crowd, as happens now, nor applause given as praise; rather, those who had been trained in education were resolved to listen in silence to the end, while for children and their attendants and the greater mass of people, the rod of a marshal provided the correction. So the mass of citizens was willing to be ruled in this orderly way and not dare to judge through noisy uproar. But afterward, as time went on, poets arose who were leaders of a lawless disregard for music—poets by nature, but ignorant of what is just and lawful in the Muse's realm, possessed by a frenzy and carried away more than they should be by pleasure, mixing dirges with hymns and paeans with dithyrambs, imitating flute-tunes with lyre-tunes, and bringing everything together into everything, and unwittingly, through folly, misrepresenting music as having no standard of correctness at all, but as judged most correctly by the pleasure of the one who enjoys it, whether he be better or worse.
ATHENIAN: By composing poems of this sort, and adding words to match, they instilled in the many a disregard for law in matters of music, and the audacity to think themselves competent to judge; so that theaters, from being silent, became vocal, as though they understood what was fine and what was not in the arts of the Muses, and in place of aristocracy there arose in this domain a kind of vicious theater-rule. For if only a democracy of free men had arisen in this domain, what had happened would not have been so very terrible; but as it was, there began among us, from music, the conceit that everyone is wise about everything and a disregard for law, and freedom followed close behind. People became fearless, as though they knew, and this lack of restraint bred shamelessness; for not to fear the opinion of the better sort out of sheer boldness—this, more or less, is precisely vicious shamelessness, arising from a freedom pushed too far in its daring. MEGILLUS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Following upon this freedom would come the unwillingness to be enslaved to rulers, and next after that, the flight from the authority and admonition of father and mother and elders; and as they near the end of this road, they seek to be no longer subject to the laws, and right at the very end, they cease to care for oaths, pledges, and the gods altogether, displaying and imitating what is called the ancient nature of the Titans, arriving again at that same condition, living a harsh existence with no end to their troubles. Now for what purpose have we said all this again? It seems to me we must, like a horseman, keep pulling in the argument at every point, and not let it, as if it had an unbridled mouth, carry us off by force, so that, as the proverb says, we fall off some donkey—rather we should keep asking again what we just asked: for the sake of what was this said? MEGILLUS: Well put. ATHENIAN: This, then, was said for the sake of the following. MEGILLUS: For the sake of what? ATHENIAN: We said that the lawgiver must aim at three things in making laws: that the city being legislated for shall be free, shall be a friend to itself, and shall possess understanding. That was it, was it not? MEGILLUS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: For this reason we chose the most despotic constitution and the most free, and we are now examining which of the two governs correctly. Taking a certain moderate degree of each—of ruling in the one case, and of freedom in the other—we observed that it was precisely then that they flourished exceedingly; but when each was carried to an extreme, of slavery on one side and of the opposite on the other, it benefited neither the one nor the other.
MEGILLUS: That's very true. ATHENIAN: And indeed it was for their sake that we also examined the Dorian army settling down, and the foothills of Dardanus, and the settlement by the sea, and the earliest people who survived the destruction, and further back still the discussions we had before that about music and drunkenness, and things earlier even than those. All of this was said so that we could see how a city might be governed best, and how a person, privately, might best lead his own life. But if we've actually accomplished something useful, what test could we apply to ourselves, Megillus and Cleinias? CLEINIAS: I think I can see one, stranger. It seems that by some stroke of luck everything we've discussed has happened just for this: I find myself, right about now, in real need of it, and by a happy coincidence you and Megillus here have turned up at the very moment. I won't hide from you two what's happening to me at present—in fact I'm treating it as a kind of sign. Most of Crete is undertaking to found a colony, and it has put the Cnossians in charge of managing the business, and the city of Cnossus has put it in my hands and those of nine others. At the same time it instructs us to lay down laws, taking either our own local ones, if any please us, or ones from elsewhere, with no regard for their being foreign, provided they look better. So let's do this favor for me and for yourselves: let's pick out what's useful from what's been said and put together, in words, a city—founding it, as it were, from scratch. That way we'll get the very inquiry we're after, and at the same time I might soon make use of this construction for the city that's coming. ATHENIAN: That's no declaration of war you're making, Cleinias! Unless it's somehow unwelcome to Megillus, consider everything of mine at your disposal, as far as I'm able. CLEINIAS: Well said. MEGILLUS: And mine as well. CLEINIAS: You've both spoken beautifully. Well then, let's try, first in words, to found the city.
ATHENIAN: Now then, what should we imagine this city will be like? I don't mean asking what its name is now, or what it will need to be called later on—though that will probably come from wherever it's founded, or some place-name, or the name of a river or spring, or of some local god, lending its own fame to the newly built city. What I really want to ask about it is this: will it be a coastal city, or inland? CLEINIAS: Well, stranger, the city we've been discussing lies about eighty stadia from the sea. ATHENIAN: And are there harbors along that coast, or is it harborless altogether? CLEINIAS: It has as good harbors as one could ask for, stranger. ATHENIAN: My word, that's something. And what about the land around it—does it produce everything, or is it lacking in some things? CLEINIAS: It's lacking in almost nothing. ATHENIAN: Will there be some neighboring city nearby? CLEINIAS: Not really, which is why it's being settled there. There was some old evacuation of the place long ago that left this land empty for an unimaginably long time. ATHENIAN: And what about plains, mountains, and forest? How is each of these apportioned to us? CLEINIAS: It resembles the nature of the rest of Crete as a whole. ATHENIAN: You'd call it more rugged than level, then. CLEINIAS: Yes, certainly.
ATHENIAN: Then it wouldn't be beyond hope of acquiring virtue. If it were going to be coastal, with fine harbors, and not self-sufficient but lacking many things, it would need some great savior and divinely inspired lawgivers, if it weren't to end up with many varied and base habits, given a nature like that. As it is, it has some comfort in those eighty stadia. Still, it lies closer to the sea than it should, exactly to the degree you say its harbors are good—though even that much is something to be grateful for. A sea lying next to a country is a pleasant thing day to day, but in truth it's a bitter, briny neighbor. Filling the land with trade and money-making through retail commerce, it breeds shifting, untrustworthy habits in people's souls, and makes the city itself distrustful and unfriendly both toward its own people and toward other nations as well. Against this the land's being self-sufficient offers some comfort—but being rugged, it clearly can't produce abundantly and produce everything at once. If it had that combination, generating large exports, it would in turn get filled up with silver and gold coin in exchange—and there is, one might almost say, no single thing more ruinous than that for a city's acquiring noble and just habits, as we said earlier, if we remember. CLEINIAS: We do remember, and we agree we were right then, and are right now. ATHENIAN: Well then—what about shipbuilding timber? How is our region provided in that respect? CLEINIAS: There's no fir worth mentioning, nor pine, and not much cypress either. One might find a little stone pine and plane tree, which shipbuilders always need for the fittings inside their vessels. ATHENIAN: And that, too, wouldn't be a bad thing for the land's nature. CLEINIAS: Why so? ATHENIAN: Because it isn't easy for a city to imitate its enemies' bad practices when it can't. CLEINIAS: What in what I've said were you looking at when you said that? ATHENIAN: My good man, keep watching me in light of what was said at the start—that Cretan laws look to one single thing, and you two said that this one thing was warfare. And I, taking that up, said that if such laws are established with an eye to virtue in general, that's fine, but I couldn't fully agree that they aim at only a part of virtue rather than the whole of it. So now I ask you to keep watch over me in turn as I lay down these present laws, in case I make any law that doesn't tend toward virtue, or only toward a part of virtue.
ATHENIAN: For I propose that the only law rightly laid down is the one that, like an archer, always aims at that one thing which alone is constantly accompanied by something good, and leaves aside absolutely everything else—whether it's wealth or anything else of that sort, when it happens to exist apart from what was just mentioned. Now the bad imitation of enemies I spoke of arises like this: when someone lives by the sea and is harassed by enemies—for instance—I'll tell it not wishing to bear any grudge against you—Minos once forced the people living in Attica to pay a harsh tribute, since he possessed great power at sea, while they had not yet acquired warships, as they have now, nor was their land full of shipbuilding timber so that they could easily provide themselves with naval power. So they weren't able, by imitating naval warfare and becoming sailors themselves, to fend off their enemies right away. In fact it would have served them better to lose seven times seven children, before becoming sailors instead of steady foot-soldiers and being trained to leap off ships often, run quickly back to them again, and think it no shame not to dare to die standing their ground when the enemy attacked, but instead to have excuses ready and very handy for throwing away their weapons and fleeing in what people call, not shamefully, a retreat. These are the sort of phrases that tend to follow from naval infantry service—not deserving countless praises, but quite the opposite. Bad habits should never be trained into people, least of all into the best part of the citizens. And one could get this very point from Homer too—that such a practice was not honorable. For his Odysseus rebukes Agamemnon, when the Achaeans were then being pressed hard in battle by the Trojans, for ordering the ships hauled down into the sea; Odysseus grows angry with him and says: 'You who bid us, with war and its clamor still raging, drag our well-benched ships down to the sea, so that the Trojans' wishes may be fulfilled even more, though they already have their desire, and sheer ruin come toppling down on us? Once the ships are hauled toward the water, the Achaeans will not stand fast in the fighting—they'll look back and shrink from the battle. There your plan will prove ruinous, in the very thing you propose.'
ATHENIAN: So Homer, too, recognized this—that it's a bad thing for triremes to stand beside hoplites fighting on land; even lions would learn to flee from deer if trained by such habits. Besides this, the naval power of cities, even while it preserves them, does not award honors to the finest part of their fighting forces. For that power comes about through skill in piloting, and command of fifty-oar crews, and rowing, exercised by all sorts of people, not all of them serious men, and one couldn't rightly assign honors to each in turn. Yet how could a constitution still be sound if it lacks that? CLEINIAS: Nearly impossible. And yet, stranger, we Cretans say that the sea battle at Salamis, fought by the Greeks against the barbarians, saved Greece. ATHENIAN: Indeed, most Greeks and barbarians alike say so. But we—I mean myself and Megillus here—say that the land battle at Marathon, and the one at Plataea, the one began the salvation of the Greeks, the other completed it, and that these made the Greeks better, while the sea-battles did not make them better—if we may speak that way about the battles that saved us together back then; for besides Salamis I'll add to your account the sea-battle at Artemisium as well. But since we're now looking at the virtue of a constitution, and examining the nature of the land and the arrangement of laws, we don't hold merely being kept safe and simply existing as the most valuable thing for human beings, as most people do, but rather becoming and being as good as possible for as long as one exists. This too, I believe, we've said before. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Let's consider only this, then: whether we're traveling the same road, the one that is best for founding and legislating for cities. CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: Tell me, then, what comes next: who will the people settling with you be? Will it be anyone who wishes, from the whole of Crete, on the assumption that a surplus population has built up in each of the cities beyond what the land can feed? For surely you're not gathering together anyone who wishes from all of Greece.
ATHENIAN: And yet I do see some among you settled in this land from Argos and Aegina and elsewhere in Greece. But tell me, where do you say the present body of citizens will actually come from now? CLEINIAS: It seems it will come from the whole of Crete, and among the other Greeks it seems they're most inclined to accept settlers from the Peloponnese. And indeed what you just said is true—that some are from Argos, and in fact the clan held in highest esteem here at present, the Gortynian clan, happens to have emigrated from Gortyn in the Peloponnese. ATHENIAN: Then the founding of a city wouldn't be equally easy for all cities, when it doesn't happen in the manner of swarms of bees, one single stock moving from one land, friend among friends, driven by some lack of room in their territory or forced by other such hardships. Sometimes, too, a portion of a city may be forced by factional violence to go into exile elsewhere; and before now an entire city has fled as a body, utterly overwhelmed in war by a stronger power. All these cases make founding and legislating easier in one way, harder in another. Being a single stock, sharing one language and one set of laws, has a certain friendliness to it, sharing in sacred rites and all such things; but it doesn't easily tolerate different laws and other institutions than those it had at home. And sometimes a group that has become factious because of the badness of its own laws, and out of habit still seeks to follow the same customs that ruined it before, becomes difficult and hard to persuade for the one founding and legislating. On the other hand, a population of every sort flowing together into one place might perhaps be more willing to submit to some new laws, but getting it to breathe as one—like a team of horses yoked together, as they say, breathing in unison—that takes a long time and is very difficult indeed. But truly, lawgiving and the founding of cities is the most perfect test there is of human virtue. CLEINIAS: Likely so. But tell me more clearly what you have in mind in saying this. ATHENIAN: My good man, in going back over the subject of lawgivers and examining it, I'm likely to say something rather poor. But if we're speaking to some purpose, nothing will come of holding back. And yet why am I hesitating? Nearly everything human seems to be like this. CLEINIAS: What are you referring to?
ATHENIAN: I was about to say that no human being ever legislates anything; rather, chances and mishaps of every kind, falling out in every sort of way, legislate all things for us. Either some war violently overturns constitutions and changes laws, or the hardship of grinding poverty does; and diseases force many innovations too, when plagues strike, and unfavorable seasons persisting over many years, again and again. Anyone foreseeing all this might rush to say just what I said a moment ago—that no mortal legislates anything, and that nearly all human affairs are matters of chance. And yet one could say the same about seamanship and piloting, medicine, and generalship, and seem to speak well—but one could equally well say something else about these same arts. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: That god governs all things, and along with god, chance and opportunity govern all human affairs. Still, it's gentler to concede that a third thing must go along with these—skill. For whether piloting joins forces with opportunity in a storm or not, makes, I would say, a huge difference. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: And wouldn't the same hold, by the same reasoning, for the other cases too—and so must be granted for lawgiving as well: that when all the other things that must coincide for a country to live happily fall into place, the lawgiver, holding fast to truth, must apply himself to whichever city happens to come his way. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So wouldn't the man skilled in each of the things mentioned be able to make the right prayer, as to what he'd need, over and above what chance provides him, if only skill were added? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And all the others just mentioned, if asked to state their prayer, would state it, wouldn't they? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And I think the lawgiver would do the same. CLEINIAS: I think so too. ATHENIAN: Come then, let's say to him: lawgiver, what sort of city, and in what condition, shall we give you, so that, once you have it, you can manage the rest of the city's affairs adequately on your own? CLEINIAS: What would be right to say after that? ATHENIAN: We're stating this on the lawgiver's behalf, aren't we? CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: Here's the case. Suppose someone says to me, 'Give me a city ruled by a single strongman,' and let that strongman be young, with a good memory, quick to learn, brave, and naturally magnificent. Now, whatever quality we said earlier must accompany all the parts of excellence—let that same quality accompany this dominated soul too, if the other traits are going to do any good at all. CLEINIAS: I think he means self-control, Megillus—isn't that what our friend is pointing to? ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias, but the popular kind, not the sort someone might dress up grandly and insist must really be wisdom in order to count as self-control. I mean the thing that shows up naturally in children and even animals from birth—some creatures being unable to master their pleasures, others managing to control them. That trait, we said, isn't worth much on its own compared to the many so-called goods, when it stands alone. You follow what I mean, I think. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So let our strongman have this nature added to those other natural gifts, if a city is going to acquire, as quickly and as excellently as possible, the constitution that will let it live the happiest life once it has it. For there is no faster or better arrangement for establishing a constitution than this, nor could there ever be. CLEINIAS: How exactly, and by what reasoning, could one claim to be speaking correctly here, stranger? ATHENIAN: It's easy enough to grasp, Cleinias—how this follows naturally from the way things are. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? If a strongman arose who was young, self-controlled, quick to learn, had a good memory, was brave, and magnificent? ATHENIAN: Add 'fortunate'—not lucky in some other respect, but in this: that in his time there arises a lawgiver worthy of praise, and some stroke of fortune brings the two of them together. Once that happens, the god has accomplished nearly everything he does when he wants some city to fare exceptionally well. Second best is when two such rulers arise together; and proportionally harder still the more there are, and easier the fewer there are, in the opposite direction. CLEINIAS: You're saying, it seems, that the best city would come out of a one-man rule, provided it has a supreme lawgiver and an orderly strongman, and that the change to this from such a starting point would happen most easily and quickly—second easiest from an oligarchy, is that right?—and third from a democracy. ATHENIAN: Not at all. First from one-man rule, yes; second from a kingship; third from some form of democracy. But the fourth, oligarchy, would find it hardest of all to allow such a transformation to arise, since in it the most people hold power.
ATHENIAN: We say this happens whenever a true lawgiver arises by nature, and some common strength falls to him alongside those who hold the greatest power in the city. Wherever this power is smallest in number but strongest in force—as in a one-man rule—there the change tends to happen fastest and most easily. CLEINIAS: How so? We don't follow. ATHENIAN: Yet we've said it, not once but many times, I think. Perhaps you've simply never seen a city under one-man rule. CLEINIAS: No, and I have no desire to see such a sight. ATHENIAN: And yet you would see in it exactly what we're now describing. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: No great labor or long stretch of time is needed for a strongman who wants to change a city's habits: he need only lead the way himself, in whatever direction he wishes—toward practices of excellence, urging the citizens on, or toward the opposite—doing everything first by setting the example in his own conduct, praising and honoring some things, steering others toward blame, and dishonoring anyone who won't obey in each of his actions. CLEINIAS: And how do we suppose the rest of the citizens would quickly fall in line with someone who wields such persuasion combined with force? ATHENIAN: Let no one convince us, my friends, that there is any faster or easier way for a city to change its laws than through the leadership of those in power—not now, nor ever in the future. This isn't impossible for us, nor would it be hard to bring about; the hard part is this: that it happens so rarely over so long a stretch of time. But whenever it does happen, it produces countless goods, indeed every good, in whatever city it arises. CLEINIAS: What exactly do you mean? ATHENIAN: Whenever a divine passion for self-controlled and just practices arises in some great power—whether ruling as a monarchy, or excelling through superior wealth or birth—or if someone should point to the nature of Nestor, who, the story goes, outstripped every man alive as a speaker, and outstripped even his own eloquence in self-control. This, they say, happened at Troy, though certainly not in our time. But if such a man has existed, or will exist, or is even now among us, he himself lives a blessed life, and blessed too are those who hear the words that come from his self-controlled mouth.
ATHENIAN: And the same reasoning applies to every kind of power as a whole: whenever the greatest power in a human being coincides with wisdom and self-control, then the birth of the best constitution and of such laws comes about; otherwise it never will. Let this, then, stand as a kind of myth we've spoken like an oracle, and let it show both that it is hard for a city to become well-governed, and also that, if what we're describing should ever happen, it would come about faster and more easily than anything else by far. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: Let's try, fitting our words to your city, to mold its laws in speech, like old men playing at being children. CLEINIAS: Let's proceed, then, and delay no further. ATHENIAN: Let us call upon a god for the founding of the city. May he hear us, and hearing, come to us gracious and kind, to join in shaping the city and its laws. CLEINIAS: May he come indeed. ATHENIAN: But what sort of constitution do we actually have in mind to prescribe for the city? CLEINIAS: What exactly do you mean? Speak more clearly still. Do you mean some form of democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, or kingship? Surely you don't mean one-man rule—that's not what we'd suppose you mean. ATHENIAN: Come then, which of you two would like to answer first, by telling me which of these your own homeland's constitution is? MEGILLUS: Wouldn't it be fairer for me, the elder, to speak first? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. MEGILLUS: Well then, stranger, when I really think about the constitution at Sparta, I can't tell you offhand what to call it. It seems to me to resemble one-man rule—the office of the ephors is astonishingly tyrannical in its power there—yet at times it seems to me to resemble a democracy more than any other city. But to deny outright that it's an aristocracy would be absurd; and yet there's also a kingship for life in it, one that both we ourselves and everyone else calls the oldest of all. So, asked suddenly like this, I genuinely can't say, having sorted it out, which of these constitutions it is. CLEINIAS: I seem to be suffering the very same difficulty as you, Megillus—I'm quite at a loss to insist confidently that the constitution at Knossos is any one of these.
ATHENIAN: And that's because, my excellent friends, you really do share in constitutions—but what we've just named are not constitutions at all, but rather cities inhabited under the mastery of some parts of themselves over others enslaved to them, each named after the power of its particular master. But if a city must really be named after something, it ought to be named after the god who truly rules over those who possess reason. CLEINIAS: And who is this god? ATHENIAN: Should we still make some small use of a myth, if we're going to explain what's now being asked in a fitting way? CLEINIAS: Isn't that just what we should do? ATHENIAN: Certainly. Of the cities whose forms of settlement we've already gone through, there is said to have existed, long before any of them, a rule and a way of life under Cronus, most blessed of all, and whichever of our present cities is best governed today holds an imitation of it. CLEINIAS: It seems we should very much like to hear about it. ATHENIAN: So it seems to me too—that's why I've brought it into our discussion. CLEINIAS: You're quite right to do so; and if you go on to complete the story, since it belongs here, you'll be doing exactly right. ATHENIAN: I'll do as you ask. We have received a report of that blessed life back then: that everything was abundant and grew of its own accord. And the reason given for this is something like the following. Cronus, knowing—just as we ourselves have concluded—that no human nature is capable of ruling all human affairs with absolute power without becoming filled with insolence and injustice, appointed over our cities at that time not human beings as kings and rulers, but beings of a more divine and better stock: spirits—just as we ourselves now do with our flocks and all the tame herds we keep. We don't set cattle to rule over cattle, or goats over goats; we ourselves rule over them, being a better stock than they are. In just the same way the god, being a friend to humankind, set over us a stock better than ourselves, the race of spirits, who tended us with great ease to themselves and great benefit to us, providing peace, and reverence, and good order, and an unstinting supply of justice, and made the tribes of men free of civil strife and happy.
ATHENIAN: And this account, speaking the truth even now, tells us this: that in whatever cities a mortal rules rather than a god, there is no escape from evils and hardships for the people there. Instead, it holds that we must imitate by every means the life said to have existed under Cronus, and, insofar as immortality dwells within us, obey it in ordering both our households and our cities publicly and privately, calling this apportionment of reason by the name of law. But if a single individual, or an oligarchy, or even a democracy, possesses a soul reaching after pleasures and desires and demanding to be filled with them, holding nothing back, but gripped by an endless and insatiable disease of evil, and such a person rules over a city or some private household, trampling the laws underfoot—as we just said—then there is no way to be saved. We must examine this account, Cleinias, and decide whether we'll be persuaded by it, or how else we'll act. CLEINIAS: We surely must be persuaded. ATHENIAN: Do you understand, then, that some say there are as many kinds of laws as there are constitutions, and we've just gone through as many constitutions as most people speak of? Don't think the dispute now before us is a trivial one—it concerns the greatest matter of all. For the question of where justice and injustice should look has come around to being disputed among us once again. Some say laws shouldn't look toward war, or toward excellence as a whole, but toward whatever benefits the constitution currently established, so that it will rule forever and never be overthrown—and that this is the finest way to state the natural definition of justice. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: That justice is the advantage of the stronger. CLEINIAS: Say it more clearly still. ATHENIAN: Like this. They say that whoever holds power in a city always makes the laws. Isn't that so? CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: Do you suppose, they ask, that a victorious populace, or any other kind of constitution, or even a strongman, would ever willingly make laws aimed at anything else first besides their own advantage in keeping their power? CLEINIAS: How could they? ATHENIAN: And won't whoever made these laws punish anyone who transgresses them as a wrongdoer, calling this 'justice'? CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: This, then, is how and in what way justice would always stand. CLEINIAS: That's what this account says, anyway. ATHENIAN: For this is one of those claims made about the nature of rule. CLEINIAS: Which claims do you mean?
ATHENIAN: Of the things we were examining just now — which people ought to rule over which. And it turned out that parents should rule children, the older the younger, the well-born the low-born, and there were quite a few other pairings, if we remember, some conflicting with others. And indeed one of them was this: we said, I believe, that Pindar leads the way with nature, justifying "the most violent" as he put it. CLEINIAS: Yes, that's what was said then. ATHENIAN: Then consider to which of these sorts our city should be handed over. This sort of thing has happened countless times already in various cities. CLEINIAS: What sort of thing? ATHENIAN: When offices have been fought over, the winners have seized control of the city's affairs so completely that they give no share of office whatsoever to the losers, neither to them nor to their descendants, and they live watching one another closely, in case someone who reaches office should rise up in revolt, remembering the wrongs done before. Such regimes, we now say, are not true constitutions at all, nor are their laws correct, whichever ones are not laid down for the sake of the whole city's common good. Laws made for the sake of some faction we call the laws of partisans, not of citizens, and we say the claims of justice such people make are said in vain. And the reason we say this is that we ourselves will not grant offices in your city to someone because he is rich, nor because he possesses any of the other things of that sort — strength, or stature, or birth. Rather, whoever is most obedient to the established laws and wins that victory in the city — to him, we say, must be given the greatest service to the gods, the first prize; and the second prize to whoever masters the second rank; and so on down the line, each subsequent rank should be assigned in proportion. Those now called rulers I have called servants of the laws, not for the sake of some novelty in terminology, but because I hold that on this above all else hangs a city's survival — or its opposite. Wherever the law is ruled over and has no authority, I see destruction imminent for that city; but wherever the law is master over the rulers, and the rulers are slaves of the law, there I see safety, and all the good things the gods give to cities. CLEINIAS: Yes, by Zeus, stranger — for one your age, you see sharply. ATHENIAN: A young man sees such things most dimly of himself; an old man sees them most sharply. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Well then, what comes next? Shall we suppose the settlers have arrived and are present, and go on to complete our speech addressed to them? CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: Let us then say to them: Men — as the old saying goes, God, holding the beginning and end and middle of all things that are, travels a straight path, completing his circuit according to nature. And justice keeps ever in his train, exacting punishment from all who desert the divine law. Whoever means to be happy clings to justice and follows it humbly and in good order; but whoever is puffed up with pride, or exalted by wealth or honors, or whose soul is set ablaze — inflamed by bodily beauty joined with youth and folly — with arrogance, as though needing no ruler or guide, but capable even of leading others, such a person is left destitute of god. And having been so left, and having taken on still others like himself, he runs riot, throwing everything into confusion; and to many he seems to be someone important — but before long, paying a penalty that justice does not stint, he brings himself, his household, and his city to utter ruin. Given that things are arranged this way, what must a sensible man do or think, and what must he not do? CLEINIAS: That much is clear: every man must think of himself as one who is going to follow along with god. ATHENIAN: What action, then, is dear to god and follows him? One, and it has a single ancient saying: that like is dear to like, when it is measured, but the unmeasured is dear neither to each other nor to the measured. God, for us, would be the measure of all things, far more than any man could be, as they say. So the one who is to become dear to such a being must, so far as possible, himself become of that same character; and by this reasoning, the self-controlled man among us is dear to god, since he is like him, while the man without self-control is unlike and different — and so is the unjust man, and all the rest follows the same reasoning. Let us take it, then, that this follows from what we have said — a saying I think the finest and truest of all: that for the good man, to sacrifice and to hold constant company with the gods through prayers, offerings, and every kind of service to them, is the finest and best thing, and the most effective toward a happy life, and indeed especially fitting; but for the bad man, the opposite of these things is natural.
ATHENIAN: For the bad man is unclean in soul, while his opposite is clean, and it is never right for either a good man or a god to accept gifts from one who is polluted. So all the great effort spent on the gods by the unholy is in vain, while for the holy it is most timely and fitting for all. This, then, is the mark we must aim at. But what would be the arrows, so to speak, and the shooting of those arrows toward it, spoken most correctly? First, we say, one would hit the mark of piety most correctly by assigning honors second to the Olympian gods and to the gods who hold the city, and honors that are even and reserved as the second and left-hand portion to the gods of the underworld, while assigning the higher and superior honors — the opposite of these — to the gods spoken of just before. After these gods, a sensible man would perform rites also to the daimones, and after them to the heroes. Following these come private shrines of ancestral gods, honored according to law; and after these, honors to living parents. For it is right and proper that one who owes debts should pay the first and greatest of debts, the oldest of all debts owed — believing that everything he possesses and has belongs to those who begot and raised him, and is to be placed at their service to the utmost of his power, beginning with his property, second his body, and third his soul — repaying the loans of their care and of their labors on his behalf, borne long ago and lent out for the sake of the young, paying it back now to the old, who are in the greatest need of it in their old age. Throughout his whole life a man must maintain, and must have maintained, especially reverent speech toward his own parents, because light and winged words carry the heaviest penalty — for over all such things Nemesis, messenger of Justice, has been appointed as overseer. One must therefore give way to parents when they are angry, and let them vent their anger, whether they do so in words or in deeds, forgiving them, on the ground that a father is most likely to be especially angry when he believes he has been wronged by his son. When parents die, the most modest funeral is the finest — neither exceeding the customary scale, nor falling short of what the ancestors established for their own parents — and likewise one should render, year by year, the customary honors that bring order to those who have already reached their end.
ATHENIAN: And by never neglecting to keep constant remembrance of them, one should above all honor them continually in this way, allotting to the dead a fitting portion of whatever expense fortune provides. If we do these things and live by them, each of us in turn would receive our due from the gods and from those who are greater than we are, and would pass the greater part of life in good hope. As for what one owes toward children, relatives, friends, and fellow citizens, and toward strangers, in the services owed to the gods and in dealings with all these people — in fulfilling one's own life and adorning it according to law — the working-out of the laws themselves will accomplish this, partly by persuading, partly, where characters do not yield to persuasion, by compelling and punishing with force and justice, and so, with the gods' cooperation, will render our city blessed and happy. But there are things which a lawgiver who thinks as I do must and ought to say, yet which, spoken in the form of a law, would strike a discordant note. About these matters it seems to me that he should, for his own sake and for those to whom he will give laws, first set forth a sample, and then, having gone through everything else as far as he is able, only after that begin the actual enactment of the laws. In what form, then, are such things best set out? It is not at all easy to capture them in a single formula, as though in one mold — but let us take them up in some such way as this, if we can establish anything firm about them. CLEINIAS: Say what you mean. ATHENIAN: I would want them to be as obedient as possible to virtue, and clearly the lawgiver will try to bring this about in the whole of his legislation. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well, it seemed to me that what has been said might do some good toward what the lawgiver would urge — that if it does not take hold of a soul utterly harsh and unyielding, it will make the listener hear it more gently and more favorably; so that even if it accomplishes something small rather than great, by making the hearer more receptive and thus readier to learn what is being said, that alone is worth having. For there is no great ease or abundance of people eager to become as good as possible, and as quickly as possible. Most people declare Hesiod wise for saying that the way down to badness is level going, travelable without a drop of sweat, the road being so short, whereas in front of virtue, he says, the immortal gods have set sweat, and the path to it is long and steep, and rough at first — but when you reach the summit, then it is easy to travel, hard though it was.
CLEINIAS: Yes, and he does seem to speak well. ATHENIAN: Quite so. Now I want to set before you, in plain view, the argument I have been building toward. CLEINIAS: Set it out, then. ATHENIAN: Let us say, addressing the lawgiver: Tell us, lawgiver — if you knew what we ought to do and say, surely you would tell us? CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: Now, did we not hear you, just a little while ago, say that the lawgiver should not allow poets to compose whatever pleases them? For they would not know which of their words, running counter to the laws, might harm the city. CLEINIAS: What you say is true. ATHENIAN: If, then, we said the following to him on behalf of the poets, would what was said be reasonable? CLEINIAS: What sort of thing? ATHENIAN: This: there is an old story, lawgiver, told repeatedly by us ourselves and agreed to by everyone else, that whenever a poet sits on the tripod of the Muse, he is not then in his right mind, but, like a spring letting whatever flows into it flow freely out again, and since his art is one of imitation, he is compelled, when portraying men disposed in ways opposite to one another, often to contradict himself, and he does not know whether what he says here or what he says there is true. But it is not possible for the lawgiver, in the law, to give two accounts about one matter; he must always declare a single account about a single matter. Consider this from what you yourself just said. Given that there is a funeral that is excessive, one that is deficient, and one that is moderate, you chose the one, the moderate one, and prescribed it, praising it without qualification. But I — if I had an exceptionally wealthy wife who in a poem instructed that she herself be buried — would praise the lavish funeral; while a stingy, poor man would praise the meager one; and a man who possesses a moderate estate and is himself moderate would praise that same moderate funeral. But you should not speak the way you just did, simply saying "the moderate one" — you must say what the moderate amount is, and how much, or else do not yet suppose that such a statement of yours has become a law. CLEINIAS: What you say is very true.
ATHENIAN: Should the one who sets our laws in order simply say nothing of that kind at the start of his laws, but state right away what must be done, and once he has stated it and threatened the penalty, move on to the next law, never adding a single word of comfort or persuasion for those under his legislation? Or is a doctor of a certain sort in the habit of treating us one way, and one of another sort another way each time? Let's recall each manner, so that we may ask the lawgiver for the gentler one, the way children would ask a doctor to treat them in the mildest way possible. What do I mean by this? There are, we say, doctors, and there are also assistants of doctors, and we call these assistants doctors too, don't we? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And whether they are free men or slaves, they acquire their skill by their masters' instructions and by observation and practice, not by nature the way the free doctors themselves have learned it and teach it in turn to their own children. Would you set these down as two classes of what are called doctors? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And do you also notice that, since the sick in our cities are partly slaves and partly free, the slave doctors treat the slaves for the most part—running about and waiting in their surgeries—and none of these doctors gives or accepts any account of each servant's individual illness, but having prescribed what seems right from experience, as though he knew exactly, arrogantly, like a tyrant, he dashes off to the next sick servant, and so gives his master relief from the trouble of caring for his sick. The free doctor, on the other hand, treats and studies for the most part the illnesses of free men, and does so by examining them from the beginning and according to nature, taking the patient himself and his friends into his confidence; and in this way he both learns something from the sick himself and, so far as he is able, teaches the patient in turn; nor does he prescribe anything until he has somehow persuaded him, and only then, taming the patient with persuasion, does he try to bring him steadily forward toward health. Which of the two is the better doctor when he heals, and the better trainer when he trains—the one who works his single skill in a double way, or the one who works it in only one way, and the more brutal of the two? CLEINIAS: The double way, stranger, is far superior. ATHENIAN: Do you want us, then, to observe this double and this single approach as it occurs within lawgiving itself? CLEINIAS: Of course I do.
ATHENIAN: Come then, by the gods, what would be the first law our lawgiver would lay down? Won't he, following nature, first put in order for the cities the beginning that concerns birth? CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: And isn't the beginning of birth, for every city, the union and partnership of marriage? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: It seems, then, that laws about marriage would be the first that, if rightly laid down, would be laid down toward the correctness of the whole city. CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Let us state first the simple version—it might go something like this: a man is to marry once he is thirty years old, up to the age of thirty-five; if he does not, he is to be fined in money and stripped of certain honors—so much money, and such-and-such loss of standing. Let that be, more or less, the simple law about marriage. The double version is this: a man is to marry once he is thirty years old, up to thirty-five, bearing in mind that in a certain way the human race has by its very nature a share in immortality, and every one of us has by nature a longing for it in every form; for the desire to become famous, and not to lie nameless once one has died, belongs to just this longing. The human race, then, is something bound by nature to all time, which follows and will follow it to the end, and in this way is immortal—by leaving behind children's children, remaining one and the same forever, it partakes of immortality through generation. For a man willingly to deprive himself of this is never a holy thing to do, and whoever neglects wife and children deprives himself of it by deliberate choice. The man who obeys this law, then, may go free of penalty; but the man who disobeys, who has reached thirty-five without marrying, is to be fined so much every year, so that he will not think that his solitary life brings him profit and ease, and he is to have no share in whatever honors the younger men in the city pay to their elders on each occasion. Having heard this law set beside the other, anyone may consider, for each case, whether laws ought to become double in this way, at the very least in length, through both persuading and threatening at once, or whether, using only the threat, they should remain simple in length.
MEGILLUS: As for the Laconian way, stranger, of always preferring the shorter—yet if someone told me to be a judge of these two texts, as to which I would want written down and set up as law in my city, I would choose the longer one, and indeed I would make the same choice about every law on this pattern, whichever of the two versions existed. Still, presumably what is now being legislated must also please our friend Cleinias here, since it is his city that now intends to make use of such laws. CLEINIAS: Well said, Megillus. ATHENIAN: Now, to argue over whether a text has many words or few is really quite foolish—for it is the best laws, I think, not the shortest, that ought to be honored, nor should length as such be prized or blamed—but of the two versions just stated, the one is not simply twice the other only in usefulness as a piece of legislation; rather, as was just said, the comparison to the two kinds of doctors was exactly right. Yet on this point no lawgiver, it seems, has ever given thought to the fact that, though it is possible to use two things in framing laws—persuasion and force, so far as that is possible with an uneducated crowd—they use only the one of the two; for they do not temper the battle by mixing in persuasion when they legislate, but use force alone, undiluted. And I, my good friends, see that there is still a third thing that ought to happen concerning laws, which nowhere happens now. CLEINIAS: What is this you mean? ATHENIAN: A thing that has arisen, by some god's doing, out of the very discussion we have just been having. For ever since we began speaking about laws, early this morning, it has become midday, and we have come to rest in this altogether beautiful spot, talking of nothing but laws, though we seem to me only now to be beginning to state actual laws—everything before this has been for us preludes to laws. Why do I say this? I want to make this point: of all speeches, and of all things in which the voice has a share, there are preludes, a kind of warming-up, so to speak, which carry within them a skillful preparation useful for what is to follow and be completed. Indeed, for songs sung to the lyre—what we call 'nomes'—and for every kind of music, wonderfully elaborate preludes are set out beforehand; but for the laws that are truly laws, the ones we call political laws, no one has ever yet spoken a prelude, or, in composing one, brought it out into the light, as though there were no such thing by nature. Yet our present discussion, it seems to me, shows that there is such a thing; and those double laws we were just now speaking of seemed to me not simply double in that plain sense, but rather two distinct things—law, and prelude to the law.
ATHENIAN: That thing we compared to the tyrant's command, likening it to the commands of the doctors we called unfree—that is the law in its unmixed form; while what was said before it, the persuasive part spoken by our man here, was truly persuasive, yet had the force of a prelude to a speech. For it seemed clear to me that this whole speech, which the speaker delivered by way of persuading, was spoken for this purpose: so that the one to whom the lawgiver addresses the law might receive the command—which is what the law actually is—with goodwill, and, because of that goodwill, more readily learn it. So, for my part, I would say this very thing is rightly called, not the substance of the law, but a prelude to the law. Having said this, what would I want to say next? This: that the lawgiver ought never to leave his laws without preludes, whether taken as a whole or one by one, to the same degree that the two versions we just spoke of differed from each other. CLEINIAS: For my part, I would tell anyone skilled in these matters not to legislate any other way than this. ATHENIAN: Well, Cleinias, I think you're right to say at least this much—that all laws have preludes, and that at the start of every piece of legislation one ought to set, before each and every provision, the prelude that naturally belongs to it—for what is to be said next is no small matter, and it makes no small difference whether it is remembered clearly or not. Yet if we were to require that great matters and small ones alike, when embodied in law, be given preludes in the same way, we would not be speaking rightly. For neither with song nor with any speech should this be done indiscriminately—though it is natural for it to exist in all of them, it should not be used in all of them—rather, this must be left to the orator, the composer of songs, and the lawgiver, to decide case by case. CLEINIAS: What you say seems entirely true to me. But let us not spend any more time in delay, stranger; let us return to our argument, and begin again, if you're willing, from the point where you spoke without treating it as a prelude at all. So then, as those who are playing a game say, let us take up the thread again from the beginning, this time as a better second attempt, treating it as a prelude and not as some random speech reaching its end, as we did just now; let us take as its beginning the point at which we agree the prelude starts. What was said about honoring the gods and caring for one's ancestors is enough, and what has just now been said also suffices; let us try to speak what comes next, until the whole prelude seems to you to have been adequately stated. After that, he will go on to set out the laws themselves.
ATHENIAN: Well then, concerning the gods and those who come after the gods, and concerning parents both living and dead, we have, as I now put it, given an adequate prelude; and what remains of this same subject you seem to me to be urging me now to bring, as it were, into the light. CLEINIAS: Exactly so. ATHENIAN: Well, after such matters, it is fitting—and indeed most fitting of all—that speaker and listeners alike, in reckoning up how one ought to hold oneself, in earnestness and in relaxation, regarding one's own soul, one's body, and one's property, should become, so far as they are able, possessed of an education in these things; these very matters, then, are what we must next state and hear. CLEINIAS: Quite right.
ATHENIAN: Let everyone who just now heard what I said about the gods and our ancestral friends listen further. Of all the things a person owns, after the gods, the soul is the most divine, since it is most his own. Everything a person owns comes in two kinds. The stronger and better things are the ruling ones, the weaker and worse are the ruled; and among a man's own possessions, the ruling ones must always be honored above the ruled.
So when I say a man should honor his own soul second — after the gods, our masters, and after the beings in their train — I am giving the right instruction. But hardly any of us honors it correctly, though we think we do. Honor is something divine and good, and nothing bad is honorable, and whoever thinks he can increase his soul's worth by words or gifts or by giving way to it, while making it no better but in fact worse, only seems to honor it — he does nothing of the kind. Take a child: the moment he becomes a person he thinks himself capable of judging everything, and believes that praising his own soul is honoring it, and eagerly lets it do whatever it wants. But what I am saying is that acting this way harms the soul rather than honoring it — and it should be honored second, right after the gods, as we said. Nor does a man honor his soul when he refuses to blame himself for his own mistakes and for most of his worst troubles, and instead blames others, always excusing himself as innocent — he thinks he is honoring his soul, but he is very far from doing so, because he is harming it. Nor, again, whenever a man indulges his soul with pleasures against the reasoned judgment and praise of the lawgiver, is he honoring it in any way — he is dishonoring it, filling it with wrongdoing and regret. Nor, on the other hand, whenever a man fails to endure with fortitude the praised hardships, fears, pains, and griefs, but gives way to them — he does not honor his soul by yielding; he makes it dishonorable by doing all such things. Nor does a man honor his soul when he holds that life is good under any and all conditions — he dishonors it then too. For if the soul supposes that everything in Hades is bad, it gives way and does not stand firm against this idea by teaching and refuting it — that is, by showing that it does not know whether, quite the opposite, the greatest of all goods for us may lie in the realm of the gods below. Nor again, whenever someone prizes beauty ahead of virtue, is this anything other than a genuine and total dishonoring of the soul; for this reasoning claims the body is more honorable than the soul, and that is a lie. Nothing born of earth is more honorable than what belongs to the Olympians, and whoever thinks otherwise about the soul fails to realize how he is neglecting this marvelous possession.
Nor, again, whenever someone is eager to acquire wealth by shameful means, or feels no discomfort in acquiring it that way, does he then honor his own soul with gifts — far from it. He gives away its honor and its beauty together for a little gold; for all the gold on earth and under the earth is not worth as much as virtue. To put it briefly: whatever things the lawgiver, in listing them, has set down as shameful and bad, and their opposites as good and beautiful — whoever is unwilling to abstain from the first by every means, and to pursue the second with all his power, does not realize that in every such case he is treating the most divine thing he has, his soul, in the most dishonorable and disgraceful way. For hardly anyone reckons the greatest penalty that follows wrongdoing, though it is called by that name; and the greatest penalty is this: to become like men who are already bad, and in becoming like them, to flee good men and good words and cut oneself off from them, while clinging to bad men, pursuing their company. And once attached to such people, one is bound to do and suffer whatever such people naturally do and say to one another. This condition is not justice — for what is just, and justice itself, are fine things — but it is retribution, the painful consequence that follows wrongdoing, and both the man who receives it and the one who escapes it are wretched: the one because he goes uncured, the other because he is destroyed so that many others may be saved. For us, honor consists, broadly speaking, in following what is better, and in bringing what is worse — insofar as it can be improved — to as good a state as possible. There is no possession more naturally suited to help a person flee evil and track down and seize the best of all things, and having seized it, live with it in company for the rest of his life, than the soul; that is why it was ranked second in honor. Third — as anyone can see — comes the honor that belongs by nature to the body. But we must examine our honors, and figure out which of them are genuine and which counterfeit — that is the lawgiver's task. It seems to me these are roughly what they show themselves to be: the honorable body is not the beautiful one, nor the strong, nor the swift, nor the large, nor even — though many would think so — the healthy one; nor, for that matter, is it the opposite of these. Rather, the condition that lies in the middle of all these states is by far the most temperate and the most secure; for the extremes make souls either puffed-up and reckless, or servile and mean.
In just the same way, the acquisition of money and property, and the honor given to it, follows the same pattern. Excess in any of these things breeds hostility and factions, both in cities and in private life, while deficiency mostly breeds servitude. So let no one love money for his children's sake, in order to leave them as rich as possible; that is better for neither them nor the city. For young people, wealth that attracts no flatterers, yet is sufficient for necessities — that is the finest and most harmonious kind, for it fits and blends with our whole life and makes it free of pain. What we should leave to our children is a great deal of shame, not gold. We think that by scolding the young for their shamelessness we will leave them this — but that does not come about through the kind of exhortation now given to the young, when they are told they must be ashamed of everything. A sensible lawgiver would rather urge the old to feel shame before the young, and above all to take care that no young person ever sees or hears them doing or saying anything shameful; for wherever the old behave shamelessly, the young there are bound to become most shameless of all. The finest education for the young, and for the old themselves, is not admonishing others but plainly living out, throughout one's whole life, the very things one would tell someone else to do when giving advice. And whoever honors and reveres kinship and the whole fellowship of those bound together by common blood and shared household gods will, quite reasonably, find the gods of birth well disposed toward the begetting of his own children. And likewise, one will win the goodwill of friends and companions for the dealings of life by regarding their services to oneself as greater and weightier than they themselves consider them, while thinking one's own kindnesses to friends and companions lesser than they themselves would say. Toward the city and its citizens, by far the best man is the one who would choose, rather than victory at Olympia or in any contest of war or peace, a reputation for having served the laws of his homeland — as one who has served them, of all people, most nobly throughout his life. Toward foreigners, one must consider one's agreements as most sacred of all; for nearly all wrongs done by and to foreigners are bound up with a god as their avenger far more than wrongs among citizens are.
For the foreigner, being without companions and kin, is more pitiable to both gods and men; whoever is able to avenge him is readier to come to his aid, and none has greater power to do so than the guardian spirit and god of hospitality who attends each such person, following Zeus the god of strangers. So a person with even a little foresight should take great care to go through life to its very end without ever wronging a stranger. Among wrongs done both to strangers and to fellow citizens, the greatest wrong of all, in every case, is against suppliants; for the suppliant, having called a god to witness his plea and having received his solemn assurance, finds in that god an especially watchful guardian of what happens to him, so that the one who suffers a wrong will never go unavenged. We have now gone through nearly all our dealings concerning parents, ourselves and our own affairs, the city, friends, and kin, and both foreigners and fellow citizens; what remains, following on from this, is to discuss what sort of person one should be in order to live one's life most nobly — matters that are not law, but the kind of praise and blame that trains each person to be more tractable and well disposed toward the laws about to be laid down. Truth leads the way among all good things, both for gods and for men; whoever means to become blessed and happy should share in it from the very outset, so as to live as long as possible as a truthful person. Such a person can be trusted. But the untrustworthy person is one who loves a willing falsehood, and whoever loves an unwilling one is simply foolish — neither condition is enviable. For every untrustworthy and ignorant person is friendless, and in time, once he becomes known, he brings upon himself, toward the harsh end of old age, a complete isolation, so that his life becomes nearly as orphaned as if he had no companions or children left living. The man who does no wrong is honorable; but the one who does not even allow wrongdoers to do further wrong deserves more than twice his honor. For the first is worth one man, the second is worth many others besides, since he reports the wrongdoing of others to the rulers. And the one who also joins the rulers in punishing wrongdoing to the extent of his power — that man should be proclaimed the great and complete man in the city, victorious in virtue. The same praise must be given regarding self-control and wisdom, and all the other good things a person can not only possess himself but also share with others.
The one who shares must be honored as the very best; the one who cannot share but is willing should be ranked second; but the one who is grudging, and unwilling from ill will to make anyone a partner in any good things through friendship, should himself be blamed, though the good thing itself should be valued no less because of its possessor — rather, it should still be pursued according to one's ability. Let everyone among us compete for virtue without envy. Such a man builds up his city, since he strives himself without cutting others down through slander; but the envious man, thinking he must excel by slandering others, both strains less toward true virtue himself and discourages his rivals by unjustly disparaging them, and by leaving the whole city untrained in the contest for virtue, he makes it, for his part, smaller in its reputation for excellence. Every man should be spirited, yet as gentle as possible. There is no other way to escape the harsh and hard-to-cure — or wholly incurable — wrongs of others except by fighting back, defending oneself, prevailing, and punishing without ever relenting; and no soul is able to do this without noble spirit. As for those who do wrong but can be cured, one must recognize first that every unjust man is unjust unwillingly; for no one, anywhere, would ever willingly possess any of the greatest evils, least of all in what he holds most precious. And the soul, as we have said, is in truth the most precious thing of all to everyone; so no one would willingly take the greatest evil into that most precious part and live with it possessed throughout his life. The unjust man, and the man who holds bad things generally, is altogether pitiable; and it is fitting to pity the one whose faults are curable, restraining and softening one's anger rather than raging on bitterly like a scolding woman — but toward the one who is incorrigibly and hopelessly wicked and bad, one must let anger loose. That is why we say the good man must always be both spirited and gentle as occasion demands. Now the greatest of all evils is one bred into the souls of most people, an evil for which everyone forgives himself and devises no escape whatsoever: this is what people mean when they say that every man is naturally his own friend, and that it is right that he should be so. But in truth, it is this very excessive self-love that becomes, every time, the cause of all of a person's wrongdoings.
ATHENIAN: Love blinds the lover where the beloved is concerned, so that he judges justice and goodness and beauty badly, always thinking he must honor what's his own over what's true. No man who intends to become great should cherish himself or what belongs to himself, but rather justice, whether it happens to be found in his own conduct or in someone else's. From this same fault comes everyone's habit of thinking that his own ignorance is wisdom. That's why, knowing essentially nothing, we imagine we know everything, and by refusing to let others do what we ourselves don't understand, we're forced to make mistakes doing it ourselves. So every human being must flee excessive self-love and always pursue someone better than himself, feeling no shame in doing so. There are smaller points than these, often repeated, but no less useful, and a man should remind himself of them by speaking them aloud. Just as something is always flowing away, its opposite must flow in to replace it, and memory is the inflow that refills the good sense that keeps draining out. That's why one must refrain from excessive laughter and excessive tears, and every man must urge everyone else to conceal his whole joy and his whole grief and try to keep his composure, whether his own guardian spirit stands firm in good fortune, or, as in hard and steep circumstances, spirits oppose certain of his actions. He must always hope that for good people, whatever the god grants, even when troubles fall, will turn out smaller than they might have been, and that changes for the better will come to his present state, and that as for good things, the opposite of all this will befall him, together with good fortune. Everyone should live by these hopes and by memories of all such truths, sparing nothing, but always reminding both others and himself clearly, whether at play or in earnest. Now then, as to ways of life — what sort we ought to practice, and concerning each one, what kind it should be — we have said pretty much all that pertains to the gods, but we haven't yet spoken of human matters, and we must, since we're talking to human beings, not gods. By nature what belongs most to human beings is pleasures and pains and desires, and from these every mortal creature is necessarily, so to speak, suspended and hung, driven by the strongest concerns.
ATHENIAN: We must praise the finest way of living not only because its very shape wins a good reputation, but also because, if someone is willing to taste it and doesn't flee from it while still young, it wins out too in what we all seek — feeling more joy and less pain throughout the whole of life. That this is so, if one tastes it rightly, will show itself readily and clearly. But what is rightness here? This we must now examine, taking it up from the argument itself. Whether it is so by nature for us, or otherwise, against nature, we must examine which life is more pleasant and which more painful, comparing one against another, in this way. We want pleasure for ourselves; pain we neither choose nor want; and the neutral state, we don't want in exchange for pleasure, but we do want it in exchange for pain. We want less pain combined with more pleasure; we don't want less pleasure combined with more pain; but as for equal amounts exchanged for equal amounts, we couldn't say clearly that we want that either way. All these things are ranked by number, magnitude, intensity, and equality, and by their opposites as they bear on choice — some differing, some not differing, with regard to which one picks. Given that these things are necessarily ordered this way, in whatever life contains much of both, and great and intense amounts of both, but pleasures exceed, we want that life; where the opposite holds, we don't want it. And again, where both are few and small and mild, but the painful exceeds, we don't want it; where the opposite holds, we do want it. And in a life where the two balance evenly, we must think of it as in the previous cases — we want the balanced life if it exceeds compared to what we count as hostile to us, and we don't want it if it doesn't. We must think of all our lives as bound up naturally within these categories, and we must consider what kinds we naturally want. If we claim to want something outside these, we speak out of ignorance, having no experience of the lives that actually exist. What, then, and how many are the ways of life among which someone, having chosen what is wanted and willing, not wanted and unwilling, and having set it as a law for himself, choosing what is at once dear and pleasant and best and finest, should live, so far as a human being can, most blessedly? Let's say there is one temperate life, one prudent life, one courageous life, and let's set down one healthy life as well.
ATHENIAN: And opposite these four, four others: the foolish, the cowardly, the licentious, the sickly. Whoever recognizes the temperate life will call it gentle in every respect, offering mild pains and mild pleasures, soft desires, and passions that aren't frenzied; the licentious life he'll call sharp in every respect, offering violent pains and violent pleasures, and desires and passions that are intense, frenzied, and as maddened as possible — and pleasures exceed pains in the temperate life, while in the licentious life pains exceed pleasures, in magnitude, number, and frequency. From this it follows by necessity, according to nature, that one of these lives turns out more pleasant for us, the other more painful, and that a person who wants to live pleasantly can no longer, willingly at least, live licentiously — rather it's clear now, if what's just been said is right, that everyone is licentious against his will by necessity. For either through ignorance, or through lack of self-control, or through both, the whole human crowd lives lacking temperance. The same must be thought regarding the sickly life and the healthy one — both have pleasures and pains, but pleasures exceed pains in health, while pains exceed pleasures in sickness. Now our wish in choosing among lives is not that the painful should predominate; wherever the pleasant predominates, we have judged that life the more pleasant one. So the temperate life compared to the licentious one, the prudent compared to the foolish, and the courageous life compared to the cowardly — each has less, smaller, and sparser amounts of both feelings, and while each surpasses its counterpart in pleasures, it is surpassed by the other in pains; so the courageous man defeats the coward, and the prudent man defeats the fool. Hence these lives — temperate, courageous, prudent, and healthy — are more pleasant than the cowardly, foolish, licentious, and sickly ones. And in short, the life bound up with virtue, whether in body or in soul, is more pleasant than the life bound up with vice, and surpasses it in every other respect as well, exceedingly, in beauty, rightness, virtue, and good reputation, so that a person possessing it lives, altogether and in every part, more happily than one possessing the opposite. And let this be the end of what we've said here as the prelude to the laws. After the prelude, a law must naturally follow — or rather, to speak truly, we must sketch out the laws of the constitution.
ATHENIAN: Just as with any woven fabric or other kind of plaited work, it isn't possible to make the woof and the warp from the same materials — the strand of the warp thread must differ in quality, being strong and possessing a certain firmness in its character, while the woof is softer and employs a certain fair pliancy — for this reason those who are going to hold office in the cities must be distinguished in some such way from those who have been tested, each time, by only a little education, in due proportion. For there are two kinds of constitution: one is the appointment of officers for each community, the other is the laws assigned to those officers. But before all this we must bear the following in mind. Every shepherd, cowherd, horse-breeder, and the like, taking charge of a herd, will never attempt to tend it in any other way than by first performing the purification appropriate to each group for their communal life, sorting out the healthy from the unhealthy, the well-bred from the ill-bred, and sending some off to other herds while keeping others to be cared for — reckoning that the labor would be vain and unending, applied to bodies and souls that nature and bad rearing have corrupted, ruining thereby the stock of healthy and unspoiled characters and bodies within each holding, unless one purges what one already has. Matters concerning the other animals are of lesser concern and worth setting alongside our argument only as an illustration, but matters concerning human beings deserve the greatest concern from the lawgiver, who must investigate and declare what is fitting for each in regard to purification and all other practices as well. As for purification of a city, the matter stands roughly thus. There are many kinds of purge, some easier, some harsher; and the harshest and best ones, a man who is both tyrant and lawgiver at once could carry out, but a lawgiver establishing a new constitution and laws without tyranny would be content even if he managed only the gentlest of purges. The best purge is a painful one, like certain harsh medicines — the one that brings punishment through justice to chastise, imposing death or exile as the final penalty; for it is customary to remove those who have committed the greatest crimes and are incurable, and who constitute the greatest harm to the city.
ATHENIAN: The gentler kind of purge, for us, is this one: whenever, through poverty of sustenance, people show themselves ready and prepared to follow their leaders against the property of those who have possessions, then, treating these people as a disease naturally implanted in the city, one dismisses them under a euphemism, calling it a colony, sending them off as kindly as possible. Every lawgiver must do something of this sort, in some fashion, right at the outset — but for us the circumstances that have now come about are even less burdensome than these, since there's no need to contrive either a colony or some selective purge for the present situation. Rather, just as when streams flow together from many sources — some springs, some winter torrents — into a single reservoir, we must take care to keep the gathered water as pure as possible, drawing some off and diverting and channeling some away. Labor, it seems, and risk attend every founding of a constitution. But since what is now being done is a matter of word rather than deed, let our gathering be complete, and let its purity, as we wish it, be already accomplished — for as to the bad men among those attempting to join this city-to-be as citizens, having tested them thoroughly with every persuasion and over sufficient time, let us prevent them from arriving, while we welcome the good, as far as we're able, with all goodwill and favor. And let this good fortune not escape our notice: just as we said the colony of the Heraclidae was fortunate in escaping the terrible and dangerous strife over the cancellation of debts and redistribution of land — a strife which, for an ancient city compelled to legislate on it, can neither be left unmoved nor safely moved in any way, and for which only a prayer, so to speak, remains, along with a small, cautious shift, gradually changing things a little over a long time — this is how it may be done: those who make the change must themselves possess abundant land, and must possess many debtors, and must be willing, out of fairness, to share somehow with those in want, forgiving some debts and distributing some land, holding, in some way, to moderation, and considering poverty to consist not in having a smaller estate, but in having a greater insatiability.
ATHENIAN: This becomes the greatest foundation for the safety of a city, and on it, as on a stable footing, one can build up whatever political order suits such an arrangement afterward. But if this transition is rotten, the political work that follows will not come easily to any city. This is the danger we say we're escaping—but it's better to state clearly, even if we didn't fully escape it, how we went about escaping it. Let it be said, then: the way out is through not loving money unjustly, and there is no other route, wide or narrow, out of this trap. Let this stand as the ballast of our city for now. People's properties must be arranged so that no one has grounds for complaint against another, or else those with old grievances against each other, and anyone with even a little sense, should not willingly go further into the rest of the arrangement. But when, as with us now, a god grants people the chance to found a new city, with no existing hostilities among them, for them to create hostility among themselves over the distribution of land and houses would be a folly beyond anything human, joined with every kind of wickedness. So what would be the right way to distribute things? First we must fix the total number of citizens—how many there should be. After that we must agree on how many groups the citizens should be divided into, and how large each group should be, and then land and houses must be distributed among these groups as equally as possible. A sufficient total population cannot rightly be determined except in relation to the land and the neighboring cities. The land must be enough to support a given number of moderate people, and no more is needed; and the population must be large enough to defend itself against wrongdoing neighbors and to help neighbors who are wronged, without being utterly helpless. We'll settle these matters, having seen the actual land and the neighbors, in both deed and word. But for now, for the sake of outline and sketch, so the argument may proceed, let it go forward toward the legislation. Let there be five thousand and forty citizens—a number chosen for its usefulness—landholders and defenders of the allotment; and let land and houses be divided into the same number of shares, so that each man and each lot go together. Let the whole number first be divided into two parts, then into three in the same way; for it is naturally divisible also into four and five, straight through to ten.
ATHENIAN: Now every lawgiver must understand at least this much about numbers—which number, and of what kind, would be most useful for all cities. Let's name the one that contains within itself the most divisions, and the most consecutive ones. The number as a whole admits of every kind of division into everything; but the number five thousand and forty can be divided, for war and for all matters of peace—contracts, partnerships, taxes, and distributions—into no fewer than fifty-nine divisions, continuously from one up to ten. These things must be grasped firmly and at leisure by whoever the law directs to grasp them; for that is simply how it is, and it needs to be said for the sake of anyone founding a city—whether building one entirely new or repairing an old one that has fallen into ruin. As for the gods and their shrines—which gods should be established in each part of the city, and under whose names, whether of gods or spirits—no one with sense will try to disturb whatever ancient traditions Delphi or Dodona or the oracle of Ammon have handed down, or whatever old stories persuaded people, through visions or reported divine inspiration, and led them to establish sacrifices mixed with rites, whether native to the place, or Tyrrhenian, or Cyprian, or from anywhere else—stories through which they consecrated oracles, statues, altars, and temples, and marked out sacred precincts for each. None of these things, down to the smallest detail, should the lawgiver disturb. To each division he must assign a god, or a spirit, or even some hero; and in the distribution of the land he must set aside first the choicest precincts and everything appropriate to them, so that when each group holds its assigned gatherings at fixed times, they can meet their various needs conveniently, show friendship to one another through sacrifices, grow familiar, and come to know each other—since there's no greater good for a city than for its people to be known to one another. Where there is no light between people in their characters, but only darkness, no one will ever rightly attain the honor, office, or justice he deserves. Every man in every city must strive, above all else, toward this one thing: never to appear false to anyone, but to be simple and truthful always, and never to be deceived by another who is like that.
ATHENIAN: What comes next in laying out our laws—like a move in checkers made from the sacred line—being unfamiliar, might at first surprise the listener. Yet on reflection and examination, it will appear that a city could be run this second way toward what is best. Perhaps one wouldn't accept it, though, simply because it isn't the custom for a lawgiver who is not also a tyrant. The most correct approach is to describe the best constitution, and the second, and the third, and then, having described them, to leave the choice to whoever will be in charge of the community. Let's do the same now: having named the first constitution in excellence, and the second, and the third, let's leave the choice to Cleinias for the moment, and to anyone else who might ever wish, in his own way, to select from among such things whatever suits his own homeland. The first city, then—the best constitution and the best laws—is the one where the old saying holds as fully as possible throughout the whole city: that friends truly hold everything in common. Whether this actually exists somewhere now, or ever will—where wives are held in common, and children in common, and all property in common, and every device has been used to remove entirely from life anything called 'private'—where even things naturally private have been made common as far as possible, so that eyes and ears and hands seem to see, hear, and act in common, so that everyone praises and blames as one, feeling joy and pain at the same things, and where whatever laws make a city as unified as possible—no one will ever set a truer or better standard of excellence than this. Such a city, if gods or children of gods, more than one, dwell in it, they live there joyfully under such conditions. So one should look to no other model of government, but hold to this one and seek, as far as possible, whatever comes closest to it. The city we've now undertaken to describe would, if it came into being, be nearest to immortality, and hold second place. A third one, after this, we will work out fully, god willing. But for now, what do we mean by this second one, and how would it come about?
ATHENIAN: Let them first divide up the land and houses, and not farm in common—since that arrangement is too great a thing for the birth, upbringing, and education we're describing now. Let the division happen with this sort of thought in mind: that whoever draws this allotted portion should consider it common to the whole city, and since the land is the fatherland, he must tend it even more carefully than children tend a mother—since she, being a goddess, is mistress over mortal beings. He must hold the same thoughts about the local gods and spirits too. So that these things remain so for all time, we must consider further: the number of hearths we've now distributed must always stay the same—never more, never fewer. This is how that could be secured firmly throughout the city: whoever draws the lot should always leave the house to just one heir among his children, whichever one is dearest to him, as successor and caretaker of the gods, the family, and the city, both for the living and for those who have already passed on. As for the other children, if there are more than one, the daughters are to be given in marriage according to whatever law is established, and the sons are to be distributed as adopted sons to citizens who lack male offspring—preferably by mutual liking. But if in some cases there's a shortage of such goodwill, or if some households have too many surviving children, whether daughters or sons, or, on the contrary, too few, due to a lack of offspring—in all these cases, whatever authority we establish as the greatest and most honored must examine what should be done with the surplus or the shortfall, and devise every possible means to keep the number of houses—five thousand and forty—always exactly the same. There are many such means: for those whose fertility runs too high, there are ways to check childbearing; and conversely, there is encouragement and effort to increase the number of births, through honors and dishonors, and through the warnings of elders addressed to the young in cautionary speeches—these can accomplish what we're describing. And finally, if every device fails to equalize the five thousand and forty households, and we find ourselves with an overflow of citizens because of the goodwill people bear each other in living together, and we run out of options, there remains the old device we've mentioned many times—sending out colonies, done as friends parting from friends, choosing whoever seems suitable.
ATHENIAN: But if, on the other hand, a wave comes crashing in bringing a flood of disease, or destruction through war, and the citizens fall far short of the fixed number through loss of family lines, we must not deliberately admit citizens educated in some illegitimate schooling—yet not even a god, they say, is able to overpower necessity. So let us take it that the argument now before us gives this advice: 'Best of all men, honoring likeness and equality and sameness and agreement according to nature, do not relax your hold, in respect of number and of every power belonging to fine and good things. And now, first of all, guard the stated number throughout your whole life; and next, do not dishonor the height and magnitude of property that you first received as your fair share, by buying and selling among yourselves—for neither the lot that assigned it, being divine, nor the lawgiver, will be your ally in such a case. For now, for the first time, the law commands the disobedient, having declared beforehand that whoever wishes may take part in the allotment on these terms, or not take part at all: that the land is sacred to all the gods first of all, and that priests and priestesses will offer prayers over the first, second, and even a third round of sacrifices, that whoever buys or sells any part of the house-plots or land-plots he was allotted should suffer the fitting consequences for it. They will record this and set it up in the sanctuaries, inscribed on cypress-wood tablets, as a permanent record for future times; and besides this, they will appoint as guardians over these matters whichever office seems to have the sharpest eyes, so that any violations that occur along the way will not escape notice, but the disobedient will be punished together by both law and god. For as great a good as this present command turns out to be for all cities that obey it, once joined with the arrangement that follows from it, then, according to the old proverb, no one will ever know evil, but will become experienced and decent in his habits—for there is no room in such an arrangement for excessive money-making, and it follows from this that no one should or may engage in the sordid moneymaking of the illiberal sort, insofar as the shameful thing called vulgar trade turns a free character away from it, and one should not even think it worth gathering wealth from such sources.'
ATHENIAN: In addition to all this, there follows one more law: no private person may own gold or silver. Only coin for everyday exchange is allowed, since craftsmen must more or less trade in it, and everyone who needs to pay wages to hired workers, slaves, and resident foreigners must have some. For these purposes, we say, coin should be owned by our own people, but it must not be accepted as valid currency among other men. As for a common Greek currency, the city will need to keep some on hand for military campaigns and for journeys abroad—embassies, for instance, or any other mission the city must send out—for these purposes the city must always keep a supply of standard Greek coin. But if a private citizen ever needs to travel abroad, let him get permission from the officials before he goes; and if he comes home with any foreign coin left over, let him hand it over to the city, taking in exchange the equivalent in local currency. If anyone is found to have kept some for himself, it shall be confiscated to the public treasury, and anyone who knew about it and did not report it shall be liable to the same curse and reproach as the offender, along with a fine no less than the amount of foreign coin brought in. When a man marries or gives a daughter in marriage, neither party is to give or receive any dowry whatsoever, nor deposit money with anyone he does not trust, nor lend at interest, on the understanding that the borrower is entirely free to repay neither interest nor principal at all. Anyone considering whether these are the best practices for a city to adopt can judge them correctly by always referring back to our starting point and our aim. Now the aim of a politician with real understanding, we maintain, is not what most people would say it should be: that a good lawgiver should want his city, if he legislates wisely, to be as large as possible and as rich as possible, possessing gold and silver mines and ruling as much territory as it can by land and sea. They would add that he should also want the city to be best and happiest, if he legislates rightly. But of these aims, some can actually be achieved, others cannot. The one arranging things should want the achievable ones; he should neither want the unachievable ones—that would be idle wishing—nor attempt them. Now it is more or less necessary that happiness and goodness go together—that, then, he should want. But it is impossible to be both extremely rich and good, at least by the standard of riches most people reckon by.
ATHENIAN: They mean by the rich those few people who own possessions worth the most money—possessions a bad man could just as easily own. If that is really so, then I would never agree with them that the rich man is truly happy unless he is also good; and being outstandingly good and outstandingly rich at the same time is impossible. Why is that? someone might ask. Because, we would answer, wealth gained from both just and unjust sources is more than double what comes from just sources alone, while the spending of a man unwilling to spend either honorably or dishonorably, as opposed to one who is willing to spend on honorable things, is less than half as much. So one who does the opposite could never become richer than a man who gains from double sources but spends only half as much. Now one of these is good, and the other, when he is thrifty, is not exactly bad, but he is sometimes utterly base; he is never, however, as we just said, good. For the man who takes both justly and unjustly, and spends neither justly nor unjustly, is rich—provided he is also thrifty—while the utterly base man, being for the most part a spendthrift, is generally poor. And the man who spends on honorable things and gains only from just sources could hardly ever become outstandingly wealthy, nor again would he ever be very poor. So our argument holds: men of enormous wealth are not good men; and lacking goodness, they lack happiness too. Now the whole purpose behind our laws was aimed at this: that our citizens should be as happy as possible and as friendly to one another as possible. But citizens can never be friends where there is much litigation and much injustice among them—only where these are as slight and as rare as possible. That is why we say there should be neither gold nor silver in the city, nor should there be much money-making through vulgar trades, moneylending, or shameful livestock-breeding, but only what farming yields and provides—and even of that, only so much as will not force a man to neglect the very things money exists for in the first place, namely soul and body. Without gymnastics and the rest of education, these could never amount to anything worth mentioning. That is why we have said more than once that the care of money should be honored last. For there are three things altogether that every human being takes seriously, and rightly ordered concern for money is the last and third of them; concern for the body comes in the middle; and concern for the soul comes first.
ATHENIAN: And indeed, in the constitution we are now working through, if it ranks these honors this way, it has been legislated correctly. But if any of the laws prescribed within it should turn out to honor bodily health above self-control, or wealth above health and self-control, it will clearly have been laid down incorrectly. So the lawgiver must keep asking himself again and again: What do I actually want? And am I achieving this, or am I missing the mark? Only in this way might he perhaps both come through his legislating himself and free everyone else from confusion—in no other way, ever. Let the man who has drawn a lot, then, hold his allotment on the conditions we have stated. It would have been fine if each person had come to the colony with everything else equal too; but since that is not possible—one man will arrive owning more property, another less—we need, for many reasons, including equal treatment in matters concerning the city, to establish unequal property classes, so that offices, financial contributions, and distributions may assign each person's due honor not solely by his own and his ancestors' virtue, nor by bodily strength and good looks, but also by wealth and poverty—so that, receiving honors and offices as equally as possible given the underlying inequality, proportioned fairly, citizens will not quarrel. For these reasons we should establish four property classes—first, second, third, and fourth—or call them by some other names, marking both when people stay in the same class and when they move, becoming richer from poorer or poorer from richer, into whichever class fits them. Next I would lay down the following shape of law to follow on from this. In a city that is not to share in the greatest disease—which would more accurately be called division, or civil strife—there must be, we maintain, neither harsh poverty among any of the citizens nor, again, wealth, since both breed these evils. The lawgiver, then, must now state a limit for each of these. For poverty, let the boundary be set at the worth of the original allotment, which must remain fixed, and which no official will ever allow to become smaller for anyone, nor will any other person who has any regard at all for excellence.
ATHENIAN: Setting this as his measure, the lawgiver will allow a person to acquire twice, three times, up to four times this amount. But if anyone acquires more than this—whether by discovery, by gift, by business dealings, or by some similar stroke of fortune—by handing over to the city, and to the gods who hold the city, whatever exceeds the measure, he will be well regarded and free of penalty. But if anyone disobeys this law, whoever wishes may report him for half the surplus; the guilty party will pay an equal further portion from his own estate, and the other half will go to the gods. All property beyond the original allotment, belonging to anyone at all, must be registered openly before the officials appointed as guardians, whomever the law assigns, so that lawsuits concerning any monetary matters may be straightforward and perfectly clear. After this, first, the city must be situated as much as possible in the middle of the territory, choosing a site that has whatever else is useful for a city—things not hard to think of or state. After that, the territory must be divided into twelve parts, first setting aside a sanctuary of Hestia, Zeus, and Athena, calling it the acropolis, and drawing a circle around it, from which the twelve parts are to be marked out, both the city itself and the whole territory. The twelve parts must be made equal in the sense that where the land is good the portions are small, and where it is poorer, larger. The allotments are to be divided into five thousand and forty, and each of these again cut in two, and two sections joined into one lot, one near and one far combined in each case: the portion near the city paired with the one at the farthest edge, the second nearest paired with the second farthest, and so on for all the rest. In making these two-part divisions, the same adjustment just mentioned for poor and good land must be applied, equalizing by the size of the portion assigned. The men, too, must be divided into twelve groups, arranging the rest of their property into twelve shares as equal as possible, once a full registration has been made. After this, twelve lots are to be assigned to the twelve gods, and the portion that falls to each god is to be named and consecrated, and that same portion is to be called a tribe. The twelve sections of the city, too, are to be divided the same way the rest of the territory was divided, and each person is to receive two dwellings, one near the center and one at the outskirts. Let the founding of the settlement, then, be complete on these terms.
ATHENIAN: We must bear the following firmly in mind: it is entirely possible that everything just described will never actually fall into circumstances allowing it all to come about exactly as reasoned—men who will not object to living together this way but will put up with holding fixed, modest property their whole lives, and having the number of children we specified for each family, and going without gold and the other things the lawgiver will clearly be prohibiting on the basis of what has now been said, and besides all that, accepting the arrangements about the middle position of territory and city and dwellings arranged all around in circles—as though he were telling something like dreams, or molding some city and its citizens out of wax. Still, there is something not badly said in all this, and we must go back over the following point ourselves. Once again our lawgiver tells us this: In these discussions, friends, do not imagine that I myself have failed to notice that what is now being said has a somewhat idealized character. But I think the most just approach, in each case, in things yet to come, is this: the man laying out the model of what the undertaking should ideally be must leave out nothing that is finest and truest; but where it turns out that some part of this cannot possibly be realized, he should avoid and not attempt that particular part, while contriving to bring about instead whatever remains that is closest and most akin to it among the things that are actually fitting to do—and he should let the lawgiver put the finishing touch on his own intention. Once that is done, only then should one consider jointly with him which of these proposals is beneficial and which part of the legislation is difficult to swallow. For a craftsman responsible for even the humblest thing must make it consistent with itself throughout if he is to be worth mentioning at all. Now, then, after settling on the division into twelve parts, we must be eager to see just how these twelve parts, containing within them as many further subdivisions as possible—along with what follows from these and is generated out of them, down to the five thousand and forty—should give rise to brotherhoods, townships, and villages, as well as military formations and marching orders, and further, coinage, and dry and liquid measures, and weights. All of these the law must arrange so that they are measured out consistently and in harmony with one another.
ATHENIAN: Besides this, there's another worry you needn't fear — that we're falling into pettiness if we require that whatever household goods people acquire should never be left unmeasured, and if we take it as a general principle that the divisions and variations of number are useful for everything: the variations numbers undergo in themselves, and the variations that appear in lengths and in solids, and indeed in musical pitches and in motions — both the straight motion of rising and falling and the circular motion that goes around. The lawgiver must keep all of these in view and require every citizen, as far as he's able, not to fall short in mastering this arrangement. For managing a household, for running a city, and for every craft, there's no single subject of childhood learning with as much power as the study of numbers. The greatest thing about it is this: it rouses up whoever is naturally sluggish and slow to learn, and makes him quick to learn, retentive, and sharp-witted, advancing beyond his own nature by a kind of divine skill. Now all this, if by other laws and practices someone strips away meanness of spirit and love of money from the souls of those who are going to acquire this learning adequately and to their benefit, will turn out to be a fine and fitting course of education. But if not, one may unknowingly produce what's called cunning instead of wisdom — just as we can see happening now among the Egyptians and Phoenicians and many other peoples, made what they are by the meanness bred from their other pursuits and possessions, whether some inferior lawgiver was responsible for it, or a harsh stroke of fortune fell upon them, or some other such natural cause. And indeed, Megillus and Cleinias, let's not lose sight of this either — that with respect to places, there are some that differ from others in producing better or worse human beings, and lawgivers must not legislate against these differences. Some places, because of all sorts of winds and because of exposure to the sun's heat, turn out strange and favorable for their inhabitants in different ways; others differ because of their waters; and others because of the very food that grows from the earth, which yields not only bodies better or worse but is equally capable of producing all such effects in souls as well. And of all these, the places that would differ most are those regions where some divine inspiration and the portions allotted to guardian spirits reside, receiving those who come to settle there graciously — or, on the contrary, unfavorably. Any lawgiver with sense, having examined these matters as far as it's possible for a human being to study such things, will try to frame his laws accordingly. This, Cleinias, is exactly what you must do: you must turn your attention to these matters first, since you're about to found a country. CLEINIAS: Well, Athenian stranger, what you say is altogether right, and that's just what I must do.
ATHENIAN: Well, after everything we've just said, we're pretty much ready to set up the offices of government for your city. CLEINIAS: So it seems. ATHENIAN: There are two aspects to organizing a constitution. First, establishing the offices and the officeholders — how many there should be and how they're to be appointed. Second, assigning to each office the laws it needs — which ones, how many, and what kind fit each office. But before we get to the selection process, let's pause and say something relevant about it. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: This. It's obvious to everyone that lawgiving is a great undertaking, but if you put unsuitable officials in charge of a well-prepared city with well-made laws, it's not just that the good laws bring no benefit — it isn't merely that a great deal of ridicule would follow — but the damage and harm done to the cities would be about the greatest there is. CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: So let's think through how this applies to the constitution and city we're building now, my friend. You see that, first, those who properly move toward positions of power must have given adequate proof of themselves and their family, from childhood right up to the moment of selection. And second, those who are going to do the choosing must have been raised in the customs of law, well educated, so that they're capable of judging correctly whom to reject and whom to accept — deciding rightly who deserves which position. But how could people who have only just come together, who don't know one another, and who haven't yet been educated, ever manage to choose officeholders without fault? CLEINIAS: They pretty much couldn't. ATHENIAN: But they say a contest doesn't much accept excuses. And that's exactly the position you and I are in now — since you've committed, as you say, to settling this city for the Cretan people, you and nine others, and I in turn am to help you with the story we're telling at present.
ATHENIAN: I certainly wouldn't willingly leave a story headless — wandering about like that, it would look shapeless. CLEINIAS: Well said, stranger. ATHENIAN: Not only well said — I'll actually do it, as far as I'm able. CLEINIAS: Then let's do exactly what we're saying. ATHENIAN: It will happen, god willing, and as long as we can hold off old age that much longer. CLEINIAS: It's likely the god will be willing. ATHENIAN: Likely indeed. Following that thought, let's take up this point too. CLEINIAS: What point? ATHENIAN: How boldly and riskily our city is being founded right now. CLEINIAS: What exactly are you looking at, and where is this remark of yours pointed? ATHENIAN: At how easily and fearlessly we're legislating for men with no experience of law, not knowing how they'll eventually take to the laws we're now laying down. This much, Cleinias, is clear to nearly anyone, even someone not terribly wise: people won't readily accept these laws right from the start. But if we could somehow hold out long enough for children raised on these laws from birth, thoroughly steeped in them, familiar with them, to take part alongside the whole city in choosing its officials — then, if that happened, and happened correctly by whatever means or method, I think there would be great security, even beyond that initial period, that the city so nurtured would endure. CLEINIAS: That certainly makes sense. ATHENIAN: Let's look, then, at whether we can find some adequate way toward this. I say, Cleinias, that the people of Knossos, more than the other Cretans, ought not just to fulfill their religious duty regarding this land you're now settling, but should give intense attention — as far as they're able — to establishing the first offices as securely and excellently as possible. The other offices are a smaller task, but choosing our first Guardians of the Laws is the most urgent business of all, requiring every effort. CLEINIAS: What method, then, and what reasoning do we find for this?
ATHENIAN: Here it is. I say, children of Crete, that the Knossians, because their city is senior to the many others, ought jointly with those who have come to join this new settlement — drawn from both groups — choose thirty-seven in all: nineteen from the new settlers, the rest from Knossos itself. The Knossians should give these to your city, and you yourself should be a citizen of this colony, one of the eighteen, whether they persuade you or use their modest power to compel you. CLEINIAS: Why then, stranger, don't you and Megillus join us in this citizenship? ATHENIAN: Athens thinks highly of itself, Cleinias, and so does Sparta, and both live far away as colonizers. But everything fits properly for you, and for the other founders in the same way, as has just been said about you. So let's say this is the fairest arrangement we can make from what's available to us now. As time goes on and the constitution holds firm, let the selection of officials be as follows. Everyone who bears arms, cavalry or infantry, and has taken part in war within the ranges appropriate to their age, shall share in choosing the officials. The selection should take place in whatever temple the city holds most honored. Each person shall bring to the god's altar a tablet on which he has written a name, along with the father's name and the tribe and deme the candidate belongs to, and shall add his own name in the same way beside it. Anyone who wishes may take up any tablet that doesn't strike him as rightly written and display it in the marketplace for no less than thirty days. The tablets judged best, up to three hundred, shall be shown to the whole city by the officials, and the city shall again vote from among these for whomever each person wants. Those who come out on top a second time, a hundred of them, shall again be shown to everyone. For the third round, from the hundred, anyone who wishes may cast a vote for whomever he wants, passing between the sacrificial victims. Then thirty-seven, whoever receives the most votes, shall be judged and declared officials. But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will set all of this up in the city regarding the offices and their scrutiny? Do we realize that in cities being yoked together for the first time like this, there must be some people to do it, yet there can't yet be anyone who has already held every office? There must be such people somehow, and not mediocre ones, but the very best available. As the saying goes, a good beginning is half of every task, and we all praise a fine start on every occasion.
ATHENIAN: And it's actually more than half, in my view — no one has ever praised a truly good beginning adequately enough. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: So let's not pass over it in silence, as if we didn't understand it, without explaining clearly to ourselves how it's to be done. For my part I have no resource to offer except one thing, necessary and useful for our present purpose. CLEINIAS: What's that? ATHENIAN: I say that for this city we're about to settle, there is no father or mother except the city that is founding it — though I'm well aware that many colonies have often turned out, and will turn out, at odds with their founding cities. But for now, in the present moment, like a child who — even if he's destined one day to be at odds with his parents — in the current helplessness of childhood loves and is loved by those who bore him, and always fleeing to his relatives finds in them his only necessary allies — so I say the Knossians now stand ready, through their care for the new city, and the new city toward Knossos. I repeat, as I just said — repeating something good does no harm — that the Knossians must attend to all this jointly, choosing from among those who have come to the colony, selecting the oldest and best as far as possible, no fewer than a hundred men; and let there be a hundred more from the Knossians themselves. These, once they've come to the new city, must jointly see to it that the offices are established according to law, and once established, that they're properly scrutinized. Once this is done, the Knossians shall dwell in Knossos, and the new city shall try to preserve and prosper on its own. As for the thirty-seven who are chosen, both now and for all future time, let them be selected on these terms: first, let them be Guardians of the Laws; second, guardians of the written declarations each person submits to the officials regarding the extent of his property — except that the man with the highest assessment shall declare four minas, the second three, the third two minas, and the fourth one mina. If anyone is found possessing anything beyond what he's declared, the excess shall become public property, and in addition he shall be liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes to bring it, in a suit that is neither honorable nor well-named, but shameful — if he's convicted of despising the laws for the sake of profit. Whoever wishes may indict him for sordid greed and pursue the case before the Guardians of the Laws themselves.
ATHENIAN: If the defendant is convicted, he shall have no share in common property, and whenever some distribution is made to the city, he shall be excluded from it, except for his allotted portion; and it shall be recorded that he was convicted, for as long as he lives, in a place where anyone who wishes may read it. No one shall hold the office of Guardian of the Laws for more than twenty years, and no one shall be brought forward for the office who is younger than fifty. If someone is brought forward at sixty, he shall hold office for only ten years, and by this same reasoning, whoever lives beyond seventy should no longer think of holding so weighty an office among these officials, as though he still meant to serve. Let these, then, be the three regulations stated concerning the Guardians of the Laws; as the laws proceed further, each will assign to these men whatever additional duties they must attend to beyond what's been said now. For the moment, let's go on to speak of the selection of other offices. After this we must choose generals, and for them, assistants for war such as cavalry commanders, tribal commanders of horse, and organizers of the infantry tribes' formations — for whom this very name would suit best, just as most people call them company commanders. As for generals, let the Guardians of the Laws nominate them from this city itself, and let all who have shared in war, both those currently and those successively of military age, choose from among the nominees. If anyone thinks someone not nominated is better than one of those nominated, he may name whom he wants in place of whom, swearing to it, and put forward this alternative candidate; whichever of the two wins on a show of hands shall be entered into the selection. The three who receive the most votes shall be generals and overseers of matters of war, once scrutinized just as the Guardians of the Laws are. The elected generals shall nominate company commanders for themselves, twelve in all, one commander per tribe, and the same process of counter-nomination that applied to the generals shall apply to the company commanders too, along with the same voting and judgment. For now, before the presiding officers and council have been chosen, let the Guardians of the Laws convene this assembly, seating it in the most sacred and suitable place available, with the hoplites seated separately, the cavalry separately, and third alongside these all who bear arms of whatever kind.
ATHENIAN: Let all the citizens vote for generals and cavalry-commanders, but let those who bear the shield choose the company-commanders; and let the whole body of cavalry in turn choose the tribal-commanders for these same men. As for the leaders of the light-armed troops, the archers, or any other branch of the fighting forces, let the generals appoint these for themselves. There remains for us still the appointment of the cavalry-commanders. Let the same men who nominated the generals nominate these too, and let the selection and the counter-nomination proceed in the very same way as it did for the generals; but let the cavalry cast the vote for them in full view of the infantry, and let the two who receive the most votes be commanders of all the horsemen. Disputes over the voting may be raised twice; but if anyone disputes a third time, let those whose task it was to judge the measure of each vote decide the matter by ballot. As for the council, let it consist of thirty times twelve — that is, three hundred and sixty, a number well suited to being divided up. Dividing them into four groups of ninety according to the property-classes, let each class return ninety councillors. First, from the highest property class, let all be required to vote, on pain of a fine to be fixed, for anyone who refuses to comply; and once they have voted, let the names be sealed up, and on the next day let voting proceed from the second property class in the same manner as before; on the third day let anyone who wishes vote from the third class, though it be compulsory only for members of the top three classes, while the fourth and smallest class shall be free to abstain from voting without penalty. On the fourth day let all vote from the fourth and smallest class, but let anyone from the third or fourth class who does not wish to vote go unpunished; whereas anyone from the second or first class who fails to vote shall be fined — the man from the second class three times the first fine, the man from the first class four times. On the fifth day let the magistrates bring out the sealed names for all the citizens to see, and let every man vote again from among these, on pain of the first fine. Then, having selected one hundred and eighty from each property class, let them determine by lot which half of these shall undergo scrutiny, and let these be the councillors for the year.
ATHENIAN: A selection carried out in this way would strike a middle course between a monarchic and a democratic constitution — and a constitution ought always to steer a middle course between the two. For slaves and masters could never become friends, nor could the base and the worthy if ranked with equal honors — since for unequal people equal treatment becomes unequal, unless it hits the right measure. It is through both these errors that constitutions become filled with civil strife. There is an old saying, and a true one, that equality produces friendship — very rightly and fittingly said. But just what this equality is that has such power is far from clear, and this greatly confuses us. For there are two equalities, bearing the same name but in practice almost opposite in effect. The first, any city and any lawgiver is capable of applying to the distribution of honors — the equality of measure, weight, and number, meted out by lot. But the truest and best equality is not so easy for everyone to see. It is the judgment of Zeus, and it is granted to human beings only sparingly — yet whatever portion of it is granted to cities or to individuals produces every good thing. For to the greater it gives more, to the lesser less, apportioning to each what is fitting to its own nature; and in particular, it always grants greater honors to those of greater virtue, while to those of the opposite character it assigns what is proper to each in due proportion to their virtue and education. This, surely, is for us always the very essence of political justice — and it is toward this we must now strain, Cleinias, and it is to this equality we must look as we settle the city now coming into being. Whoever founds another city at some future time must likewise legislate with this same goal in view, not with an eye to a few tyrants, or to one man, or to some power of the people, but always with an eye to justice — and this, as I have just said, is the equal naturally given, each time, to unequal things. Yet it is necessary that every city, even so, make use at times of these very things that share the name of equality only by courtesy, if it is not to have some part of itself infected with civil strife — for fairness and forgiveness are always a departure from the perfect and exact standard of strict justice, whenever they occur. That is why it is necessary to make use of the equality of the lot, on account of the discontent of the many, calling upon god and good fortune in our prayers to guide the lot itself toward what is most just.
ATHENIAN: In this way, then, both equalities must be used out of necessity, but the one that depends on chance as sparingly as possible. This, friends, is what a city that means to survive must do, for these reasons. And since a ship sailing on the sea needs watch kept day and night without pause, and a city likewise, tossed among the waves of other cities and living always in danger of being caught by plots of every kind, must join magistrate to magistrate and guard to guard, passing the watch on continuously from day into night and from night back into day, never letting it lapse — since a large body can never act quickly in any of these matters, it is necessary to let most of the councillors remain for most of the time at their own private affairs, managing their own households in good order, while a twelfth part of them, distributed over twelve months, one part for each month, serve as guards, ready to meet at once anyone who comes from elsewhere or from within the city itself, whether someone wishes to bring a report, or to inquire about something the city ought to answer to other cities, or to receive answers when it has itself put questions to others; and also, since disturbances of every kind are always liable to arise within a city, this body must see, so far as possible, that they do not arise at all, and if they do arise, that the city becomes aware of it and the trouble is cured as swiftly as can be. For these reasons there must always be this presiding body of the city with authority to convene assemblies and to dissolve them, both the regular ones and those suddenly forced upon the city. All this, then, would be the business of the twelfth part of the council that is on duty, while the other eleven parts rest through the rest of the year. This portion of the council must, in common with the other officials, keep these watches over the city continually. So much for arrangements within the city itself, which would be tolerably well ordered. But what care and what organization shall there be for the rest of the countryside? Now that the whole city and the whole territory has been divided into twelve parts, must there not be appointed overseers of the roads within the city, the houses, the buildings, the harbors, the market-place, the springs, and further, of the sacred precincts and temples and all such things? CLEINIAS: Of course there must.
ATHENIAN: Let us say, then, that for the temples there must be temple-wardens, priests, and priestesses; and for the roads, buildings, and the good order relating to such things — both to keep human beings from wrongdoing and other creatures too, within the city's own enclosure and its outskirts, so that whatever is fitting for cities may come about — three kinds of officials must be chosen: for the matter just mentioned, those called city-wardens, and for the good order of the market-place, market-wardens. As for priests of the temples, wherever there are hereditary priesthoods, male or female, these should not be disturbed; but where, as is likely at first for new settlers, there is no one holding such office, or only a few, priests and priestesses must be appointed as temple-wardens for the gods. Of all these, some must be chosen by election and others by lot in the various appointments, mixing together in friendship, in each district and city, both the common people and those who are not, so that there may be the greatest possible harmony. As for the priesthoods, leaving to the god himself the choice of what pleases him, one should assign them by lot, thus surrendering the matter to divine fortune, but should scrutinize whoever is chosen each time — first, that he be whole in body and legitimate in birth, next, that he come as far as possible from households kept pure, free from bloodguilt and from all offenses of that kind against the divine, and that he himself and his father and mother have likewise lived their lives blamelessly. One should bring the laws concerning all divine matters from Delphi, and having appointed interpreters over them, make use of these. Let each priesthood last one year and no longer, and let the man who is to perform the sacred rites adequately according to the sacred laws concerning divine matters be not less than sixty years old; and let the same rules apply to priestesses. As for the interpreters, let the four tribes each put forward four candidates three times, one from their own number each time, and let three of these, whoever receive the most votes, after scrutiny, be sent nine in all to Delphi, one chosen from each group of three; and let their scrutiny and the age required be the same as for the priests. Let these men be interpreters for life; and when one of them departs, let the four tribes choose a replacement from the tribe he came from.
ATHENIAN: As for treasurers in charge of the sacred funds belonging to each of the temples, the precincts, their produce, and their leases, let three be chosen from the highest property class for the greatest temples, two for the lesser ones, and one for the most modest; and let the selection and scrutiny of these proceed just as it did for the generals. Let this, then, be the arrangement concerning sacred matters. Let nothing, so far as possible, be left unguarded. As for the guarding of the city, let it proceed in this manner, under the oversight of the generals, the company-commanders, the cavalry-commanders, the tribal-commanders, and the presiding officers, as well as the city-wardens and market-wardens, once these have been duly elected and installed; and let the rest of the countryside be guarded entirely as follows. The whole territory has been divided for us, as far as possible, into twelve equal parts, and let one tribe, assigned by lot to each part, provide annually five men to serve, so to speak, as rural-commanders and guard-captains; and let each of these five be permitted to enlist from his own tribe twelve young men, not less than twenty-five years old and not more than thirty. Let the districts of the territory be assigned to these by lot, month by month, so that all may become experienced and knowledgeable about the whole territory. Let the term of office and of guard-duty last two years for both the guards and their commanders. However the parts fall to them at first, let the guard-captains lead them, moving on each month to the next district in a circle to the right — and let 'to the right' mean toward the east. When the year has gone round, in the second year, so that as many of the guards as possible may become familiar with the territory not merely in one season of the year, but so that as many as possible may also learn what happens at each season in each district, those who led the way before shall now lead in reverse, always shifting to the district on the left, and continuing in this fashion until the second year is done. In the third year let other rural-commanders be chosen, and let the five who had charge of the twelve be replaced.
ATHENIAN: Now as for the daily business at each post, the general care should run along these lines. First, that the land be as well defended against enemies as possible — digging trenches wherever needed, cutting counter-ditches, and using fortified works as far as they can to block anyone who tries to damage the land or the property in it. For this work they should use the pack animals and servants available at each post, directing the work through them and supervising them, while keeping their own labor free from it as much as possible. They should make every route as hard to pass as they can for enemies, and as easy as possible for friends — for people, pack animals, and herds alike — tending the roads so that each becomes as smooth as it can be. As for the water that falls from Zeus, they must see that it does no harm to the land but rather benefits it: where it runs down from the heights into the hollow ravines in the mountains, they should block its outflow with buildings and trenches, so that by receiving and holding the rain that comes from Zeus, it creates streams and springs for all the fields and places below, and turns even the driest spots well-watered and abundant. The springheads themselves — whether a river or a spring — they should make more attractive with plantings and buildings, gathering the waters together through channels so as to make them plentiful for all, and if there happens to be a grove or a sacred precinct set apart nearby, they should direct the streams into it, right into the shrines of the gods, and so adorn them, drawing water there at every season. Everywhere in such places the young men must build gymnasiums for themselves, and warm baths for the old, providing plenty of dry, seasoned wood, so as to give a warm welcome to bodies worn down by illness or by farm labor — a reception better, by a good margin, than a not-very-skilled doctor's care. All this and everything like it will bring both beauty and benefit to these places, done in a spirit of no ungracious play. But here is where serious effort must go. Each company of sixty is to guard its own district — not only against enemies, but against any who claim to be friends as well. When one neighbor wrongs another, whether slave or free, among neighbors and other citizens, the five commanders of that district are to judge the smaller cases themselves; the greater ones, up to three minas, they judge together with the twelve, making seventeen judges, for whatever charges one party brings against another. But no judge or official is to render judgment or hold office free of future accounting, except those who hold the final authority, such as the kings.
ATHENIAN: And further, if these rural officers commit any abuse toward those in their charge — giving unequal orders, or attempting to take and carry off produce from the farms without consent, or accepting some gift as a bribe, or handing down unjust rulings, then for yielding to flattery let them carry public disgrace throughout the whole city; but for other wrongs they commit against people in their district, up to the value of a mina, let them submit willingly to trial among the villagers and neighbors involved. For greater wrongs, or even lesser ones, if they refuse to submit, trusting that by rotating monthly to a new post each time they can keep escaping trial by fleeing forward, the wronged party may bring a public suit against them; and if he wins, let the one who tried to escape and refused to submit willingly to punishment pay double. The officers and the rural guards are to conduct their common life during these two years in the following way. First, in each district there are to be common messes, where all must take their meals together. Anyone who misses a meal on any day, or sleeps away at night, without orders from the officers or some overriding necessity, if the five report him and post a notice in the marketplace naming him as one who has abandoned his watch, is to bear public disgrace as a betrayer of his city's cause, and may be beaten by anyone who happens on him and wishes to punish him, with no liability for doing so. If one of the officers themselves does anything of this kind, all sixty must see to it; and whoever notices or learns of it and fails to prosecute is to be liable under these same laws and fined more heavily than the younger men, and stripped of all future eligibility for offices held by the young. Over all this the Guardians of the Laws must keep close watch, so that such offenses either do not occur, or when they do occur, meet with the justice they deserve. Every man must hold this conviction about all human beings: that one who has never served cannot become a master worthy of praise, and that a man should take more pride in serving well than in ruling well — first in service to the laws, since this is service to the gods, and then always in service to elders and to those who have lived honorably. After this, the man who has held the post of rural guard must, during these two years, have tasted the plain and needy way of daily living.
ATHENIAN: For once the twelve have been enrolled, they should meet together with the five and take counsel so that, like servants, they will have no other servants or slaves of their own, nor will they make use of the other farmers and villagers as attendants for their private errands, but only for public matters. In everything else they must plan to live by serving one another and being served by one another, and besides this, to range over the whole countryside, summer and winter, under arms, for the sake of guarding and coming to know every part of it at all times. For there is, I think, no lesson of greater value than for everyone to know his own country thoroughly and with precision. For this reason, the young man ought to pursue hunting and every other form of the chase no less than other pleasures, along with the benefit that comes with such pursuits for everyone. These men, then, and their occupation — whether one calls them 'rangers' or 'rural guards' or whatever name one prefers — every man who intends to keep his city properly safe should pursue eagerly, to the extent of his power. Next in order for us was the choice of officials concerning market wardens and city wardens. Following the rural guards, who are sixty in number, should come city wardens, three in number, dividing the city into three of the twelve districts, imitating the others by tending the roads within the city and the highways leading in from the country that run continually toward it, and the buildings, so that all are built according to law, and also the water supplies — whatever water the country guards send and hand over to them, properly treated — so that it flows to the fountains sufficient and pure, thereby adorning and benefiting the city at once. These men too must be capable and have the leisure to attend to public affairs. So every man should nominate whomever he wishes as city warden from among those of the highest property class; once the vote has narrowed the field to six who receive the most votes, let those in charge of this draw lots among them for three, who then take office after being examined according to the laws set for them. Market wardens are to be chosen next in the same manner, five men from the second and first property classes, the rest of the selection proceeding just as for the city wardens: ten are voted forward from among the rest, and five are drawn by lot from those ten, and once examined, they are declared to hold office.
ATHENIAN: Every man is to cast a vote in all these elections; whoever refuses, if reported to the officials, is to be fined fifty drachmas in addition to gaining a reputation for bad citizenship. Anyone who wishes may attend the assembly and the general gathering, but it is compulsory for those of the second and first property classes, under penalty of ten drachmas if they are not present and found at the gatherings; for the third and fourth classes it is not compulsory, and they are excused without penalty, unless the officials issue an order for everyone to assemble because of some special necessity. The market wardens are to guard the order of the marketplace as laid down by law, and look after the shrines and fountains in the marketplace, so that no one commits any wrong there; and they are to punish the wrongdoer — with blows and confinement if he is a slave or a foreigner, but if a native commits such disorder, the market wardens themselves have authority to judge and fine up to a hundred drachmas, and up to double that amount jointly with the city wardens, judging the wrongdoer together. The city wardens are to have the same powers of fine and punishment within their own office, fining up to a mina on their own, and up to double that jointly with the market wardens. Next after this it would be fitting to establish officials over music and over athletics, two kinds for each — one set for education, the other for competitions. By education the law means overseers of the gymnasiums and schools, who look after their order and discipline, and also after the attendance and lodging of boys and girls; by competition it means judges who award prizes to competitors, in athletic contests and in music alike — again two kinds, one for music, another for athletic contests. For the athletic contests of men and horses the same judges will serve; but for music it would be fitting to have different judges for solo and imitative performance, such as reciters, singers to the lyre, flute players, and all such performers, and yet others for choral performance. First, then, officials must be chosen for the entertainment provided by choruses of boys, men, and girls, in their dances and in all the musical arrangement involved.
ATHENIAN: One official is sufficient for them, provided he is not younger than forty. One is likewise sufficient for solo performance, provided he is not younger than thirty, serving as presenter and giving a fair judgment among the competitors. The chorus official and arranger should be chosen in the following way. All who are warmly disposed toward such matters should attend the assembly, on penalty for not attending — the Guardians of the Laws being judges of this — while for everyone else, if they do not wish to attend, nothing is compulsory. The one making the nomination must do so from among men experienced in the matter, and in the scrutiny this single point should count both for and against a candidate: that the one drawn is either inexperienced or experienced in this. Whoever is drawn as one of ten who have been voted forward, once examined, is to direct the choruses for the year according to law. In the same manner and on the same terms, whoever is drawn is to preside for that year over the judging of solo and ensemble instrumental performances submitted for competition, handing over the decision to the judges. After this, judges for athletic competition must be chosen — for contests of horses and men at the gymnasiums — from the third and even the second property classes; for this election it is compulsory for the three highest classes to attend and vote, while the lowest class is excused without penalty. Three are to be chosen by lot, from twenty voted forward beforehand, drawing the three from the twenty whom the vote of the examiners then approves. If anyone is rejected in the examination for any office or judgeship, others are to be chosen in his place by the same process, and the examination conducted for them in the same way. The remaining official concerning the matters mentioned is the overseer of all education, for girls and boys alike. Let there be one man to hold this office by law, not younger than fifty years of age, and the father of legitimate children — sons and daughters ideally, or failing that, one or the other. Both the man selected and the one making the selection must bear in mind that this office is, by far, the greatest of the highest offices in the city.
ATHENIAN: Every plant, if its first shoot springs up well, has the greatest power of bringing its own nature to the fulfillment proper to it—this holds for other plants, for tame and wild animals, and for human beings alike. Man, we say, is a tame creature; and yet, if he happens on the right upbringing and a fortunate nature, he tends to become the most divine and tame of all living things, while if he is raised inadequately or badly he becomes the wildest thing the earth produces. For this reason the lawgiver must not let the rearing of children become a secondary matter or an afterthought. He must begin by seeing that whoever is to take charge of it is well chosen—the best person in the city at everything, so far as that can be managed, must be appointed and set over them as overseer. So all the offices, except the council and the presiding officers, shall proceed to Apollo's temple and there cast a secret ballot for whichever of the Guardians of the Laws each thinks would make the best director of education. Whoever gets the most votes, once he has been examined and approved by the other officials who did the choosing—excepting the Guardians of the Laws themselves—shall serve a term of five years; in the sixth, another shall be chosen to this office by the same method. If someone dies while holding a public office, with more than thirty days remaining before his term would have ended, those whose proper business it is shall appoint a replacement to the office in the same manner. And if a guardian of orphans dies, the relatives who live in the city, on both the father's and the mother's side as far as cousins' children, shall appoint another within ten days, or else each shall be fined a drachma a day until they have appointed a guardian for the children. Every city, surely, would become no city at all if its courts were not properly established. A judge who says nothing, who speaks no more than the litigants themselves during preliminary hearings—as happens in private arbitrations—could never be competent to render judgment on matters of justice. That is why it is not easy for a large body of judges to render good judgment, nor for a small and inferior one either. What is in dispute must always be made clear from both sides, and time, unhurried procedure, and repeated examination all help bring the matter in dispute out into the open.
ATHENIAN: For these reasons, first, those who bring charges against one another should go to their neighbors, and to friends and people who know the facts as well as possible about the disputed actions. If someone does not get a satisfactory judgment there, let him go to another court. And third, should the matter still be unresolved after two courts, a final tribunal shall bring the case to its close. In a certain way the establishment of courts is itself a form of choosing officials—for every official must also be a judge of some matters, and a judge, even though not an official, becomes in a certain sense a not insignificant official on the day he brings a case to judgment. So let us treat judges as officials too, and say who would be suitable, and over what matters and how many judges should preside over each. Let the highest court be the one that each set of disputants appoints for themselves, choosing certain persons in common. Of the remaining two tribunals, let one apply when one private citizen, accusing another of wrongdoing, wants to bring him to trial for judgment, and the other when someone believes the public has been wronged by one of the citizens and wishes to come to the defense of the community—here too we must say what sort of judges these should be. Let our first court, then, be the one common to all private citizens disputing with one another for the third time, established as follows. All the officials, both those who hold office for a year and those who hold it longer, when a new year is about to begin after the summer solstice, in the following month—on the day before that day all the officials must gather together in one temple and, having sworn an oath to the god, offer up, as it were a firstfruits from every office, one judge—whoever from each office seems best and likely to judge the citizens' cases most excellently and most righteously through the coming year. Once these are chosen, there shall be an examination among the very officials who chose them; and if someone is disqualified, another shall be chosen in his place by the same method. Those who pass the examination shall judge the cases of those who have fled the other courts, and shall cast their vote openly. The council members and the other officials who chose them shall of necessity be present as listeners and observers of these trials, and any other citizen who wishes may attend as well. If someone accuses another of having deliberately judged a case unjustly, let him bring the charge before the Guardians of the Laws. Whoever is convicted of such an offense must pay half the damages to the injured party; and if he is judged to deserve a greater penalty, the judges of the case shall assess in addition whatever else he ought to suffer or pay, both to the community and to the one who brought the suit.
ATHENIAN: Concerning public charges, it is necessary first of all to give the mass of citizens a share in judgment—for whenever someone wrongs the city, everyone is wronged, and people would rightly resent being excluded from a share in such decisions. So both the beginning and the end of such a trial must be handed over to the people, while the sifting of the evidence shall be conducted by three of the most senior officials, agreed upon by defendant and prosecutor alike; and if the two cannot agree between themselves, the council shall decide on the choice for each. All citizens, so far as possible, must also share in private lawsuits—for whoever has no share in the power to help judge thinks he has no part at all in the city. For this reason it is necessary that courts be established by tribe as well, with judges chosen by lot on the spot, incorruptible by appeals for favor, to judge the case; and that the final decision in all such matters rest with that court which we say has been made, so far as is humanly possible, the most incorruptible of all, for the benefit of those who cannot get satisfaction either from their neighbors or from the tribal courts. Now concerning courts—which we have said we cannot speak of definitively either as offices or as something other than offices—we have, so to speak, sketched an outline from the outside: some things have been said, others left for later. For it would be most fitting for the precise legislation and division of the laws concerning lawsuits to come near the end of our lawgiving. Let this, then, be left to await us at the end; but the arrangements concerning the other offices have pretty much received the greater part of their legislation already. It is not possible for the whole and precise account, concerning each and every administration of the city and of political affairs generally, to become clear before the exposition, proceeding from the beginning, has taken up the secondary matters and the intermediate ones and all its own parts, and arrived at its conclusion. As things stand now, however, reaching as far as the selection of officials makes a sufficient stopping point for what has gone before, and there is no more reason to delay or hesitate before beginning the actual legislation of the laws. CLEINIAS: Everything you have said before was entirely to my liking, stranger, and now that you have linked the beginning to an end for what has been said and what is yet to be said, you have spoken even more agreeably than before.
ATHENIAN: Then our thoughtful old men's game would have been well played, so far as we have played it now. CLEINIAS: You seem to be revealing a fine seriousness in these men. ATHENIAN: Naturally. But let us consider this next point, if you agree with me. CLEINIAS: What point, and about what? ATHENIAN: You know how, with painters, the work never seems to reach an end for any single figure—there is always shading or highlighting or whatever it is the sons of painters call such touches, and it never seems to stop being adorned so that the picture can no longer improve and grow clearer. CLEINIAS: I more or less follow what you mean, even though I have never been trained in that art myself. ATHENIAN: And you've lost nothing by it. But let us make use of the point that has just come up, for something like this: suppose someone set out to paint the most beautiful living creature possible, and resolved that it should never grow worse but only better as time goes on—don't you see that, being mortal, unless he leaves behind a successor able to correct the figure if time makes it slip in any way, and able to fill in whatever was left out through his own weakness in the art, restoring and improving it into the future, all his great labor will last only a short while? CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: Well then? Doesn't the lawgiver's wish seem to you much the same? First, to write the laws with as much precision as he can manage; then, as time goes on and his intentions are tested in practice—do you think any lawgiver could be so foolish as not to know that a great many things are bound to be left out, things that someone must follow along and correct, so that the constitution and order of the city he has founded never grows worse but always better? CLEINIAS: Naturally—how could it be otherwise?—everyone would want that. ATHENIAN: So if someone had some device for this, some way of teaching another, in deed and in word, whether to a greater or lesser degree, an understanding of how the laws should be guarded and corrected, he would never stop speaking of it before reaching the end, would he?
CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: Then is this not exactly what you and I must now do? CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Since we are about to legislate, and Guardians of the Laws have been chosen for us, and we are on the downward slope of life while they are young compared to us, we must, as we say, both legislate ourselves and at the same time try to make these very men, so far as possible, lawgivers and law-guardians in their own right. CLEINIAS: Certainly—provided we are capable enough for it. ATHENIAN: In any case it must be attempted, and pursued with eagerness. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Let us say to them, then: dear preservers of the laws, in laying down laws on each matter we will leave a great many things out—that is unavoidable—yet, so far as we can, we will not leave the larger, essential matters undrawn, as it were, in outline; you will have to fill in what has been sketched. What you should keep your eyes on as you do this, you must hear. Megillus and I and Cleinias have said this to one another not just once, and we agree it has been well put; and we want you to become both sympathetic judges of what we say and our students, keeping your eyes on the very things we have agreed with one another that the law-guardian and lawgiver ought to keep in view. Our agreement had a single central point: that a person should somehow become good, possessing the excellence of soul proper to a human being, whether this comes from some practice, some habit of character, some kind of possession, desire, opinion, or course of study—whether the nature involved, among those living together, is male or female, young or old—every effort throughout the whole of life must be stretched toward this very thing we speak of, and nothing that stands in its way should be given honor by anyone, not even, in the end, the city itself, if it should truly become necessary for the city to be overthrown rather than willingly submit to a slave's yoke under baser men, or else abandon the city in flight. All such things must be endured before adopting a form of government that by nature makes people worse.
ATHENIAN: We agreed on these things earlier, and now, looking to both these standards, you praise and blame laws according to whether they can achieve them — the ones that succeed you welcome and take up gladly, living by them, but whatever else pursues other aims, however good it's called, deserves no more than a passing nod. Let the beginning of the laws that follow be this, starting from sacred matters. We must first go back to the number five thousand and forty, and recall all the useful divisions it has and had, both as a whole and by tribe — a twelfth part of which we set at twenty-one times twenty, exactly right. The whole number yields twelve divisions, and so does the tribal share. Each portion must be regarded as sacred, a gift of a god, following the months and the cycle of the whole heaven. That is why every city is naturally drawn to hold such things sacred, though some peoples have divided and consecrated the arrangement more correctly and successfully than others. We, at any rate, maintain that we have chosen most correctly the number five thousand and forty, which admits every division up through twelve, starting from one, except for eleven — and even that flaw is easily healed, since if you take away two hearths it becomes whole again on the other side. That this is really so, a lengthy account could show at leisure. For now, trusting the report and argument before us, let us make the division, assign to each portion a god or a child of a god, set up altars and their appropriate rites, and hold gatherings for sacrifices at them twice a month — twelve for the tribal division, twelve for the division of the city as a whole — first for the sake of the gods' favor and of matters concerning them, and second for our own sake, for kinship and mutual acquaintance, as we might say, and for fellowship of every kind. For when it comes to marriage and the mingling of families, it's essential to remove ignorance about the people one marries into and the woman one gives in marriage, and about those to whom one gives her, holding it of the greatest importance, as far as possible, never to go wrong in such things.
ATHENIAN: For the sake of this seriousness, then, the games too should be arranged — boys and girls dancing together, and at the same time seeing and being seen, at an age that gives some plausible occasion, in reasonable dress, undressed only to the point each one's modesty allows. The directors and organizers of all this should be the leaders of the choruses, together with the lawgivers, acting as legislators alongside the Guardians of the Laws wherever we ourselves leave gaps in our regulations. It's unavoidable, as we said, that in all such matters — small and numerous as they are — the lawgiver must leave things out, and that those who each year gain experience of them, learning from practice, must make the arrangements and correct them and adjust them year by year, until a sufficient standard for such customs and practices seems to have been reached. A period of ten years, devoted to sacrifices and dances in general and applied to each and every one, would be a moderate and sufficient span for gaining this experience — while the lawgiver who set them up is alive, this is done in common with him; once he is gone, each office should bring to the Guardians of the Laws whatever remains uncorrected from its own period, correcting it, until each practice seems to have reached its final, well-finished form. Then, having fixed them as unchangeable, they should use them from then on together with the other laws that the original lawgiver laid down. About these, no one should ever willingly alter anything; but if some necessity ever seems to demand it, all the officials must be consulted, the whole people, and every oracle of the gods, and only if all agree should any change be made — never otherwise, under any circumstances — and whoever opposes such a change should always prevail by law. Whenever any man who has reached the age of twenty-five, looking into the matter himself and being looked into by others, comes to believe he has found a match to his mind and fitting for having and raising children, let him marry — every such man, before reaching thirty-five. But first let him hear how he ought to seek what is fitting and suitable. For, as Cleinias says, a fitting prelude belongs before every law, addressed to each case. CLEINIAS: You've remembered beautifully, stranger — you've seized just the right moment in the discussion, one that strikes me as perfectly measured.
ATHENIAN: Well said. So then, my boy, born of good parents, we should say you must make a marriage that wins approval among sensible people, who would advise you neither to shun marriage with the poor nor to chase after marriage with the rich above all, but rather, other things being equal, always to give preference to the humbler match in forming the union. This would benefit both the city and the households that come together; for the level and balanced is immeasurably better for virtue than the unmixed and extreme. And a man who knows himself to be more impulsive and quicker than he should be in all his actions ought to be eager to become son-in-law to sober parents; while a man of the opposite nature should move toward the opposite kind of in-laws. Let there be one single teaching for every marriage: each man must court the marriage that benefits the city, not the one that is most pleasant to himself. For everyone by nature is somehow drawn toward his own likeness, and from this the whole city ends up uneven in wealth and in character — which brings about, in most cities, exactly what we do not want to happen to us. Now to command these things by law in so many words — that the rich should not marry the rich, nor a man of great influence marry into another such family, and to force the quick-tempered toward the slower and the slow toward the quick in forming marriages — besides being ridiculous, would stir up anger in many people; for it isn't easy to see that a city must be mixed like a mixing-bowl, in which the wine, poured in raging, foams, but once disciplined by another, sober god, forms a good partnership and produces a fine and moderate drink. Hardly anyone is able to perceive that this same thing happens in the blending of children. For this reason, we must leave such matters to persuasion rather than law, trying by incantation to persuade each person to value the evenness of his children's characters more than the boundless equality of matched wealth in marriage, and to turn back with reproach anyone who is overly serious about money in marrying, rather than forcing him by written law.
ATHENIAN: Let this stand as encouragement concerning marriages, along with what was said earlier — that one must hold fast to the everlasting nature by leaving behind children's children, forever handing over to the god servants in one's place. All this, and more besides, could be said as a proper prelude on how one ought to marry. But if someone still will not willingly obey, and instead keeps himself apart and unconnected within the city, remaining unmarried until he is thirty-five, let him be fined every year: a man of the highest property class, one hundred drachmas; of the second, seventy; of the third, sixty; of the fourth, thirty. Let this money be sacred to Hera. Whoever fails to pay each year shall owe ten times as much; the treasurer of the goddess shall exact it, and if he fails to collect it, he himself shall owe it, and shall answer for it at his examination of accounts. So much for the fine in money laid on the man unwilling to marry. He shall also be deprived of all honor from the younger men, and no young man shall willingly obey him in anything; and if he tries to punish anyone, let everyone come to the aid of the one wronged and defend him, and let any bystander who fails to help be declared by law both a coward and a bad citizen. As for dowries, it has been said before, and let it be said again: that it suits equality best neither to receive nor to give a dowry, so that the poor are not left to grow old for lack of money; for in this city the necessities are provided for everyone, and marriage will bring less arrogance and less base, servile submission on the wife's part on account of money. Whoever obeys this would be doing something noble; but whoever disobeys, whether giving or receiving more than fifty drachmas' worth for clothing — or a mina, for the second class, or a mina and a half, or two minas for the man of the highest property class — shall owe an equal sum to the public treasury, and whatever was given or received shall be sacred to Hera and Zeus; and the treasurers of these two gods shall exact it, just as was said of the treasurers of Hera exacting the fine from those who do not marry, each paying the penalty from his own funds. Let the right to give a woman in marriage belong first to her father, second to her grandfather, third to brothers by the same father; if none of these exist, then the right belongs likewise to those on the mother's side. And should some unusual circumstance arise, the nearest relatives in every case, together with the guardians, shall have the authority.
ATHENIAN: Whatever preliminary rites of marriage, or any other sacred ceremony connected with such things, are proper to perform for those about to marry, now marrying, or already married, each person should ask the interpreters of sacred law and, following their guidance, consider that everything has been done properly for himself. As for the wedding feasts, one should invite no more than five friends of each sex, and likewise the same number again of relatives and household members on each side. The expense should not exceed what one's means allow: one mina for the man of the highest property class, half that for the next, and so on in proportion as the property classes descend. Everyone should praise the man who obeys this law, while the Guardians of the Laws should punish the one who disobeys as a man of poor taste and uneducated in the customs governing the muses of the wedding. Drinking oneself drunk is fitting nowhere — nor is it safe — save at the feasts of the god who bestowed wine upon us, and certainly not for anyone serious about marriage, an occasion on which both bride and groom above all need their wits about them, since they are undertaking no small change in life, and also so that the child conceived may come, as far as possible, from parents in full possession of their senses; for it's practically impossible to know which night, or which day, will beget it, with the god's help. Beyond this, procreation should not happen while the body is dissolved by drink, but the thing being formed should come together sound, steady, and calm in its proper measure. But the man overcome by wine is scattered every which way, and scatters others, raging in body and soul alike; so a drunken man sows in a distracted and corrupted state, likely to beget offspring of uneven character and uncertain body, crooked in neither straight body nor straight soul. That is why, throughout the whole year and indeed one's whole life, but especially during whatever time one is begetting children, a man must take care not to do, deliberately, anything conducive to sickness, nor anything bound up with arrogance or injustice — for this is necessarily stamped and imprinted on the souls and bodies of the children begotten, and reproduces itself, making everything worse in every way. Above all, one must abstain from such things on that particular day and night; for a beginning, once it takes root as a god among men, preserves everything — provided it receives the honor due to it from each person who has dealings with it.
ATHENIAN: The man who marries should think of one of the two houses on his allotted land as a place for the hatching and raising of chicks, so to speak, and should make his marriage-home and the raising of his children there, separated from his father and mother. In friendships, if there is some longing left in them, it binds and glues every disposition together; but constant, saturating togetherness, which leaves no room for longing to build up over time, makes people drift apart through sheer excess of closeness. For this reason people should leave their own households — those of the wife's parents included — and go live as if arriving in a colony, watching over one another and being watched over in turn, bearing and raising children, handing life on like a torch from one generation to the next, and always serving the gods according to the laws. As for property, what kind of possessions would someone acquire to have the most fitting estate? Most of this is neither hard to think through nor hard to acquire, but the matter of household servants is difficult in every way. And the reason is that what we say about them is somehow both wrong and, in a certain way, right — for what we say about slaves runs contrary to our practical needs, and yet also follows from those very needs. MEGILLUS: What do you mean by that? We don't yet follow what you're getting at, stranger. ATHENIAN: And reasonably so, Megillus. Of nearly all the peoples of Greece, the helot-system of the Lacedaemonians would cause the most dispute and disagreement — some saying it has turned out well, others not so well. Less contested would be the slavery of the Heracleots over the Mariandynians, and the serf-class of the Thessalians. Looking at all such cases, what should we do about acquiring household servants? This is exactly the point I happened to raise a moment ago in passing, and you rightly asked me what on earth I meant. We know, I think, that everyone would say slaves should be acquired who are as well-disposed and as excellent as possible — for many slaves have already proven themselves better than brothers, better than sons in every virtue, and have saved their masters, their masters' property, and their entire households. This much we know is said about slaves. MEGILLUS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: And isn't the opposite also said — that there is nothing sound in a slave's soul, and that a person of sense should never trust the class of slaves in anything at all? Our wisest poet declared this too, speaking on behalf of Zeus: "Far-seeing Zeus takes away half the mind," he says, "of men, whenever the day of slavery seizes them." Each side, holding to these different views, acts accordingly: some trust the class of household slaves in nothing, and, treating them like beasts, batter their servants' souls into slavishness with goads and whips, not three times over but many times; others do exactly the opposite in every respect. MEGILLUS: Of course. CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, given that people disagree so sharply on this, what should we do about our own land — both about acquiring slaves and about disciplining them? ATHENIAN: What indeed, Cleinias? It's clear that since the human animal is a difficult creature, and when it comes to drawing the necessary distinction in practice between slave, free man, and master, it shows itself thoroughly unwilling to be, or to become, something easy to deal with — the possession is a hard one. This has been shown in practice, time and again, in the frequent revolts among the Messenians, and in whatever troubles arise for cities that acquire many servants all speaking one language, and further in the deeds and sufferings of every sort caused by the so-called wandering bands of robbers around Italy. Looking at all this, one might well be at a loss over what to do about the whole business. Only two devices remain: first, that those likely to submit to slavery more easily should not be fellow-countrymen of one another, but as discordant as possible in background; second, that we raise them properly — not merely for their own sake, but even more out of regard for ourselves. The proper raising of such people means never treating servants with any kind of arrogance, and if possible, wronging them even less than one would wrong equals. For the man who reveres justice by nature, not by pretense, and genuinely hates injustice, shows himself clearly in his dealings with those people toward whom it is easy for him to act unjustly — namely, his slaves. So whoever proves himself, in his character and conduct toward slaves, free of impiety and injustice, would be best equipped to sow the seeds from which virtue grows. And the very same thing can rightly be said of any master, any tyrant, or anyone at all who wields power over someone weaker than himself.
ATHENIAN: Slaves must certainly be punished as justice requires, and not be pampered by mere warnings as if they were free men — that only spoils them. Nearly every address to a servant should be a command, plain and simple; one should never joke around with servants at all, neither with the women nor the men — which is exactly what many people foolishly do, spoiling their slaves and thereby making life harder both for the slaves' obedience and for their own authority over them. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Well then, once someone has equipped himself as best he can with servants sufficient in number and suited to assist with each kind of task, the next thing, in our account, is to sketch out the arrangement of houses. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And it seems that, speaking generally of the whole art of building, we must attend to the city that is new and, until now, unbuilt — how each part of it, its temples and its walls, is to be laid out. These matters, Cleinias, properly come before marriages, but since we are only doing this in speech, it's quite all right to take them up now; when it comes to actual practice, we will, god willing, arrange these things before the marriages, and only afterward bring the marriage-laws themselves to completion, over and above all this. For now let's simply run through them briefly, in outline. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: The temples, then, should be built all around the marketplace, and around the whole city in a circle, on the high ground, for the sake of easy defense and cleanliness. Near them should be the residences of the officials and the courts, where, as being the most sacred places, they will receive and render judgments — some concerning matters of piety, and in these same precincts should stand shrines to the relevant gods, along with courts in which the trials for homicide and other crimes deserving death would fittingly take place. As for walls, Megillus, I would side with Sparta in letting the walls lie sleeping in the ground and not raising them up, and for this reason: the poetic saying in their praise is a fine one, that walls ought to be of bronze and iron rather than of earth.
ATHENIAN: But our practice would rightly earn us no end of ridicule besides — sending out the young men each year into the countryside, some to dig, some to cut trenches, and others to wall off passages with certain constructions, as if to keep the enemy from setting foot across the borders of the land, while at the same time we throw a wall around the city itself. Such a wall, first of all, does nothing at all to benefit the health of cities, and it tends besides to produce a certain softness of spirit in the people living within it, inviting them to take refuge behind it instead of repelling the enemy, and to think that safety comes not from keeping watch, night and day, with some of their number always on guard, but from barricading themselves behind walls and gates and then falling asleep, believing they truly have devices for safety — as if born for a life without toil, unaware that ease, in truth, comes only out of toil. From shameful ease and laziness, I think, toils are born all over again. But if humans really must have some kind of wall, the private houses should be laid out from the very start in such a way that the whole city forms a single wall — with uniform, matching houses all facing onto the streets, all presenting a well-fortified front. It would not be unpleasant to look at either, with the whole city having the shape of one single house, and it would also be far superior for ease of guarding, contributing wholly and entirely to safety. As for keeping these buildings as they were originally constructed, that responsibility would fall chiefly on the residents themselves, but the city wardens should also see to it, compelling and fining anyone who neglects this; and they should likewise attend to cleanliness throughout the city as a whole, making sure no private citizen encroaches on any public property, whether by building or by digging. They must also see to the proper flow of rainwater and to whatever else it is fitting to manage, whether inside or outside the city. The guardians of the law, having surveyed all these needs together, should legislate further on them, and on anything else the law fails to cover for lack of foresight. Once these matters are settled, along with the buildings around the marketplace, around the gymnasia, and all the schoolhouses standing ready to receive their students, and the theaters awaiting their audiences, let us move on to what comes after the marriages, continuing our legislation in order. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Let the marriages, then, Cleinias, be taken as already accomplished. After this would come a period of living together before childbearing, lasting no less than a year — and how the bridegroom and bride ought to live during this time, in a city that is going to be different from most others, following on from what has just been said, is not the easiest thing to state. There have already been quite a few such difficult points, but this one is harder for the majority to accept than most of the others. Still, whatever seems right and true must be stated regardless, Cleinias. CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Whoever intends to lay down laws for cities, prescribing how citizens should conduct their public and communal life, while thinking there's no need to legislate for private matters beyond the bare necessities, and instead leaves each person free to live his daily life however he pleases, without everything being brought under regulation — such a person, having abandoned private conduct to being unregulated by law, imagines that citizens will nonetheless be willing to conduct their public and communal life by law. He is not thinking correctly. Why have I said this? Because I mean to say that our bridegrooms ought to take their meals in the common messes no differently, and no less, than they did in the time before their marriage. This practice, when it first arose among you in your part of the world, was a remarkable thing — brought about, in all likelihood, by some war, or by some other circumstance of similar force, among small populations gripped by great scarcity; and once they had tried the common messes and been compelled to use them, the practice seemed to make a great difference for their survival, and in some such way the institution of common messes became established among you. CLEINIAS: So it seems. As I was saying, though this practice was once a remarkable and even fearsome thing to impose on people, it would not now be nearly as difficult for a lawgiver to legislate. But the next step, one that would rightly occur if it did occur, yet nowhere occurs today, and which makes the lawgiver's task next to hopeless — a task like, as the saying about people who waste their efforts goes, "carding wool into fire" and countless other such futile endeavors — is neither easy to state nor, once stated, easy to bring to completion. CLEINIAS: What is this thing, stranger, that you seem so reluctant even to begin telling us? ATHENIAN: Listen, then, so that we don't waste a great deal of time over this very point for nothing. Whatever in a city partakes of order and law produces every kind of good, whereas the many things that are disordered, or badly ordered, undo much of what has been well ordered elsewhere. This is exactly the point bearing on what we're discussing now. Among you, Cleinias and Megillus, the common messes for men have been established well, and, as I said, remarkably so, by some divine necessity; but the corresponding practice for women has been left, quite wrongly, without any legislation, and the practice of common messes for them has never been brought into the light.
ATHENIAN: But there is one part of our human race that has always grown more secretive and thievish than the rest — the female sex — because of its weakness, and the lawgiver did wrong to yield to this and let it run loose, untamed as it is. And because we let it go slack, a great many things have slipped past us that would be in far better shape now if they had received laws. For it is not merely a half of things, as one might suppose, that gets left in disorder where women are concerned — no, insofar as female nature is inferior to male in virtue, by just that much it is more than double the problem. So it would be better for the happiness of a city to take this matter up again, correct it, and arrange all pursuits in common for women and men alike. But as things now stand, the human race has come to this in so unlucky a state that no one of sound mind would even mention the subject in other regions and cities — places where common messes are not even accepted as a practice for the whole city at all. From what starting point, then, could anyone attempt in practice, without being laughed at, to force women to have their consumption of food and drink brought out into the open? There is nothing this sex would endure less easily. For, being used to living a hidden, shadowed life, if dragged forcibly into the light it will resist with everything it has, and will get the better of the lawgiver by far. Elsewhere, then, as I said, this sex would not even put up with the correct argument being spoken, without shouting it down — but here, perhaps, it might. So if it seems worthwhile, for the sake of the argument, that our discussion of the whole constitution not go astray, I am willing to say why it is good and fitting — if you two agree to hear it out; if not, I will let it go. CLEINIAS: Why, stranger, we are altogether remarkably eager to hear it. ATHENIAN: Let us hear it, then. And do not be surprised if I seem to you to be starting from some point far back — we have leisure to spare, and nothing presses us to avoid examining the laws from every possible angle. CLEINIAS: Well said.
ATHENIAN: Let us go back, then, to what was said at the start. Every man should give real thought to this much at least: that the coming-into-being of humankind either has no beginning at all and will have no end, but always was and always will be, or else it has existed for a length of time from its beginning so vast as to be beyond reckoning. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — the founding and destruction of cities, all sorts of practices both orderly and disorderly, and every kind of craving for drink and food and eating — don't we suppose all these have occurred, all across the whole earth, along with every sort of turn of the seasons, in which living things are likely to have undergone countless changes of their own? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — do we believe that vines appeared at some point when they had not existed before? And likewise olives, and the gifts of Demeter and Kore, and that some Triptolemus served as minister of such things? And in the time when these did not yet exist, don't we suppose living things turned, as they do now, to eating one another? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And indeed we still see, among many peoples even now, the practice of human beings sacrificing one another persisting to this day. Whereas we hear the opposite about others — a time when people did not even dare to taste beef, when the offerings to the gods were not living creatures but cakes and fruits soaked in honey and other such pure offerings, and people abstained from flesh as unholy food, holding it unholy likewise to defile the gods' altars with blood; instead what are called Orphic lives prevailed among those people of that time, keeping to everything lifeless and, on the other hand, abstaining from everything that had life. CLEINIAS: What you have said is indeed widely told, and plausible to believe. ATHENIAN: But someone might ask, to what end has all this just now been said to you? CLEINIAS: You have grasped the question rightly, stranger. ATHENIAN: And so, if I am able, Cleinias, I will try to explain what follows from it. CLEINIAS: Go on and speak. ATHENIAN: I see that everything for human beings hangs on three needs and desires, through which, when they are guided rightly, virtue results, and when guided badly, the opposite. These are: eating and drinking, right from birth — concerning which every living thing has an inborn passion, full of a frenzied craving and deaf to anyone telling it it must do something other than satisfy the pleasures and desires bound up with these things, and must always free itself from every kind of pain that stands in the way;
ATHENIAN: and a third need for us, the greatest, and the sharpest craving, arriving last but setting human beings most thoroughly ablaze with madness of every kind, is the one that burns with the greatest wanton excess concerning the begetting of offspring. These three sicknesses must be turned toward what is best rather than toward what is called most pleasant, and we must try to hold them in check by three of the greatest means: fear, law, and true reasoning — while also calling on the Muses and the gods of contest to help quench their growth and inflow. Let us set the begetting of children after marriages, and after begetting, their nurture and education; and perhaps, as the argument proceeds in this way, each law of ours will be carried through to the point where we arrive at the common meals — whether such associations should exist for women alone, for men alone, or both — and by coming closer to the matter we will perhaps see it better, and settle in advance what still remains, even now, without any law governing it, and thereby, as I just said, we will observe these things more accurately and be better able to establish the laws proper and fitting to them. CLEINIAS: Very rightly said. ATHENIAN: Let us then keep in memory what has just been said; for we may well have need of all of it at some point. CLEINIAS: What exactly do you bid us remember? ATHENIAN: The things we distinguished by three terms: eating, we said, first; then drinking, second; and third, some frenzy over sexual matters. CLEINIAS: We will certainly remember, stranger, what you are now bidding us to. ATHENIAN: Good. Let us turn, then, to matters of marriage, to instruct people how and in what manner they ought to produce children, and, if we fail to persuade them, to threaten them with certain laws. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: The bride and groom must set their minds on producing for the city children as fine and as good as it is in their power to make. Now all human beings, in every joint undertaking, when they pay close attention both to themselves and to the task, accomplish everything nobly and well; but when they fail to pay attention, or have no sense, the opposite happens.
ATHENIAN: So let the groom keep his mind fixed on his bride and on producing children, and let the bride do likewise, and especially during that time when they do not yet have children born to them. Let there be overseers of this among the women we have chosen — however many or few seem right — whom the officials shall assign as they see fit, and whenever they see fit, gathering each day at the shrine of Eileithyia for up to a third of an hour; and once gathered there, let them report to one another whether they see any man or woman among those trying to have children paying attention to something other than what has been laid down concerning the sacrifices and rites performed at the wedding. Let the begetting and supervision of childbearing last ten years, no longer, when there is a good flow of offspring; but if some remain childless through this period, let them separate, with the counsel of their household and of the ruling women together, deciding jointly what is fitting for each. And if some dispute arises about what is proper and fitting for each, let them select ten from among the Guardians of the Law and hold to whatever those ten determine and impose. Let the women enter the houses of the young, partly admonishing, partly threatening, to stop them from error and folly; and if they are unable to do so, let them go and lay the matter before the Guardians of the Law, who shall then restrain the offenders. And if even they are unable, let them make a public declaration, writing it down and swearing that they truly cannot make such-and-such a person better. And let the one so recorded be disenfranchised, unless he wins a suit in court against those who recorded him, in this respect: he shall not attend weddings nor the coming-of-age ceremonies of children, and if he does attend, whoever wishes may strike him with impunity. Let the same rules hold for a woman as well: she shall have no share in women's outings, honors, or attendance at weddings and children's birthday celebrations, if she is likewise recorded as disorderly and does not win her case. And once they have begotten children according to law, if anyone associates with another man's wife in such matters, or a wife with another man, while they are still of childbearing age, let the same penalties apply to them as were stated for those still begetting children;
ATHENIAN: after that, let the man and woman who show self-control in such matters be held in good repute in every respect, and let the one who does the opposite be honored in the opposite way — or rather, held in dishonor. And where the majority behave with moderation in these matters, let it lie unlegislated, in silence; but where they behave disorderly, let what has been legislated in this connection be carried out according to the laws laid down at that time. The beginning of each person's whole life is his first year, and this should be recorded in the ancestral shrines as the beginning of life, for both boy and girl. Let there be inscribed on a whitewashed wall, in every phratry, the succession of officials counted by year; and let the living members of the phratry always be recorded nearby, while those departing from life are erased. Let the limit for marriage be, for a girl, from sixteen to twenty years, the outer bound so fixed; for a young man, from thirty to thirty-five years. For entry into public office, forty years for a woman, thirty for a man; for military service, for a man from twenty up to sixty years; for a woman, whatever service in war matters seems needed of her, once she has borne children, let what is possible and fitting be assigned to each, up to fifty years.
ATHENIAN: Once boys and girls have been born, the next topic for us to take up, most properly, is their nurture and education. It's simply impossible to pass over this in silence, yet in speaking of it we'll sound more like people giving instruction and advice than people laying down laws. In private life, within individual households, all sorts of small things happen that aren't visible to everyone, and under the pull of each person's private pains, pleasures, and desires they easily drift away from the lawgiver's counsel, producing characters among the citizens that are wildly various and unlike one another. That's bad for cities. Because these things are so small and so frequent, making them punishable by law would be both unseemly and undignified, and it would also undermine the laws we have put in writing, since people get into the habit of breaking the law over small, frequent matters. So we're at a loss how to legislate about them, yet we can't just say nothing either. Let me try to show what I mean by bringing forward some examples into the light, since as it stands what I'm saying is groping around in a kind of darkness. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Well, we've already said, correctly I think, that the right nurture, whether of bodies or of souls, must plainly be able to produce the finest and best results. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And the finest bodies, I imagine — to put it most simply — are the ones that grow up straightest from earliest infancy. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Now here's something more: don't we notice that in every living creature the first growth is by far the greatest and most rapid — so much so that many people have disputed whether a human being's height even doubles between age five and the following twenty years? CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Well then — when a great deal of growth pours in without a correspondingly great deal of exercise, don't we know that this produces countless ills in the body? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So the time when a body most needs exercise is precisely when the most nourishment is being added to it. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by that, stranger? Surely you're not going to prescribe the most exercise for newborns, the very youngest of all? ATHENIAN: Not at all — rather, for those still being nourished inside their own mothers, even earlier than that. CLEINIAS: What are you saying, my good man? Do you mean the unborn, still in the womb? ATHENIAN: Yes. It's no wonder you're unfamiliar with the gymnastics appropriate to creatures of that age — a strange subject, but I'd like to explain it to you anyway. CLEINIAS: Please do. ATHENIAN: Well, it's something we notice more readily where we come from, because certain people there carry a particular game further than they should. Among us, you see, not only children but even some grown men keep birds for fighting each other. Now people who train these creatures for such combat are very far from thinking the exercise they need is a matter of casual, moderate stirring-about; on top of whatever workouts they give the birds, each man tucks his bird under his arm — the smaller ones in the hand, the bigger ones held close beneath the armpit — and off they go, walking mile after mile, not for their own bodies' fitness but for that of these creatures. And to anyone capable of drawing the lesson, this makes one thing plain enough: that all bodies benefit, and rest easier, from being shaken and set in motion — whether the motion comes from themselves, or from swinging, or from being carried over the sea, or riding on horseback, or however else a body is borne along and stirred. Because of this, such bodies can also digest their food and drink and pass on to us health, good looks, and strength generally. Given all this, what should we say we ought to do next? Shall we say it, even at the risk of sounding comic, laying down as law that the pregnant woman should walk about, that the newborn should be molded like wax while it's still soft, and swaddled up to the age of two? And shall we further compel the nurses, on pain of legal penalty, to keep carrying the infants somewhere or other — to the fields, to the temples, to relatives' houses — until they're able to stand well on their own; and even then, taking care, while they're still young, that their limbs don't get twisted by being forced to bear weight too soon, keep on carrying them, with real effort, until the child turns three?
ATHENIAN: And the nurses themselves need to be as strong as possible, and more than one of them — and shall we write a fine into the law for any who fail in each of these duties? Or is that going much too far? Because what I just described a moment ago would then happen many times over, and without limit. CLEINIAS: Meaning what? ATHENIAN: That we would bring down a flood of ridicule on ourselves, on top of the fact that the nurses, with their womanish and slavish habits of mind, would never agree to obey us anyway. CLEINIAS: Then why did we say all this needed to be spoken of in the first place? ATHENIAN: For this reason: the habits of masters and free people alike in our cities, on hearing it, might well be brought round to the correct way of thinking — namely, that unless private households are run rightly, it's futile to expect the public affairs of the city to rest on any firm foundation of law. Anyone who keeps this in mind will use, in his own life, the rules we've just stated, and by using them, and managing both his household and his city well at the same time, will live a happy life. CLEINIAS: What you say is quite reasonable. ATHENIAN: So let's not yet leave off this kind of legislating, until we've dealt in the same way with the practices concerning the souls of very young children, following the same method by which we began to work through the tales about their bodies. CLEINIAS: Quite right. ATHENIAN: Let's then take this as a common starting point for both body and soul of the very young: that their nurture and stirring, kept up as continuously as possible through every night and day, is beneficial to everyone, but most of all to the very youngest — and that ideally they should live, so to speak, as though perpetually at sea; but since that's not possible, we must come as close to it as we can with newborn infants. We should draw evidence for this from the following: both the nurses of small children and the priestesses who perform the healing rites of the Corybantes have learned from experience, and know well, that this is beneficial. When mothers want to lull to sleep children having trouble sleeping, what they bring to bear is not stillness but the opposite — motion, rocking them constantly in their arms — and not silence but a kind of song, literally piping a tune to the children, just as with the cures for frenzied, Bacchic states, using this same combination of movement and dance together with music. CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, what do you suppose is the real cause of this? ATHENIAN: It isn't very hard to work out. CLEINIAS: How so?
ATHENIAN: Both these conditions are, in a sense, forms of fright, and frights arise from some poor state of the soul. So whenever someone applies an external shaking to conditions of this kind, the motion applied from outside overpowers the fearful, frenzied motion within, and by overpowering it produces a calm stillness visible in the soul, in place of the harsh pounding each person had been feeling around the heart — a thoroughly welcome result. In some it brings on sleep; in others, while still awake, it brings about dancing and piping accompanied by whichever gods each is offering favorable sacrifice to, and so, instead of manic states, it produces in us settled, sound states of mind. And this account, put briefly like this, has at least some plausibility. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And if these things really do have some such power, then we ought to bear this in mind about ourselves: that any soul that lives among frights from childhood on is more likely to grow accustomed to becoming fearful — and everyone would agree that this amounts to training in cowardice, not in courage. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Whereas the opposite practice, we'd say, is the training for courage right from childhood — conquering the frights and fears that come at us. CLEINIAS: Correct. ATHENIAN: So let's say that this — the exercising of quite young children through movement — contributes a great deal toward one part of the soul's virtue. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And further, a soul's not being ill-tempered, as against being ill-tempered, would count as no small part of good spirit or bad spirit respectively. CLEINIAS: How could it not? ATHENIAN: So we must try to say by what means we might, from the start, implant in the newborn whichever of these two we wish — and to what degree we have the resources to do it. CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: Well, the view held where we come from is this: luxury makes the characters of the young ill-tempered, irritable, and quick to be set off by trifles; while the opposite of this — harsh, savage subjection — makes them servile, mean-spirited, and full of hatred for other people, and turns them into unsuitable companions to live with. CLEINIAS: Then how must the whole city rear children who don't yet understand speech, and aren't yet capable of tasting any other form of education? ATHENIAN: Something like this: every newborn creature, and not least the human kind, tends to cry out at once with a wail; and indeed human infants are gripped by weeping, on top of crying out, more than other creatures. CLEINIAS: Quite so.
ATHENIAN: So the nurses judge what a child wants by watching for these very things in what they offer it: when it falls silent at something offered, they think they've offered rightly; when it cries and wails, they think they haven't. For infants, crying and wailing are the signs of what they love and hate — by no means fortunate signs. And this period lasts no less than three years — no small portion of a life to spend worse rather than better. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: And don't the two of you think that the person who is ill-tempered and never cheerful tends to be given to lament, and generally more full of complaints than a good person ought to be? CLEINIAS: I certainly think so. ATHENIAN: Well then — if during those three years someone tried every possible means to see that the child we're raising has as little as possible to do with pain, fear, and grief of any kind, don't we suppose that would make the soul of the child, at that stage, cheerful and more good-humored? CLEINIAS: Clearly so — and most of all, stranger, if one arranged for it to have many pleasures. ATHENIAN: There I can no longer go along with Cleinias, my good man. Such a course would in fact be, for us, the very worst corruption of all — because it happens right at the outset of nurture. Let's see whether what I'm saying makes sense. CLEINIAS: Tell me what you mean. ATHENIAN: What's at stake in our discussion right now isn't a small matter. You watch too, Megillus, and help judge between us. My own view is that the right life should neither pursue pleasures nor, on the other hand, wholly flee pains, but should embrace the middle state — the one I just called 'cheerful' — a disposition which, by a kind of prophetic report, we all quite rightly ascribe to god as well. I say that anyone among us who is to become godlike must pursue this same state: he must not become one who rushes headlong after pleasures altogether, on the assumption that he'll thereby be free of pains either; nor should he allow anyone else — old or young, man or woman — to undergo that same thing, and least of all, so far as possible, the newborn infant. Because it's precisely then that the whole character, through habituation, becomes most decisively fixed in everyone. And further — though I risk sounding as if I'm joking — I would say that of all women, those carrying a child in the womb ought above all to be looked after during that year, so that the pregnant woman doesn't indulge in a great many wild pleasures, nor again in griefs, but instead spends that time honoring what is cheerful, kindly, and gentle.
CLEINIAS: There's no need for you to ask Megillus which of us has argued more correctly, Stranger. I myself grant you that everyone must avoid a life of unmixed pain or unmixed pleasure, and always cut a middle course. So you've spoken well, and heard well too. ATHENIAN: Quite rightly, Cleinias. Now, the three of us together, let's think through this next point. CLEINIAS: What point? ATHENIAN: That everything we've been going through just now is what most people call unwritten customs. And what people call ancestral laws are nothing other than exactly this sort of thing. And what's more, what we said just now — that we shouldn't call these things laws, but shouldn't leave them unspoken either — was well said. For these are the bonds of every constitution, standing between all the things that have been written down and laid in place as law and the things still to be enacted — quite literally ancestral, wholly ancient customs. When these are well established and habituated, they wrap the written laws of the time in complete safekeeping. But if they wander outside what is right, and go wrong, then — like the props builders set beneath a house, when they slip out from the middle — they bring everything crashing down together, one thing collapsing under another, both the old supports and whatever was later well built on top of them, once the old foundations give way. Keeping this in mind, Cleinias, you must bind your city, which is entirely new, together on every side, leaving out nothing, great or small, so far as possible, that anyone would call laws, customs, or practices. For a city is bound together by all such things, and neither laws nor customs can last without each other. So we shouldn't be surprised if a great many things that seem to be minor customs or habits keep flowing in and making our laws longer. CLEINIAS: What you say is right, and that's how we'll think about it. ATHENIAN: Well then, as for the age of three years, for both boy and girl, if someone carries out precisely and doesn't apply carelessly what we've described, it would be no small benefit for those newly being reared.
ATHENIAN: When a child is three, then four, then five and even six years old, the soul in its character will still need play, but by now indulgent softness must be checked with punishment — not in a way that dishonors the child, but as we said about slaves: those who punish shouldn't do it with violence and stir up anger in the ones punished, nor should they let unruly softness run free either. The same must be done with free children too. Children of this age have their own natural games, which they mostly invent themselves once they get together. All children from three to six years old should now gather at the shrines in their villages, each village's children brought together in one place. Their nurses should watch over the good order and misbehavior of children this age, while over the nurses themselves and the whole flock, one of the twelve women appointed each year by the Guardians of the Law should be set in charge of each group. These women are to be chosen by the officials in charge of marriages, one from each tribe, women of similar age to themselves. Whoever is appointed should go to the shrine every day and take up her post, always punishing any wrongdoer — for a slave, male or female, or a foreigner, male or female, she may punish through some of the city's public servants; but for a citizen who disputes the punishment, she must bring the case before the city-wardens for judgment, while a citizen who does not dispute it she may punish herself. After the sixth year, the sexes should now be separated — boys spending their time with boys, and girls likewise with one another — and both should turn to their studies. The boys should go to instructors for horsemanship, archery, javelin-throwing, and sling-throwing, and the girls too, if they agree to it, at least up through basic instruction, especially in what concerns the use of weapons. For what's now the common practice on this matter is, in almost every case, misunderstood. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: That our right and left hands differ by nature in their usefulness for the various tasks done with the hands — whereas the feet and lower limbs show no such difference for exertion. But in the case of the hands, through the folly of nurses and mothers, each of us has become as if lame. For the nature of both limbs is roughly balanced, but we ourselves, through habit, have made them unequal by using them incorrectly.
ATHENIAN: In tasks where it makes no great difference — holding the lyre in the left hand, say, and the pick in the right, and things like that — there's no problem. But to take such examples and apply the same reasoning where it doesn't belong is close to folly. The law of the Scythians shows this: they don't merely draw the bow with the left hand and bring the arrow forward with the right alone, but use both hands equally for both tasks. There are a great many other examples like this too, in chariot-driving and elsewhere, from which one can learn that those who make the left weaker than the right are working against nature. As we said, this makes no great difference with plectrums of horn and instruments of that kind; but when it comes to using iron weapons in war, it makes a great difference — with bows, javelins, and each such weapon — and the greatest difference of all when weapons must be used against weapons. There's a vast difference between the one who has learned and the one who hasn't, between the one who has trained and the one who hasn't. Just as someone thoroughly trained in the pankration, or boxing, or wrestling isn't incapable of fighting from the left side, but still limps and drags along awkwardly whenever someone forces him to switch over and work from the other side — the same, I think, should rightly be expected in the use of weapons and in everything else: whoever possesses two hands, with which to defend and to attack others, should let neither of them lie idle or untrained, so far as possible. If someone had the nature of Geryon, or of Briareus, he ought to be able to hurl a hundred missiles with his hundred hands. The oversight of all this must belong to both the women officials and the men officials — the women watching over play and rearing, the men over studies — so that all the boys and girls, becoming sound of foot and hand alike, do not through habit damage their natures more than can be helped. As for their studies, these are, roughly speaking, twofold: those concerned with the body belong to gymnastics, those concerned with courage of soul belong to the arts of the Muses. Gymnastics divides, in its turn, into dance and wrestling. One branch of dance renders the utterance of the Muse in movement, guarding its dignity and its free bearing at once; the other, for the sake of good condition, lightness, and beauty, concerns the proper bending and stretching of the body's own limbs and parts, giving each of them its own rhythmic movement, spread throughout and following along fittingly through the whole dance.
ATHENIAN: As for wrestling, the holds that Antaeus or Cercyon devised in their own arts for the sake of useless rivalry, or the boxing of Epeius or Amycus, are no use for any partnership in war, and aren't worth dwelling on. But the holds of upright wrestling — freeing neck, hands, and sides from a grip — worked at with rivalry and steady footing, for the sake of graceful strength and health, these are useful for everything and mustn't be neglected. They should be prescribed for both students and the teachers who will teach them, when we reach that point in our laws — the teachers to give all such things generously, the students to receive them gratefully. Nor should we neglect the fitting imitations found in dances — in this region the armed games of the Curetes, in Lacedaemon those of the Dioscuri. And our own Maiden and Mistress, delighted by the play of the dance, thought it wrong to play with empty hands, and instead, adorned in full armor, carried out her dance that way. Boys and girls alike would do well to imitate this completely, honoring the goddess's grace, both for the needs of war and for festivals. Children, from the very start and for as long as they haven't yet gone to war, should always be adorned with weapons and horses when they approach and process before all the gods, performing their supplications to the gods and the children of gods in dances and marches, sometimes quicker, sometimes slower. And contests and preliminary contests, if there are to be any, should be undertaken for no other purpose than this — for these are useful both in peace and in war, both for the constitution and for private households, while other exertions, games, and pursuits of the body are not fit for free people, Megillus and Cleinias. What I said at the outset needed to be gone through under the name of gymnastics, I have now more or less gone through, and this account of it is complete. But if either of you has something better than this, put it forward for us all to consider. CLEINIAS: It isn't easy, Stranger, to set this aside and say something better about gymnastics and athletic contests. ATHENIAN: What comes next in order concerns what the Muses and Apollo have bestowed. Earlier, supposing everything had been said, we imagined that gymnastics alone remained; but now it's clear both what these gifts are and that they must be spoken of before anything else. Let's discuss them next, then. CLEINIAS: Yes, we certainly must.
ATHENIAN: Listen to me, though you've heard something like this before. Still, whether speaking or listening, one must be especially wary of anything strikingly strange and unfamiliar, and that holds now too. For I'm about to say something not without risk to say, yet even so, having found some courage, I won't hold back. CLEINIAS: What is it you mean, Stranger? ATHENIAN: I say that in every city, everyone has failed to recognize that the business of children's games is of supreme importance for whether the laws that are laid down remain stable or not. For when the same games are fixed and made a shared custom, so that the same children always play in the same way with the same toys and find their delight in the same things, this allows the customs established in earnest to remain undisturbed as well. But when these games are disturbed and constantly made new, always subject to further change, and the young never call the same things dear, and there's no agreement among them about what is fitting and unfitting, whether in the bearing of their own bodies or in other equipment, but instead whoever is always innovating something new and introducing something different from what's customary in shapes, colors, and all such things is especially honored — nothing, we would say, and say most correctly, does greater damage to a city than this. For it secretly shifts the character of the young and makes what is old dishonored among them, and what is new honored. And I say again that no penalty is greater for any city than this saying and this belief. Listen to how great an evil I say this is. CLEINIAS: Do you mean the disparaging of what is ancient in our cities? ATHENIAN: Precisely. CLEINIAS: Then you'll find us no poor audience for this very argument, but as favorably disposed as possible. ATHENIAN: That's likely enough. CLEINIAS: Just say it. ATHENIAN: Come then, let's listen to it more fully from ourselves and say this to one another: we'll find that change in anything, except what is bad, is by far the most treacherous thing there is — in every season, in winds, in the regimen of bodies, in the dispositions of souls — in short, in nothing at all is it not so, except, as I just said, in what is bad. So that if one looks at bodies, how they grow accustomed to all foods, all drinks, and all exertions — even though at first disturbed by them — and then, from these very things, over time, grow flesh suited to them, becoming friendly, familiar, and well known, so that this whole regimen produces the best results for pleasure and health,
ATHENIAN: And if a person is ever forced to change again to some other approved regimen, one who was at first thrown into disorder by illness and only settled down again once he recovered his familiar diet — we must think the same thing happens with people's minds and with the natures of their souls. Whatever laws people are raised on, if by some divine good fortune those laws stay unshaken for long stretches of time, so that not a soul remembers, or has even heard tell, that things ever stood otherwise than they now stand, the whole soul reveres and fears disturbing any of the established order. So the lawgiver needs to find some device, by whatever means, for making this happen in the city. Here is how I find it. Everyone thinks that the games children play as they grow up are simply games, as we said before, and that no great harm or seriousness comes from them, so instead of steering children away from their innovations, people go along, giving in — and they don't reckon with this: that children who introduce novelties into their games are bound to grow into men unlike the men before them, and being different, they will look for a different way of life, and looking for that, they will crave different pursuits and different laws, and after that none of them will fear the arrival of what we just now called the greatest evil for cities. Now changes in other things — the sort that affect mere styles — would produce lesser harm, but whatever shifts often in matters of praise and blame concerning character is, I think, the gravest of all and needs the greatest caution. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then — do we trust our earlier arguments, where we said that matters of rhythm and all music are imitations of the characters of better and worse people? Or how is it? CLEINIAS: That could not possibly be otherwise, at least by our reckoning. ATHENIAN: So then, we say, every device must be devised so that our children will neither desire to take up other patterns of dance or song, nor will anyone persuade them by offering pleasures of every kind. CLEINIAS: Quite right.
ATHENIAN: Does any of us have a better craft for such things than that of the Egyptians? CLEINIAS: What craft do you mean? ATHENIAN: That of consecrating every dance and every song — first arranging the festivals, working out for the year which ones should occur at which times for each of the gods and their children and the spirits, and after that, for each of the sacrifices to the gods, what hymn must be sung, and with what choral dances that particular sacrifice is to be honored — having certain people first lay this down, and then, once it is laid down, the whole citizen body joins in sacrifice, pouring libations to the Fates together with the rest of the gods, and consecrates each song to each god and the rest of the divine beings. And if anyone, apart from this arrangement, introduces other hymns or dances for some god, the priests and priestesses, together with the Guardians of the Laws, are to exclude him — righteously and lawfully — and the one excluded, if he will not be excluded willingly, is to be liable for the rest of his life to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Now that we've arrived at this point in the argument, let's do what is fitting for us. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: Any young person — let alone an older one — who sees or hears anything out of the ordinary, anything wholly unfamiliar, would never agree to settle the puzzle about it just by rushing ahead so readily. Instead he would stop, as if he'd come to a crossroads and didn't quite know the way — whether traveling alone or with others — and he would ask himself and the others about the puzzle, and would not set off before he had somehow confirmed by inquiry which way the road actually led. We ought to do the same thing now. Since a strange topic concerning laws has just come up, we surely must give it every consideration, and not, at our age, glibly assert with great confidence that we can say anything clear about such important matters on the spot. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So we'll give this time, and confirm it only once we've examined it adequately. But so we aren't prevented, for nothing, from completing the sequence of laws we're now engaged with, let's go on to their conclusion. For perhaps, god willing, this entire exposition, once brought fully to its end, might also clarify the very point now in question. CLEINIAS: Excellently said, Stranger — let's do just as you say.
ATHENIAN: Let it be settled, then, we say, this strange thing — that our songs have become laws, and that, as it seems, the ancients in their day gave that same name, in a way, to their citharodic performances — so that perhaps even they were not entirely far from what is now being said, someone dreaming it, so to speak, in sleep, or even divining it half-awake. Let this, then, be our judgment on it: beyond the public songs, the sacred ones, and the whole choral performance of the young, no one is to utter any other song, nor move in any other dance, more than he would break any other law. Whoever complies goes free of penalty; the disobedient, as we just said, the Guardians of the Laws shall chastise, together with the priestesses and priests. Shall this now be laid down by us in argument? CLEINIAS: Let it be laid down. ATHENIAN: In what way, then, could someone legislate about these matters without becoming utterly ridiculous? Let's look further at this point. The safest thing is to first mold, in speech, certain models for them, as if casting a mold. Let me say that one such model is something like this: when a sacrifice has taken place and the offerings have been burned according to law, if — we say — someone standing there privately by the altars and offerings, a son or a brother, utters every kind of blasphemy, wouldn't we say he instills despair and an evil omen and foreboding in his father and the rest of the household? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well, in our own regions this happens in cities, one might almost say, in nearly all of them: whenever some magistracy holds a public sacrifice, afterward not one chorus but a multitude of choruses arrives, and standing not far from the altars but sometimes right beside them, they pour out every kind of blasphemy upon the sacred rites, straining the souls of the listeners with words and rhythms and the most mournful harmonies — and whoever manages to make the sacrificing city burst into tears on the spot carries off the prize. Shall we not vote this custom down? And if citizens must ever be exposed to such lamentations, on days that are not pure but rather ill-omened, then surely it would be more fitting for some hired choruses to come in from outside, singers hired for the purpose, the way people hire mourners to escort the dead with a Carian kind of music. Something of that sort would be fitting for such songs too, and indeed the proper dress for funeral dirges would surely not be garlands or gilded ornaments, but quite the opposite — so that I can be done with the subject as quickly as possible. But I still want to ask this much again — shall this be our first point of agreement among the models for songs? CLEINIAS: Which point?
ATHENIAN: Good omen — let the very type of our song be, in every respect, of good omen throughout? Or should I not even ask, but simply lay this down as settled? CLEINIAS: Lay it down without question — this law carries every single vote. ATHENIAN: What, then, would be the second law of music after good omen? Surely that there be prayers to the gods to whom we sacrifice on each occasion? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: The third law, I think, is this — that poets, knowing that prayers are requests addressed to the gods, must take great care never unknowingly to ask for something bad while thinking it good; for it would be a ridiculous predicament, I think, if such a prayer were actually granted. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Weren't we persuaded a little earlier in our discussion that neither silver wealth nor gold ought to be established and dwell within a city? CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: For what, then, shall we say that argument was given as an example? Isn't it this — that the tribe of poets is not, as a whole, capable of adequately discerning what is good and what is not? So a poet, having composed something mistaken in this respect, in words or even in melody — improper prayers — will have our citizens asking the gods for the very reverse of what they ought, in matters of the greatest weight. And yet, as we said, we won't find many mistakes graver than this one. Shall we then set this down too as one of our laws and models concerning music? CLEINIAS: Which one? Tell us more clearly. ATHENIAN: That the poet is to compose nothing contrary to what the city holds lawful, just, noble, or good, and that what he composes may not be shown to any private person before it has been shown to and approved by the judges appointed for these matters and by the Guardians of the Laws — and we have already, more or less, appointed as such the men we chose as lawgivers over music and the overseer of education. Well then — as I keep asking — shall this be laid down as our third law and model? CLEINIAS: Let it be laid down — of course. ATHENIAN: After this, hymns to the gods and encomia joined together with prayers would most rightly be sung, and after the gods, in the same way, prayers joined with encomia would be fitting for spirits and heroes as well. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And right after this, the following law could arise at once, free of ill will: whichever citizens have reached the end of life, having accomplished noble and laborious deeds of body or of soul, and having been obedient to the laws, it would be fitting for them to receive encomia. CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: But it is not safe to honor with encomia and hymns those who are still living, before someone has run the whole course of life and brought it to a noble close. Let all this be held in common for men and women alike who have shown themselves manifestly good. As for songs and dances, they should be established in this way. There exist many fine poems, old works of the old poets, in music, and likewise dances for the body, from which there is no ill will in selecting whatever is fitting and suited to the constitution now being established. Those chosen to judge these should make their selection being no younger than fifty years old, and whatever among the old poems seems adequate they should approve, while whatever falls short or is altogether unsuitable they should either reject entirely or, upon reconsideration, revise — bringing in poets and musicians to help, making use of their poetic gifts, but not entrusting matters to their pleasures and desires except in a few cases, and explaining to them the lawgiver's wishes, so that they may compose dance, song, and every choral performance as much as possible according to his intent. Any pursuit of music, even one lacking the sweet Muse's seasoning, is immeasurably better once it has taken on order, rather than disorder — for pleasantness is common to all kinds alike. For whoever lives from childhood to a settled and sensible age amid a disciplined and orderly music, and then hears its opposite, hates it and calls it ignoble; but one raised on the common, sweet kind calls the opposite of that cold and unpleasant. So, as was just said, neither type has the advantage in terms of pleasure or unpleasantness — but one type, beyond that, makes those raised in it better, and the other makes them worse. CLEINIAS: Well said. ATHENIAN: Further, it would be necessary to distinguish, by some sort of pattern, which songs are fitting for women and which for men, and it is necessary to fit them to harmonies and rhythms accordingly; for it is a terrible thing to clash with an entire harmony, or to be out of rhythm, by assigning to melodies elements that don't belong to them at all. So it is necessary to legislate the outlines of these things too. Both sexes must, by necessity, be assigned certain elements common to both, but the elements proper to women, differing by the very nature of each sex, must be made clear as such. So the grand and the inclination toward courage must be called masculine, while what leans more toward the orderly and the modest must be handed down, in law and in speech, as more characteristically feminine.
ATHENIAN: That, then, is a kind of arrangement. Next let's talk about how these things are taught and handed down—in what manner, by whom, and when each of them should be practiced. Take a shipbuilder: when he lays the keel to begin building a ship, he sketches out the shape of the vessel first. That's exactly what I seem to be doing—trying to lay out the shapes that lives take, according to the different characters of souls, truly laying down their keels, asking by what device and in what ways, living together, we might best make our way across through this voyage of life. That's the question to look at properly. Now, human affairs aren't worth taking all that seriously, yet we're forced to take them seriously—and that's not a happy state of affairs. But since we find ourselves here, if we could somehow do this in a fitting way, that might suit us well enough. What do I mean by that? Someone might reasonably catch me up on it. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: I say we should take seriously what's serious, and not take seriously what isn't; and that by nature god is worthy of all blessed seriousness, while man, as we said before, has been devised as a kind of plaything of god—and that is in fact the best thing about him. Every man and woman, then, should live out life following this pattern, playing the finest games possible, holding the opposite view from what's held now. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: Nowadays people think serious pursuits should exist for the sake of play—they think the business of war, being serious, must be conducted well for the sake of peace. But in fact war never was, and never will be, either play or genuine education worth the name—and education is what we say is most serious of all for us. Each of us must live out the life of peace as fully and as well as possible. What's the right way to do that? To live playing at certain games—sacrificing, singing, and dancing—so as to be able to win the gods' favor and to ward off enemies and win when fighting them.
ATHENIAN: As for what songs and dances one should perform to do both these things, the outline has been given, and the paths, so to speak, have been cut for us to follow, trusting also that the poet spoke well when he said: 'Telemachus, some things you will think out yourself in your own heart, and other things a god will suggest; for I do not think you were born and raised without the will of the gods.' Our young charges should think in just this way: that what has already been said should be considered sufficient, but that a guiding spirit—a god—will also suggest to them further things about sacrifices and dances, telling them for which gods and when they should perform each rite, playing and propitiating according to the way of their nature, since they are, for the most part, mere playthings, yet sharing in some small measure of truth. MEGILLUS: Stranger, you're running down the human race altogether! ATHENIAN: Don't be surprised, Megillus, but forgive me: I said what I said just now with my eye and my feeling fixed on god. Let our race, if you like, not be a trivial thing, but one worthy of some seriousness. As for what comes next: we've spoken of building shared gymnasiums and schoolhouses in three places at the center of the city, and outside, near the town, three riding-grounds and open spaces equipped for archery and other missile practice, for the learning and training of the young. If these weren't described adequately before, let them now be set down in the account, along with the laws. In all these places, there should be teachers, persuaded by pay to live there as resident foreigners, teaching everything relating to war to those who attend, and everything relating to music too—not that a boy attends if his father wishes it and stays away if he doesn't, but rather, as the saying goes, every man and child, so far as possible, must be educated by necessity, since they belong to the city more than to their parents. My law would say the very same applies to females as to males—that women should be trained equally in the same things. And I'd say this without any fear, regarding both horsemanship and gymnastics: that what's fitting for men would be fitting for women too.
ATHENIAN: From hearing old stories I've come to believe it, and as for the present day, I know—one might almost say—that there are countless thousands of women around the Black Sea, called Sauromatians, who are assigned, equally with the men, a share not only in horsemanship but in archery and other weapons, and who practice these equally. And beyond that I have this further reasoning to offer on the matter: I say that if these things can actually happen as described, then it's the height of folly that in our own regions men and women don't, with all their strength and with one accord, pursue the very same practices. For as things stand, nearly every city is, in effect, only half a city instead of double what it could be, given the same expenses and labors—and yet this would be a truly astonishing mistake for a lawgiver to make. CLEINIAS: So it seems. Still, we have a great many customs, Stranger, that go against what's usually said in cities today. But since you said you'd let the argument run its course, and once it had run well, then decide what seems right—you put that quite gracefully, and you've made me now reproach myself for having said what I did. So go on and say what comes next, whatever pleases you. ATHENIAN: What pleases me, Cleinias, is what I said before: if this hadn't been sufficiently proven in practice to be possible, then perhaps there'd be room to object to the argument. But as it stands, whoever refuses to accept this law must look for some other objection, while our own charge in these matters won't be silenced—that the female sex must share as fully as possible in education and in everything else with the male sex. And here's how we should think about it: if women don't share the whole of life in common with men, isn't there necessarily some other arrangement for them? CLEINIAS: There must be. ATHENIAN: Then which of the arrangements we've already described should we set up for them, in place of the sharing we're now prescribing? Should it be the one the Thracians use for their women, and many other peoples too—farming, herding cattle, tending sheep, and serving, no differently from slaves? Or the one that we and everyone around our region use? As things stand with us, this is how it goes: we've gathered all the property into one household, so to speak, and handed it over to the women to manage—to control the shuttle and all the wool-work.
ATHENIAN: Or shall we say, Megillus, that the Laconian way falls between these two? Girls should live sharing in gymnastics and music alike, while grown women should be freed from wool-work but should weave a life of exercise that's neither trivial nor cheap, arriving at some middle course between housekeeping, managing the stores, and raising children—yet not sharing in war, so that if some necessity ever arose to fight for the city and for their children, they wouldn't be able to handle a bow, as certain Amazons do, or take part with skill in any other kind of missile-throwing, nor could they take up shield and spear to imitate the goddess, standing nobly against the enemy if their homeland were being ravaged, and so at least strike fear, if nothing more, into their enemies by being seen drawn up in some formation. Such women could never even dare to imitate the Sauromatian way of life; compared to their own women, the men there would look like women! So let whoever wishes praise your lawgivers for this; my own view can be put no other way: the lawgiver must be whole, not half, when he legislates—he shouldn't let the female half go soft and wasteful, living carelessly, while taking care only of the male, and so leave the city with only half of a happy life instead of double. MEGILLUS: Cleinias, how are we to respond? Are we simply going to let the stranger trample our Sparta this way? CLEINIAS: Yes—since we've given him freedom of speech, we must let it be until we've gone through the laws fully and adequately. MEGILLUS: You're right. ATHENIAN: Then is it now my turn to try to state what comes next? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: What way of life, then, would be fitting for people whose basic needs are modestly provided for, whose crafts have been handed over to others, whose farming is entrusted to slaves who render a sufficient portion of the produce of the land to people living in an orderly way, and who have common meals set up—separate ones for the men, and nearby, close by, the ones for their own household members, for the girls together with their mothers—
ATHENIAN: while the men and women officials are charged with dismissing each of these common meals every day, once they've observed and looked over the conduct of the gathering, and then, after pouring libations to whatever god the current night and day happen to be dedicated to, along with the official presiding, everyone proceeds home in that fashion? For people arranged in this way, is there truly no necessary and altogether fitting work left for them, but must each of them simply live fattening himself like cattle? We say that's neither just nor good, nor is it possible for someone living that way to fail to get what's fitting for him—and what's fitting for a lazy, idly-fattened creature is pretty much to be torn apart by some other creature, one that's been thoroughly toughened through courage and hard labor. Now, if we sought this out with full precision, as we're doing now, it could perhaps never be fully realized, so long as women and children and private homes exist, and everything of that sort is set up privately for each of us. But if what comes next as a second-best could be achieved for us, it would come about quite reasonably. We say that for people living this way, the task left to them is not the smallest or least significant, but the greatest of all, imposed by a just law: for while the pursuit of victory at Pytho or Olympia leaves a person no leisure at all for anything else, the life devoted—quite rightly—to the care of body and soul together for the sake of virtue is filled with twice that much occupation, and far more besides. No side-task should be allowed to hinder the other tasks proper to the body, in repaying its labors and nourishment, nor those proper to the soul, in learning and habituation—indeed, nearly every night and day together is not enough for someone pursuing this very thing, to grasp it fully and adequately. Given that this is how things stand by nature, there must be an order established for all free people covering the whole of their time, beginning roughly at dawn and continuing right through to the next dawn and sunrise. A lawgiver would appear rather unseemly going on at great length about many small details of household management, including matters of nighttime wakefulness, appropriate for those who are going to guard the whole city with precision throughout.
ATHENIAN: For any citizen at all to sleep through an entire night without ever being seen awake and up before all the household staff — this must be considered shameful, unworthy of a free person, whether we call such a rule a law or simply a practice. And a mistress of the house being woken by her maidservants, instead of being the first to wake the others — this is something a male slave, a female slave, and a child should all say to themselves is shameful, and indeed the whole household, every member of it, if that were possible. Once awake at night, everyone should attend to a good share of both public and private business — officials in their posts across the city, masters and mistresses in their own homes. Too much sleep suits neither our bodies nor our souls, nor the actions bound up with them, if we're speaking naturally. A sleeping person is worth nothing, no more than someone who isn't alive at all; but whoever among us cares most about living and thinking clearly stays awake as long as possible, keeping back only what sleep is useful for health — and that isn't much, once it becomes a settled habit. Officials awake at night in a city are frightening to wrongdoers, both enemies and citizens alike, but admired and honored by the just and self-controlled, and a benefit to themselves and to the whole city together. A night spent in this way, on top of everything else we've said, would instill a kind of courage in the soul of everyone in the city. When day comes and people rise at dawn, children should head off to their teachers — no flock of sheep, or anything else, should go about without a shepherd, and certainly children should not go about without some attendants, nor slaves without masters. Of all creatures the child is the hardest to handle, precisely because the spring of reasoning in him is not yet regulated — he becomes the most cunning, sharp, and unruly of all creatures. That's why he must be curbed, as it were, with many kinds of reins: first, once he's taken from his nurses and mother, by attendants for the sake of his childishness and immaturity, and further by teachers in whatever subject or lesson, treating him as a free person — yet also as a slave, in the sense that any free man who comes upon him should punish the child himself, along with his attendant or teacher, if any of them does something wrong.
ATHENIAN: And if, on the other hand, someone who comes upon such a case fails to punish it as it deserves, let him first be subject to the greatest reproach; and let the guardian of the laws chosen to oversee the rearing of children keep watch on this bystander we're speaking of, whether he fails to punish when he should, or punishes in the wrong way — let him look sharply and, taking particular care over the upbringing of children, straighten out their natures, always turning them toward the good in accordance with the laws. But how could the law itself adequately train this official? As it stands, the law has said nothing clear or sufficient on this — some things, yes, others no. It must, so far as possible, leave nothing out for him, but spell out every point fully, so that he in turn can serve as both interpreter and nurturer for the rest. Now, regarding choral dance — songs and dancing — we've said what form they should take when chosen, corrected, and consecrated. But as for writings — prose, without meter — what kind, and in what manner, you ought to handle them for those in your care, best of guardians of children, we have not yet said. And yet, as for what pertains to war, what they must learn and practice, you have that in what's already been said, and as for letters, first, and second, the lyre and calculation, which we said each of them needs to grasp so far as it bears on war, household management, and the administration of the city — and beyond these, whatever is useful concerning the cycles of the heavens, the stars, sun and moon, whatever a city must necessarily manage regarding them — what do we mean by this? The ordering of days into cycles of months, and months into each year, so that the seasons, sacrifices, and festivals, each receiving what belongs to it, conducted according to nature, keep the city alive and awake, rendering the gods their honors and making people more thoughtful about these things — none of this, my friend, has yet been adequately laid out for you by the lawgiver. So pay attention to what's about to be said next. We said you weren't yet adequately equipped concerning letters, the first subject — what fault did we find with the statement? This: that it hasn't yet told you whether the future citizen of moderate means should pursue precision in this subject, or not take it up at all; and the same for the lyre. But we do say now that it should be taken up.
ATHENIAN: For letters, roughly three years is right for a ten-year-old child; for taking up the lyre, the proper time to begin is at thirteen, and to continue for another three years. Neither the father nor the child himself, whether the child loves the subject or hates it, is permitted, in defiance of the law, either to lengthen this time or to shorten it. Whoever disobeys shall be deprived of the honors due to education, which we'll state a little later. But what exactly the young must learn in this time, and what the teachers in turn must teach — learn this yourself first. As for letters, the aim should be to become capable of writing and reading; but as for speed or beauty of hand being perfected in those whose nature hasn't caught up within the years set, let that go. As for the subjects composed in writing without the lyre — some in meter, others without the divisions of rhythm, works of prose set down as bare statements, lacking rhythm and harmony — these writings, left to us by many such ordinary people, are treacherous. What will you do with them, best of guardians of the laws? Or what would the lawgiver rightly prescribe that you use? I expect he'll be quite at a loss. CLEINIAS: What is this, stranger — you seem genuinely at a loss with yourself as you say this? ATHENIAN: You've understood correctly, Cleinias. Since you are partners with me in this matter of laws, I have no choice but to say both what seems easy and what I can't yet say clearly. CLEINIAS: Well then — what exactly do you mean, and what is troubling you here? ATHENIAN: I'll tell you. It's never easy to speak against countless mouths at once. CLEINIAS: What? Do you think what we've said so far about the laws is some small, minor thing, contrary to popular opinion? ATHENIAN: What you say is quite true. You're urging me — or so it seems to me — since the same path has already made many enemies, and perhaps no fewer friends among others (and if fewer, certainly no worse), to press on boldly, taking the risk, along this path of lawgiving now cut by our present arguments, without holding back. CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: Well then, I won't hold back. I say this: there are poets among us, quite a number of them, composing in hexameters, in trimeters, and in every so-called meter, some aiming at seriousness, others at comedy, in whose works, the countless many say, those being properly educated among the young ought to be raised and saturated, made well-read through constant recitation and widely learned, memorizing whole poets word for word. Others, selecting the chief points from all of them and gathering certain whole passages into one collection, say these must be memorized and committed to memory, if a person is to turn out good and wise through wide experience and broad learning. Are you now telling me to speak frankly and declare what these people say rightly and what not? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: What single statement, then, could I make about all of this that would be adequate? I think it's roughly this, and everyone would agree with me: every one of these poets has spoken finely in many places and, in many others, quite the reverse. And if that's so, I say wide learning brings danger for children. CLEINIAS: Then what would you advise the guardian of the laws? ATHENIAN: Concerning what, exactly? CLEINIAS: Concerning what model he should look to in deciding to let all the young learn one thing, and to forbid another. Speak, and don't hold back from saying it. ATHENIAN: My good Cleinias, it seems I've been rather fortunate in one respect. CLEINIAS: In what way? ATHENIAN: In not being entirely at a loss for a model. For now, looking back at the discussions we've gone through from dawn until this very moment — and it seems to me, not without some inspiration from the gods — they struck me as remarkably like a kind of poetry. And perhaps it's no wonder some feeling came over me, seeing our own words gathered together all at once, and taking great pleasure in it; for of all the many discourses I've learned and heard, in poems or spoken so freely in prose, these seemed to me by far the most measured and the most fitting for young people to hear. I couldn't propose a better model to the guardian of children and the teacher than this: to instruct the teachers to teach the children these very words, and whatever is akin and similar to them, and if they should happen upon poets' poems, or things written in prose, or even just things spoken plainly without being written down, akin to these discourses of ours, never to let them go, but to have them written down.
ATHENIAN: And first, to compel the teachers themselves to learn and approve of them, and not to employ as colleagues any of the teachers who don't please them, but to use those who agree with their approval, handing the young over to them to teach and educate. Let this be the end of my account here, spoken about both letter-teachers and letters together. CLEINIAS: As far as the plan goes, stranger, it doesn't seem to me that we've strayed outside the arguments we set out; but whether we're getting it entirely right or not is perhaps hard to say for certain. ATHENIAN: Yes, Cleinias — that will become clearer, as is likely, when, as we've often said, we reach the end of the whole survey concerning the laws. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: After the letter-teacher, shouldn't we now turn to the lyre-teacher? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: I think we should recall our earlier discussions and assign to the lyre-teachers the appropriate share of both the teaching itself and of the whole education connected with such things. CLEINIAS: What are you referring to? ATHENIAN: We said, I believe, that the sixty-year-old singers of Dionysus need to have become especially keen in perceiving rhythms and the structures of harmonies, so that someone able to select, among the imitations of melody — the well-imitated and the badly imitated — when the soul is caught up in the feelings represented, the likenesses of the good and of its opposite, could reject the latter, and bring the former forward into the open, singing and chanting them into the souls of the young, calling on each of them to follow after the acquisition of virtue by way of these imitations. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: For this purpose, then, both the lyre-teacher and the pupil must make use of the notes of the lyre for the sake of clarity in the strings, matching note to note in unison. But as for the lyre's variation and elaboration — when the strings sound one melody and the poet who composed the song another, producing concord and discord by setting density against sparseness, speed against slowness, high pitch against low, and likewise fitting all sorts of rhythmic variations to the notes of the lyre — none of this should be brought to those who are to grasp the useful part of music within three years, and quickly. For opposites clashing with each other make learning difficult, and the young must be as capable of learning as possible; for the required lessons imposed on them are neither few nor small, as the argument will show as it proceeds in time.
ATHENIAN: So, on those terms, let our educator take charge of music for us. As for the tunes themselves and the words — what the chorus-masters are to teach, and what sort of pieces — all of that too we went through fully earlier: the pieces we said must be consecrated, each fitted to its festival, so as to hand cities a fortunate pleasure and do them good. CLEINIAS: True — you have gone through that as well. ATHENIAN: Perfectly true, then. Let the man elected to preside over the Muse take this over and attend to it, with kindly fortune at his side; and let us, in addition to what has been said before, deal now with dance and the whole gymnastic training of the body. Just as we supplied what was still missing on the teaching side of music, let us do the same for gymnastics. The boys and the girls must learn to dance and to exercise, must they not? CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: Then for the boys, dancing-masters, and for the girls, dancing-mistresses, would be none the less suitable for putting them through their work. CLEINIAS: Let it be so. ATHENIAN: Then let us call back the man who will have the most business on his hands, the supervisor of children, who, in caring for both music and gymnastics, will not have much leisure. CLEINIAS: How will he be able, at his age, to oversee so much? ATHENIAN: Easily, my friend. The law has given him, and will give him, leave to take on for this supervision whichever of the citizens he wishes, men and women; he will know whom he needs, and he will want to make no false step here, sensibly respecting and recognizing the magnitude of his office, and holding to the reasoning that when the young have been and are being well brought up, everything sails on course for us — but if not... it is not worth saying, and we do not say it, about a new city, out of regard for the great lovers of omens. On these subjects too we have already said a great deal — about dancing and about all gymnastic movement; for we count as gymnastics all bodily exercise bearing on war: archery and every kind of throwing, skirmishing with the light shield and every form of fighting in heavy arms, tactical maneuvers, every sort of marching of armies and pitching of camps, and all the studies that bear on horsemanship.
ATHENIAN: For all these there must be public teachers, drawing pay from the city, and their pupils must be the boys and men in the city — and the girls and women too must understand all of it: while still girls they should have practiced every dance and combat in armor, and as women they should have a grasp of maneuvers and formations and the laying down and taking up of arms — if for nothing else, then for this: should the entire fighting force ever be compelled to march out of the city in full strength, those left behind to guard the children and the rest of the city would at least be equal to that task. Or the opposite — and none of this can be sworn off as impossible — enemies from outside, barbarian or Greek, bursting in with some great strength and violence, and forcing the decisive fight for the city itself: it would surely be a great vice in a constitution if its women had been raised so disgracefully that they would not even do what mother-birds do, fighting the strongest beasts for their chicks — willing to die and to run every risk — but instead rushed straight to the shrines, crowding every altar and temple, and poured over the human race the reputation of being by nature the most cowardly of all creatures. CLEINIAS: No, by Zeus, stranger — quite apart from the harm, that would be an unseemly thing wherever in a city it happened. ATHENIAN: Then shall we lay down this law — that women must not neglect the business of war to at least that degree, and that all citizens, men and women, must attend to it? CLEINIAS: I, for one, agree. ATHENIAN: Now, wrestling: we have spoken of parts of it, but what is greatest, as I would put it, we have not said — nor is it easy to state in words without showing it with the body at the same time. This, then, we shall judge when word can follow deed and make something clear — both about the other points we have raised, and that this kind of wrestling is truly, of all movements, by far the closest kin to fighting in war; and further, that it must be practiced for war's sake, not war learned for wrestling's sake. CLEINIAS: Well said, that. ATHENIAN: Then let this be the limit, for now, of what we say about the powers of the wrestling-ground. As for the rest of the movement of the whole body — the greater part of which one would rightly call a kind of dancing — we must consider it to have two forms: one imitating finer bodies with a view to dignity, the other imitating uglier bodies with a view to the base; and again two subdivisions of the base and two of the serious.
ATHENIAN: Of the serious kind, one imitates fine bodies and a courageous soul entangled in war and in violent labors; the other, a temperate soul in prosperity, amid measured pleasures — this one a person would naturally call, by its nature, the peaceful dance. The warlike one, distinct from the peaceful, one would rightly name the pyrrhic: it imitates the evasion of all blows and missiles — by swerving, by every kind of yielding, by leaping high and by crouching low — and also the movements opposite to these, carried into aggressive postures, attempting the mimicry of the shooting of bows and of javelins and of blows of every sort. In these dances, when the imitation is of good bodies and souls, the upright and the taut is right — the limbs of the body held for the most part in straight lines; such carriage is correct, and what is contrary to it we do not accept as correct. As for the peaceful dance, this is the way to examine it in each case: whether a performer, grasping the nature of fine dancing correctly or not, keeps it up in his choruses in the manner befitting law-abiding men. First, then, we must cut the disputed dancing apart from the undisputed. What is the disputed kind, and how should the two be separated? All Bacchic dancing and what goes with it, in which, naming Nymphs and Pans and Silenuses and Satyrs — so they say — people imitate drunken revelers while performing certain purifications and initiations: this whole class of dancing cannot easily be defined either as peaceful or as warlike, or as to what it does mean. The most correct way to define it, it seems to me, is this: setting it apart from the warlike and apart from the peaceful, to say that this class of dancing is not civic; and having left it lying there where it lies, let us now return to the warlike and the peaceful together, as belonging to us beyond dispute. Now what belongs to the unwarlike Muse — people honoring the gods and the children of the gods in dances — would form one whole class, arising in the conviction of faring well; and this we may divide in two: one part, of those who have escaped out of toils and dangers into good things, holds greater pleasures; the other, where former goods are being preserved and increased, possesses pleasures gentler than those.
ATHENIAN: In such states, I suppose, every human being moves the body's motions more largely when the pleasures are greater, and less when they are smaller; and the more orderly a man is, and the better trained toward courage, the smaller his motions, while the coward, and the man untrained in temperance, produces greater and more violent swings of movement. In general, no one giving voice, whether in song or in speech, is quite able to keep his body still. That is why the imitation of what is spoken, carried out through gestures, produced the whole art of dancing. In all this, one of us moves in tune, another out of tune. And indeed many of the old names deserve to be reflected on and praised as well and naturally given; among them is the one for the dances of people who fare well and keep measure toward their pleasures — how rightly and how musically he named them, whoever he was, who reasonably gave a name to them all together and called them emmeleiai, the graceful measures. And he set down two forms of the fine dances: the warlike, the pyrrhic; and the peaceful, the emmeleia — giving each the fitting and harmonious name. These the lawgiver must set out in outline, and the guardian of the laws must search for; and having tracked them down, he must combine the dancing with the rest of the music, assign to every festival of the sacrifices the portion appropriate to each, and, having consecrated it all in fixed order, must thereafter change nothing that pertains to either dance or song. In the same pleasures, in the same fashion, the city and its citizens are to pass their days, remaining as alike as possible, and so live well and happily. What concerns the choruses of fine bodies and noble souls, then — what we said such performances must be like — is now complete. But the doings of ugly bodies and ugly thoughts, and of performers turned to comic mockery in laughter — mocking in speech, song, and dance, and in the caricatures all these afford — these it is necessary to observe and to recognize. For without the ridiculous the serious cannot be learned, nor any opposite without its opposite, if a man is to be wise; but one cannot do both, if one is to share in even a small piece of virtue. That is precisely why one must learn these things: so as never, through ignorance, to do or say what is ridiculous when there is no need. Such mimicry must be assigned to slaves and hired foreigners; no serious attention is ever to be paid to it in any way; no free person, woman or man, is to be found learning it; and there must always be something new in the show of these imitations.
ATHENIAN: So, as for the amusements of laughter, which we all call comedy, let that stand as settled by law and by argument. As for our so-called serious poets, the tragedians — suppose some of them came to us one day and put a question something like this: Strangers, may we visit your city and your country, or not? And may we bring our poetry along and perform it? Or how have you decided to act about such things? What would be the right answer for us to give these inspired men? In my view, this: Best of strangers, we ourselves are poets of a tragedy — the finest and best we can achieve. Our whole constitution stands as an imitation of the finest and best life, which we at least assert to be, in reality, the truest tragedy. You are poets, then — but we too are poets of the same things: your rivals in art and your competitors in the finest drama, which true law alone is fitted by nature to bring to completion — such is our hope. So do not imagine that we will ever lightly permit you to pitch your stages in our marketplace and bring on your fine-voiced actors, out-shouting us, and let you harangue our children and women and the whole crowd — saying about the very same practices not what we say, but for the most part the exact opposite. We should be all but stark mad, we and the entire city, if it allowed you to do what you now propose, before the magistrates had judged whether your compositions are fit and proper to be spoken in public or not. So now, you children, offspring of the soft Muses: first show your songs to the rulers alongside ours, and if what you say proves the same as ours or better, we will grant you a chorus; but if not, friends, we never could. Such, then, are the practices the law shall establish around all choral performance and the learning of these things — those of slaves kept separate from those of masters — if you agree. CLEINIAS: How could we not agree, now at least, on these terms?
ATHENIAN: Now then, there are three further subjects of learning for free people: calculation and the study of numbers form one subject; measuring length, surface, and depth forms a second; and third is the study of how the stars naturally move in relation to one another. Not everyone needs to pursue all these with precision, but only a select few — who those should be, we'll say as we go along, since that's the fitting place for it. But for the mass of people, it's shameful not to know whatever of these subjects is necessary and, in a sense, most correctly stated, while to seek precision in all of it is neither easy nor entirely possible. The necessary part of it, though, can't simply be set aside. It seems the man who first coined the saying about god had this in mind when he said that not even god is ever seen fighting against necessity — meaning, I think, those necessities that are divine; as for the human kind of necessity, the kind most people have in mind when they use that phrase, that's by far the silliest thing anyone could say. CLEINIAS: Then which necessities in these studies are not of that human sort, but divine, Stranger? ATHENIAN: I think they're the ones such that, if a person neither practices nor learns them at all, he could never become a god among men, nor a spirit, nor a hero capable of taking earnest care of human beings. A man would fall far short of becoming divine if he can't recognize one, two, or three, or odd and even numbers generally, if he has no idea how to count at all, if he can't even count night and day, and has no acquaintance with the revolutions of the moon, the sun, and the other stars. It's utter foolishness to think that all this isn't necessary learning for someone who's going to know virtually any of the finest subjects. But which of these particular topics, how much of each, and when they should be learned, and what should be studied together with what, and what separately from the rest, and the whole blending of them — these are the things one must first get right, and then, guided by them, go on to learn the rest. That's simply how necessity, by nature, has laid hold of things — the necessity we say no god fights against now or ever will. CLEINIAS: What you're saying now does seem, Stranger, to be correctly said and in keeping with nature. ATHENIAN: Yes, that's how it is, Cleinias — but it's difficult to set these things down first and then legislate in that manner. Let's, if you agree, legislate about them more precisely at another time. CLEINIAS: You seem to us, Stranger, to be wary of our habitual inexperience in such matters. But you're wrong to be wary — try to speak without holding anything back on that account.
ATHENIAN: I am indeed wary of what you just mentioned, but I'm even more afraid of those who've taken up these very subjects, but taken them up badly. Nowhere is sheer inexperience of everything a terrible or serious thing, nor the greatest evil — rather, wide experience and much learning combined with bad upbringing turn out to be a far greater harm than that. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: Well then, we should say that free people need to learn as much of each subject as the vast crowd of children in Egypt learn alongside their letters. First, in the matter of calculation, there are lessons devised expressly for children, to be learned with play and pleasure — distributing some apples or wreaths among larger or smaller numbers of people using the same total, or arranging in turn and in sequence the byes and pairings of boxers and wrestlers, according to how these naturally fall out. And in their games, too, mixing together bowls of gold, bronze, silver, and other such metals, or sometimes handing out whole sets — as I said, fitting the uses of the necessary numbers into play — they benefit those who learn them, both for arranging and marching and campaigning with armies, and again for household management, and in general they render a person handier in his own affairs and more wide awake. After that, in matters of measurement — of lengths, widths, and depths — they free people from an ignorance that's naturally present in absolutely everyone, and that's both ridiculous and shameful. CLEINIAS: Ignorance of what sort, exactly? ATHENIAN: Dear Cleinias, when I myself heard about our condition in this regard, quite late in life, I was utterly astonished, and it seemed to me not the sort of thing that befits human beings at all, but rather some kind of pig-like creatures, and I felt ashamed — not only for myself, but for all the Greeks. CLEINIAS: About what? Tell me what you mean, Stranger. ATHENIAN: I will tell you — or rather, I'll show you by questioning you. Just answer me a small question: you know what length is? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And width? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And that these are two things, and depth is a third besides them? CLEINIAS: Naturally. ATHENIAN: Now don't you think all of these are measurable against one another? CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And length against length, and width against width, and depth likewise — these, I think, can naturally be measured against their own kind. CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: But if some of them can be measured against each other only in some cases and not in others — while you suppose all of them can — how do you think you stand with regard to this? CLEINIAS: Clearly, in poor shape. ATHENIAN: And what about length and width measured against depth, or width and length against each other? Don't all of us Greeks think, on this matter, that they can somehow be measured against one another? CLEINIAS: We certainly do. ATHENIAN: But if this is in fact nowhere and in no way possible, and yet all Greeks, as I said, think it is possible, isn't it worth feeling ashamed on behalf of everyone and saying to them: Best of the Greeks, isn't this one of those things we said it was shameful not to know, while knowing the merely necessary things is nothing especially fine? CLEINIAS: Of course it is. ATHENIAN: And besides this there are other, related matters, in which we fall into further mistakes akin to those. CLEINIAS: What sort? ATHENIAN: The question of the natural relation between measurable and unmeasurable quantities. Anyone who examines these matters must learn to distinguish them, or else be utterly base — proposing such problems to one another constantly, spending time on a pastime far more graceful than old men's game of checkers, and competing eagerly in leisure hours worthy of the effort. CLEINIAS: Perhaps so — at any rate checkers and these studies don't seem terribly far apart from one another. ATHENIAN: Well then, Cleinias, I say the young must learn these things; for they're neither harmful nor difficult, and learned alongside play they'll benefit us and do our city no harm at all. But if anyone thinks otherwise, we should hear him out. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well, if it turns out that these matters stand as I've described, clearly we'll admit them into the curriculum; if they turn out not to stand that way, they'll be rejected. CLEINIAS: Clearly — of course. ATHENIAN: Then, Stranger, shall we now set these down as being among the required subjects, so our laws aren't left with gaps? Let them be set down, though, as pledges that can be redeemed out of the rest of the constitution, in case they fail to satisfy either us who laid them down, or you who adopted them. CLEINIAS: A fair way to put it. ATHENIAN: Next, look at the teaching of astronomy for the young, and see whether what's said pleases us or not. CLEINIAS: Just say it. ATHENIAN: Well, there's a great marvel about these matters, one that's in no way, in no respect, tolerable.
CLEINIAS: What sort of thing? ATHENIAN: We say that no one should investigate or busy himself searching out the causes concerning the greatest god and the whole cosmos — since that wouldn't even be reverent — yet it seems the exact opposite of this would be the right course. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: What I'm saying sounds paradoxical, and one wouldn't think it fitting for old men to say — but the fact is, once someone believes some subject is fine and true, beneficial to the city, and altogether pleasing to god, there's no way he can then keep from speaking of it. CLEINIAS: That's reasonable. But what such subject shall we find concerning the stars? ATHENIAN: Good friends, we — practically all of us Greeks — are telling lies about the great gods, the Sun and the Moon together. CLEINIAS: What lie do you mean? ATHENIAN: We say that they never travel the same path, and along with them certain other stars, and we call them 'wanderers.' CLEINIAS: By Zeus, Stranger, that's true — in my own life I've often watched Phosphorus and Hesperus, the morning and evening stars, with certain others besides, never holding to one course, but wandering every which way, while the sun and moon, I think, do the things we all recognize consistently. ATHENIAN: This, then, Megillus and Cleinias, is what I say our citizens and our young people need to learn about the gods of the heavens, up to this point regarding all of them: up to the point of not speaking irreverently about them, but always speaking well of them, both when sacrificing and when praying devoutly. CLEINIAS: That's right, at least if what you say can in fact be learned; and further, if what we now say about them isn't correct, but once we've learned we'll say it correctly, then I too agree that a subject of this scope and character should be learned. So, given that this is how things stand, try to explain it thoroughly, and we'll follow along as we learn from you. ATHENIAN: What I'm describing isn't easy to learn, but it isn't entirely difficult either, nor does it take an enormously long time. Here's proof: I myself, though I heard of these things neither in my youth nor long ago, could still explain them to the two of you now without taking a great deal of time. Yet if they were truly difficult, I could never have explained them, old as I am, to men as old as you.
CLEINIAS: True. But what is this subject you call marvelous, and fitting for the young to learn, yet one we ourselves don't know? Try to state at least this much about it as clearly as possible. ATHENIAN: I'll try. For it isn't correct, best of men, this common belief about the moon, the sun, and the other stars — that they ever wander. The truth is quite the opposite: each of them travels the same path, not many but always one, in a circle, though it appears to move along many paths. And the one among them that's actually fastest is wrongly believed to be slowest, and vice versa. Now if this is how things naturally stand, but we believe otherwise — well, if we thought this way about horses racing at Olympia, or long-distance runners, and called the fastest one slowest and the slowest one fastest, and sang hymns of praise crowning the loser as though he'd won, our praises directed at these human runners would be neither correct nor, I think, welcome to the runners themselves. Yet here we are making these very same mistakes concerning the gods — don't we suppose that what would have been ridiculous and wrong there is, here and now, in this case, not ridiculous at all, yet certainly not pleasing to the gods either, since we're singing false reports about the gods? CLEINIAS: Most true, if indeed that's how things are. ATHENIAN: So then, if we can show that this is in fact how things stand, all such matters must be learned up to that point; but if it can't be shown, they must be left aside. Shall we agree to leave it on that footing? CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Now, then, we should say the legal provisions concerning subjects of education are complete. As for hunting, we must think along the same lines, and likewise for everything of that sort. For it seems the task facing a lawgiver is greater than simply laying down laws and being done with it — there's something else, in addition to the laws, occupying a middle ground between admonition and law, something that has repeatedly come up in our discussions, as for instance regarding the rearing of very young children; for we say these matters shouldn't be left unspoken, and yet in speaking of them we'd be quite foolish to think we were laying down laws. Once the laws and the whole constitution have been written down along these lines, the praise given to the citizen who excels in virtue isn't complete when one merely says that this man, who has served the laws best and obeyed them most, is the good man;
ATHENIAN: It would be put more completely this way — that whoever obeys the lawgiver's writings, both when he legislates and when he praises or blames, and lives out his life accordingly, is unmixed in his virtue. This is the truest account for praising a citizen, and it means the lawgiver really must not only write the laws, but alongside the laws write in, woven together with them, whatever he judges to be honorable and what not, and the citizen at his best must hold to these no less firmly than to the things bound by penalties under the laws. Now if we bring in what's before us at the moment as a kind of witness, we can show more clearly what we mean. Hunting is an enormously varied business, nearly all wrapped up now under a single name. There's a great deal of it in the water, a great deal among winged creatures, and a vast amount concerning creatures of the land — not only wild beasts, but one should also reckon the hunting of human beings as worth considering, both the hunting done in war, and a great deal done in the name of friendship, one kind bringing praise and the other blame; and there is thieving, and the raiding of pirates, and the hunting of armed camps by other armed camps. It is not possible for a lawgiver laying down laws about hunting to leave all this unaddressed, nor is it possible for him to impose on every case ordinances backed by threats and penalties. What, then, is to be done about such things? The lawgiver must praise and blame hunting as it bears on the labors and pursuits of the young, and the young in turn, on hearing this, must obey, and let neither pleasure nor toil bar him from it; and where particular practices have been threatened with penalty and legislated against, he should hold in greater honor those spoken of with praise, and carry out what is enjoined upon him. Once these things have been said in advance, next would come a measured praise and blame of hunting — praise for whatever kind makes the souls of the young better, blame for whatever kind does the opposite. Let us, then, say what comes next, addressing the young as if in a prayer: Friends, may no desire or longing for hunting at sea ever take hold of you, nor for angling, nor for hunting water creatures at all, whether waking or sleeping, toiling away at that idle hunting with wicker traps.
ATHENIAN: And may no craving for hunting men at sea come over you either — for piracy, which would turn you into brutal and lawless hunters; and as for thieving in country and city, may it never so much as cross your mind to touch it. And may no cunning passion for hunting birds — hardly a fitting one for a free man — ever come over any of the young. What remains, then, for our athletes is only the hunting and pursuit of land creatures, and of these, the hunting of sleeping creatures, done in shifts and called night-hunting, is the work of lazy men and does not deserve praise, nor is there anything admirable in overcoming, by nets and traps rather than by the victory of a hard-working spirit, the wild strength of beasts. What alone remains, then, for everyone, and is best, is the hunting of four-footed creatures with horses and dogs and one's own body, in which the hunters themselves, by running and blows and throws, master all these creatures with their own hands — all those, that is, who care for a hunting worthy of divine courage. Concerning all these kinds, then, the account already given stands as the praise and the blame; and here is the law: let no one hinder these truly sacred hunters, wherever and however they wish to hunt; but the night-hunter who trusts to nets and woven snares must never, anywhere, be allowed to hunt at all. As for the fowler, let no one hinder him in untilled land and on the mountains, but whoever comes upon him must keep him off cultivated land and sacred wild land; and as for the hunter of water creatures, he may hunt everywhere except in harbors and sacred rivers and marshes and lakes, provided only that he does not use anything that muddies the water. So now, finally, we may say that everything concerning the laws of education has been dealt with. CLEINIAS: You may well say so.
ATHENIAN: The next task after these is to arrange and to legislate the festivals, in concert with the oracles from Delphi — which sacrifices, and to which gods, it would be better and more auspicious for the city to sacrifice. When they should be held, and how many in number, is perhaps for us to legislate, at least some of it. CLEINIAS: The number, perhaps. ATHENIAN: Then let us state the number first. Let there be no fewer than three hundred and sixty-five, so that at least one office is always sacrificing to some god or spirit on behalf of the city, its people, and their possessions. The interpreters, the priests and priestesses, and the seers, meeting together with the guardians of the laws, are to arrange whatever the lawgiver must necessarily leave out; and indeed these same men must be the assessors of what is left out. The law will say that there are twelve festivals for the twelve gods after whom each tribe is named, and that people sacrifice to each of these monthly rites — choruses and musical contests, and athletic contests too — allotting them as befits both the gods themselves and each of the seasons; and that they distribute the women's festivals, marking which are properly held without men and which not. Further, the rites of the gods below must not be mingled with those of the gods we should call heavenly, or with the rites of their attendants, but kept separate, assigned by law to the twelfth month, the month of Pluto; and men of war must feel no distaste for such a god, but honor him as ever the best friend of the human race. For the partnership of soul and body is in no way better than their dissolution — I would say so in earnest.
ATHENIAN: Beyond this, those who are to make these divisions adequately must keep in mind a thought of this kind: our city is such that one could find no other like it among cities today for leisure of time and for command over the necessities of life; and it must, like a single human being, live well. And for those who live happily, the first requirement is that they neither wrong others nor be wronged by others themselves. Of these two, the first is not very hard; what is thoroughly hard is to acquire the power of not being wronged, and there is no way to possess that completely except by becoming completely good. The very same holds for a city: if it becomes good, its life is peaceful; if bad, war from without and war within. And this being roughly so, each people must train for war not in wartime, but in the life of peace. So a city with any sense must take the field every month for not less than one day — for more, if the rulers agree — with no squeamishness about frost or heat: the men themselves, and their wives and children too, whenever the rulers decide to lead the people out in full force, and at other times by divisions. And along with the sacrifices they must always contrive fine games, so that there are festival battles imitating real fighting as vividly as possible. At each of these they must distribute prizes of victory and awards of valor, and compose encomia and censures for one another according to what sort of man each proves himself in the contests and in his whole life besides — decorating the one judged best and blaming the one judged otherwise. But not everyone is to be the poet of such pieces: first, the author must be no less than fifty years old, and not one of those who have poetry and music adequately in them but have never done a single fine and conspicuous deed. The poems to be sung are those of men who are themselves good and honored in the city, craftsmen of fine deeds — even if their work is not naturally musical. The judgment of them shall rest with the educator and the other guardians of the laws, who shall grant them this privilege: that they alone may speak freely in the Muses' art. To the others no license is given: no one shall dare to sing an unapproved song not vetted by the guardians of the laws — not even if it is sweeter than the hymns of Thamyras or of Orpheus — but only such poems as, judged sacred, were dedicated to the gods, and such as, being works of good men, blaming or praising particular persons, were judged to do so with due measure. And I say the same about military service and about free speech in poetry: it must apply alike to women and to men.
ATHENIAN: And the lawgiver must set the case before himself in argument, like this: Come now — once I have prepared the whole city, whom exactly am I raising? Are they not athletes for the greatest of contests, where their opponents are numberless? Certainly, someone would say, and rightly. Well then: if we were raising boxers or pancratiasts or contestants in some other event of that kind, would we go straight to the contest itself without having sparred with anyone day by day beforehand? Surely, being boxers, for a great many days before the contest we would be learning to fight and working hard, rehearsing everything we intended to use when the day came to fight it out for victory; and, coming as near to the real thing as possible, instead of proper straps we would bind on padded gloves, so that blows and the parrying of blows could be practiced as adequately as possible. And if we ran especially short of sparring partners, do you think fear of the laughter of fools would stop us from hanging up a lifeless dummy and training against it? And if ever we were at a loss for everything, living and lifeless alike, with no training partners to be had — would we not dare, all alone, literally to shadow-box against ourselves? Or what else would one say the practice of arm-drill has ever been? CLEINIAS: Practically nothing else, stranger, than the very thing you have just named. ATHENIAN: Well then: shall the fighting force of our city dare, each time, to step forward to the greatest of contests worse prepared than such competitors — the fight for life, for children, for property, and for the whole city? And shall their lawgiver, fearing that these exercises against one another might strike some people as ridiculous, fail to legislate — to command small field-exercises without arms if possible every day, directing the choruses and all gymnastics together to that end, and to order the greater and lesser maneuvers, so to call them, to be held not less than monthly, with contests against one another all over the country — competing in the seizure of positions and in ambushes, and imitating warfare in all its forms —
ATHENIAN: actually fighting with padded missiles, and using throws as close to the real thing as possible, with weapons carrying a spice of danger, so that the game they play against one another is not entirely without fear, but stirs up terrors and in a certain way exposes the stout-hearted man and the one who is not — assigning honors to the former and disgraces to the latter, correctly, so as to make the whole city serviceable, all life long, for the true contest? And if someone dies in these exercises, the homicide being involuntary, shall he not lay it down that the killer, once purified according to law, is clean of hand — reckoning that when a few men die, others no worse will grow up in their place, whereas if fear, so to speak, dies, he will find in all such exercises no test to tell the better men from the worse — which is for a city an evil not a little greater than the other? CLEINIAS: We at least would agree, stranger, that every city should legislate and practice such things. ATHENIAN: Now do we all know the reason why, at present, such choral play and contest hardly exists anywhere in the cities at all, except on a very small scale? Shall we say it is due to the ignorance of the masses and of those who make laws for them? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Not a bit of it, my blessed Cleinias. One must say there are two causes of it, and quite sufficient ones. CLEINIAS: What are they? ATHENIAN: The first is the passion for wealth, which leaves a man no time to attend to anything except his own possessions; every citizen's soul hangs suspended on these, and simply cannot care for anything but the day's profit. Whatever study or pursuit leads to that end, each man is instantly ready to learn and practice in private; at everything else he laughs. Let this stand as one cause, and a single one, why a city refuses to take seriously this or any other fine and noble pursuit, while for insatiable greed of gold and silver every man is willing to stoop to every art and device, seemly or shameful, if he is going to get rich — willing to perform any act, holy, unholy, or utterly disgraceful, without a qualm, provided only it gives him the power, like a beast, to eat anything whatsoever, to drink likewise, and to procure himself every sort of sexual satisfaction in full. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: Then let this that I describe be set down as one cause that prevents cities from adequately practicing either anything else fine or the arts of war — a cause that turns the naturally orderly among men into merchants and shipowners and outright servants, and makes the brave into pirates, burglars, temple-robbers, mercenaries, and tyrants' men — often enough men not without gifts, but unlucky. CLEINIAS: How do you mean? ATHENIAN: Well, how could I call them anything but utterly unlucky, when they are compelled to go through life with their own soul perpetually starving? CLEINIAS: That, then, is one cause. But what do you say the second cause is, stranger? ATHENIAN: A good reminder. CLEINIAS: This lifelong insatiable craving, you say, is one — it keeps every man too busy, and stands in the way of each properly practicing the arts of war. Granted. Now tell us the second. ATHENIAN: Do I seem to you to be stalling instead of telling it, because I am at a loss? CLEINIAS: No — but you seem to us to be flogging this sort of character, out of a kind of hatred, more than the present argument requires. ATHENIAN: An excellent rebuke, gentlemen; then you shall hear what comes next, it seems. CLEINIAS: Just speak. ATHENIAN: I say the causes are those non-constitutions I have named many times in our earlier discussions: democracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. None of these is a constitution; all would most rightly be called faction-states. None rules willing subjects by willing consent; each rules willing over unwilling, always with some measure of force; and a ruler who fears his subjects will never willingly allow any of them to become fine, or rich, or strong, or brave, or warlike at all. These two, then, are the causes of practically everything, and of our present matter they are the causes above all. But the constitution we are now legislating has escaped both: it enjoys, I should think, the greatest leisure; its people are free from one another's power; and under these laws they would, I think, be the least money-loving of men. So it is reasonable, and it stands to reason, that of all present constitutions such an establishment alone would welcome the education, and the war-play, that we have now worked through and completed in argument. CLEINIAS: Good. ATHENIAN: Then does it not follow next upon this to remember, concerning all the gymnastic contests, that those among them which are exercises for war are to be pursued, and prizes of victory established for them, while those that are not may be dismissed? What these are, it is better to state and to legislate from the beginning. And first, should we not establish the contests of running and of speed generally? CLEINIAS: We should.
ATHENIAN: Speed of body is certainly the most warlike thing of all, whether speed of feet or speed of hands—the feet for fleeing and catching, and the hand-to-hand fighting in close grappling calling for strength and power. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And yet neither has its greatest use without weapons. CLEINIAS: How could it? ATHENIAN: So first the herald will call out the sprinter, just as now happens at our games, and he will come in armed—we won't set prizes for a naked competitor. The first to come in will be the one racing the stadium-length course in armor, the second the one running the double course, the third the one racing on horseback, the fourth the one running the long-distance course, and the fifth is the one we'll send off already armed, sixty stadium-lengths toward a shrine of Ares and back, calling him, since he carries more weight, a hoplite, competing over the smoother road; and another, an archer wearing full archer's gear, will race a hundred stadia to a shrine of Apollo and Artemis, competing through hills and every kind of terrain. We'll hold the contest and wait for these runners until they arrive, and give the winner's prizes to whoever wins each event. CLEINIAS: Rightly so. ATHENIAN: Let's think of these as three grades of contest, one for boys, one for beardless youths, one for men. For the beardless youths we'll set two-thirds of the full course length, and for the boys half of that, whether they're competing as archers or hoplites. For women—unmarried girls, running naked—the stadium sprint, the double course, the horseback race, and the long-distance race, run on the same course as the men. Girls of thirteen up to marriageable age, but not older than twenty nor younger than eighteen, are to come down to compete in these races dressed in suitable attire. Let this be the arrangement for the running events, for both men and women. As for events of strength, in place of wrestling and such heavy sports as exist now, we'll have combat in armor, one against one, two against two, up to ten against ten competing against each other.
ATHENIAN: As for what one must accomplish, and how much, in order to win without having suffered injury or inflicted it, the experts in wrestling itself have already legislated, as things stand, what counts as proper wrestling and what doesn't; in the same way we should call together the foremost experts in fighting in arms and have them join in legislating who ought rightly to be declared the winner in these combats too—since he did not suffer or inflict harm—and likewise what system determines the loser. Let the same rules be legislated for the women, up to the age of marriage. As for light-armed skirmishing as a whole, it should be set up in opposition to combat with bare hands, competing with bows, light shields, javelins, stones thrown by hand, and slings; laws must be laid down for these too, and prizes and victories given to whoever performs best according to the rules established for them. After this would come legislation about horse-racing contests. We have no great need of many horses here, in Crete at any rate, so our efforts, both in raising them and in competing with them, are bound to be smaller. As for the chariot, we have no one at all who raises horses for it, nor would anyone here have any serious ambition in that direction, so in setting up such a competition we should neither have nor pretend to have any sensible plan for it. But by setting prizes for single-horse racing—for unbroken colts, for horses in the middle stage between full grown and unbroken, and for full-grown horses themselves—we would be giving equestrian sport its due, in keeping with the nature of our land. Let there be, by law, a race and rivalry over these events, with tribal commanders and cavalry commanders given joint authority to judge all the races themselves and the events in which riders come down in arms. But setting contests for unarmed riders, whether in the athletic games or here, would not be sound legislation. A Cretan mounted archer is not without use, nor a mounted javelin-thrower, so let there be rivalry and competition in these too, for the sake of sport. As for women taking part in these events, it's not worth forcing the issue by law and decree; but if, coming out of the training given them earlier and grown accustomed to it, their nature allows it and girls or young women feel no reluctance to take part, we should permit it and not find fault. Competition, then, and the training of gymnastics—both what we work at in the games and what we practice daily under instructors—has now, in every respect, reached its conclusion. And as for music, most of it has likewise been fully covered, except for the recitations of rhapsodes and what goes along with them, and whatever competitions among choruses are required at festivals—these will be arranged once the months, days, and years have been assigned to the gods and those who share honors with the gods, whether the festivals occur every two years, or every four, or however the gods, giving us some sense of the arrangement, direct that they be distributed.
ATHENIAN: At that point we should expect the musical contests too to be held in their turn, arranged by the officials in charge of the games, together with the supervisor of the young and the Guardians of the Law, who will meet together in council about these very matters and become lawgivers themselves regarding when, who, and with whom the contests will be held for all choruses and choral performance. What each of these ought to be, in terms of subject matter, songs, and modes blended with rhythms and dances, has already been said many times by the first lawgiver, and those who come after must follow his lead in legislating, assigning the contests appropriately to each sacrifice at the proper times, and so give the city festivals to celebrate. These matters, then, and others like them, are not hard to see how they should receive their due place under law, nor would shifting them one way or another bring great gain or loss to the city. But there are matters that differ from these in no small way, and are hard to persuade people about—matters that would most properly be the business of a god, if it were somehow possible for such directives to come from him; but as things stand, it seems they need some bold human being instead, someone who values plain speaking above all else and will say what he judges best for the city and its citizens, setting down, amid corrupted souls, what befits and follows from the whole constitution, speaking against the strongest desires, having no human ally, following reason alone, alone. CLEINIAS: What subject are we bringing up now, Stranger? We don't yet follow. ATHENIAN: Understandably so; but let me try to explain it to you still more clearly. When our discussion arrived at education, I pictured young men and young women meeting each other on friendly terms; and, naturally enough, fear came over me as I considered what use anyone would make of such a city, where young men and young women are well-nourished, free from the harsh and illiberal labors that most quench wanton excess, while sacrifices, festivals, and choral dances occupy everyone's attention throughout life. In such a city, in what way will they hold back from those desires which, for so many people, drive them to the furthest extremes—desires which reason bids them refrain from, in the attempt to become law?
ATHENIAN: That the established laws we set out earlier should prevail over most desires is nothing to marvel at—for not being permitted excessive wealth is no small aid toward self-control, and the whole system of education has adopted moderate laws bearing on such things, and besides this the watchful eye of the rulers, compelled to look nowhere else, keeps constant guard, so that the young themselves, as far as is humanly possible, keep due measure with regard to other desires. But when it comes to the passions of love—for male children and females, for women toward men and men toward women—from which countless troubles have arisen for individuals and for whole cities alike, how could one guard against this, and by cutting away what remedy would one find an escape from such danger in each of these cases? It is altogether no easy thing, Cleinias. In fact, on quite a few other matters, Crete as a whole, and Sparta too, offer us fairly considerable help, by setting laws that differ from the customs of most people, but on the subject of love—since we're speaking just among ourselves—they are entirely opposed to it. For if someone, following nature, were to lay down the law that existed before Laius, saying it was right that males and youths should not have intercourse together for sexual pleasure the way one does with females, citing as witness the nature of wild animals and pointing out that among beasts male does not touch male for such purposes, because it is not natural—he might use a persuasive argument, but one that would in no way agree with your cities' practices. Beyond this, there is something we say the lawgiver must always keep watch over, and on this point such practice does not agree either. For we are always asking what in our legislation tends toward virtue and what does not. Well then, if we grant that this practice is, as things stand, honorable, or at least not at all shameful, to legislate, what portion would it contribute toward virtue for us? Will the character of courage take root and grow in the soul of the one persuaded, or will the nature of temperance grow in the soul of the one who persuades? No one would ever be convinced of that—rather the very opposite: everyone will condemn the softness of the one who yields to pleasures and cannot master himself, and won't he likewise fault the one who takes on the likeness of the image by imitating the female? Who, then, among human beings will make this the subject of law, holding it to be as it truly is? Scarcely anyone, if he has a true law in mind. How then do we claim this is true?
ATHENIAN: One must look at the nature of friendship, and of desire, and of what is called love all together, if one is to think correctly about these matters—for these are two distinct things, and out of the two a third kind arises, and this single name, encompassing all three, produces every kind of confusion and obscurity. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: We call a thing dear, I suppose, when it is like to like in virtue and equal to equal; and again we call dear that which, being needy, is drawn to the wealthy, being opposite in kind; and when either of these becomes intense, we call it love. CLEINIAS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Now the friendship that arises from opposites is fierce and savage, and rarely holds anything in common between us, while that which arises from likeness is gentle and shared throughout life; but the friendship blended out of both is, in the first place, not easy to understand—what someone possessed by this third kind of love could possibly want for himself—and then, being drawn in opposite directions by both, he finds himself at a loss, one urging him to seize the bloom of youth, the other forbidding it. For the one who loves the body, hungering after its bloom as though it were ripe fruit, urges himself on to have his fill, paying no honor at all to the character of the beloved's soul; while the other, holding bodily desire as a secondary matter, looking rather than lusting, truly desiring soul with soul, considers it an outrage to glut himself on the body of the one he loves, and, revering and respecting self-control, courage, magnificence, and wisdom, would wish to remain pure always, together with a beloved who remains pure as well. The love blended out of both of these is the third kind we have now gone through. Given that there are these three kinds, should the law forbid all of them, keeping them from arising among us, or is it clear that we would want the love that is of virtue, and belongs to the young person desiring to become as good as possible, to exist among us in the city, while we would prevent the other two, if that were possible? Or how do we put it, dear Megillus? MEGILLUS: On this very point, Stranger, what you have just said is entirely right. ATHENIAN: It seems, then, as I suspected, that I have won your agreement, my friend; as for your law, what it thinks about such matters, there's no need for me to examine it—I need only accept the concession granted in the argument. As for Cleinias, I will try, afterward and again later, by way of persuasion, to win him over on these very points. Let what has been granted me by the two of you stand, and let us make our way through the laws in full. MEGILLUS: Quite rightly said.
ATHENIAN: There is a certain art to laying down this law — one part of it easy, just now, and another part about as difficult as anything could be. MEGILLUS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: We know, I think, that even now most people, lawless as they generally are, keep themselves remarkably carefully from sleeping with the beautiful ones among their own kin — and not unwillingly, but as willingly as can be. MEGILLUS: When do you mean? ATHENIAN: Whenever someone has a brother or sister who is beautiful. And the same unwritten law guards a son or daughter just as effectively, so that a man does not lie down with them, openly or secretly, or touch them in any kind of embrace. In fact the desire for that kind of union hardly ever enters most people's minds at all. MEGILLUS: True. ATHENIAN: So doesn't a small phrase snuff out every pleasure of that kind? MEGILLUS: What phrase do you mean? ATHENIAN: That such things are not holy in any way, but hated by the gods and the ugliest of ugly things. And isn't the reason for this simply that no one ever says otherwise — that each of us, from the moment we are born, hears people saying this always and everywhere, in comedies and just as often in solemn tragedy, whenever they bring on stage a Thyestes or an Oedipus, or some Macareus secretly bedding his sister, and then, once found out, promptly inflicting death on himself as the penalty for the crime? MEGILLUS: You're quite right about this much — that reputation has some extraordinary power, when no one ever even tries to breathe a word against the law. ATHENIAN: So what was said a moment ago is correct — that for a lawgiver who wants to enslave one of the desires that most enslave human beings, it's easy to see how he would master it: by consecrating this same reputation among everyone alike — slave and free, child and woman, and the whole city together — he will have made this law as secure as it can possibly be. MEGILLUS: Quite so. But how it will ever be possible to get everyone willing to say such a thing—
ATHENIAN: You've picked it up well — that's exactly what I meant when I said I had an art for this law, one that would let people use sexual union for begetting children as nature intends, keeping away from males, not deliberately killing off the human race, nor sowing seed on rocks and stones where it will never take root and grow, and keeping away from every female field in which you would not want what is sown to grow. If this law became permanent and prevailed — just as it now prevails over unions between parents and children — and if it justly won out over other unions too, it would bring countless benefits. First, it is laid down according to nature; and it keeps people away from erotic frenzy and madness and every kind of adultery, and from excess in drinking and eating, and makes husbands genuinely dear to their own wives. Many other good things would come of it too, if someone could really hold fast to this law. But no doubt some vigorous young man standing beside us, bursting with seed, would hear this law being proposed and jeer at us for laying down rules that are senseless and impossible, and fill the whole place with shouting. It was with this objection in mind that I said I possessed a certain art — in one respect the easiest of all, in another the hardest — for making this law, once laid down, actually stick. It's easy enough to see that it is possible, and how: for we say that once this custom is sufficiently consecrated, it will enslave every soul and make people obey the laid-down laws entirely out of fear. But things have now gone so far that it seems it could never happen even then — just as people don't believe it's possible for a whole city to live its whole life practicing the common-meals institution, though it has been tested in fact and does exist among you; yet even so, that women should do the same is still thought contrary to nature, even in your own cities. It's because of this stubborn disbelief that I said both of these things are extremely hard to keep to by law. MEGILLUS: You're right about that. ATHENIAN: Well then — since it isn't beyond human power, but can actually come about — would you like me to try to make an argument for you that has some plausibility? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Would a man abstain from sex more easily, and be willing to observe due measure in it, if his body were in good condition and not slack from lack of training, or if it were in poor shape? CLEINIAS: Far more easily if it were in good condition, surely.
ATHENIAN: Well then, don't we know by report of Iccus of Tarentum, because of the Olympic contest and others as well? They say that out of sheer competitive drive, and because he had acquired both skill and a courage tempered by self-control in his soul, he never once touched a woman, nor a boy either, during the whole peak of his training. And the same story is told of Crison and Astylus and Diopompus and a great many others. And yet, Cleinias, the citizens of your country and mine were far worse trained in their souls than these men, however much more vigorous in body. CLEINIAS: What you say is true — this is very much what the old writers report actually happened with these athletes. ATHENIAN: Well then — if these men dared to abstain from something most people call a source of happiness, for the sake of victory in wrestling and running and such contests, shall our young men prove unable to hold out for the sake of a far nobler victory, one we shall charm them toward from childhood on, as is fitting, telling it to them in stories and speeches and songs? CLEINIAS: What victory do you mean? ATHENIAN: Victory over pleasures — that mastering them means living happily, while being mastered by them means the exact opposite in every way. And besides this, will not the fear that such a thing is in no way at all holy give us the power to master what others, though inferior to us, have already mastered? CLEINIAS: It seems likely. ATHENIAN: Since, then, we have come to this point regarding this custom, and it was the badness of most people that drove us into this difficulty, I say that our law on these very matters must simply proceed by declaring that our citizens must not be worse than birds and many other animals, which, born in great flocks, live chaste and untouched by mating until the age for begetting children, and then, once they reach that age, pair off, male with female by mutual liking and female with male, and live out the rest of their lives in a holy and just way, abiding firmly by the first compacts of their union — and that our citizens ought to be better than animals, at least. But if they are corrupted by the example of most other Greeks and non-Greeks, seeing and hearing that the so-called disorderly Aphrodite has the greatest power among them, and thus prove unable to master themselves, then the Guardians of the Law, turning lawgivers, must devise a second law for them to fall back on.
CLEINIAS: What law, then, do you advise laying down for them, if the one now proposed slips past them? ATHENIAN: Clearly the one next in line after it, Cleinias. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: That the strength of these pleasures should be kept as untrained as possible, by diverting its outflow and nourishment elsewhere in the body through hard exertion. This would happen if shamelessness had no place in the practice of sex — for if people indulged in it rarely, out of a sense of shame, they would gain a weaker mistress in it, using it seldom. So let it count as something honorable among them to keep such acts hidden, established by custom and unwritten law, and something shameful to be caught, though not shameful simply to have done it at all. In this way shame and honor would be established for us in a kind of second-rank law, with a second-best correctness, and would compel that one class of people — those of corrupted nature, whom we call weaker than themselves — comprising in fact three groups, not to break the law. CLEINIAS: Which three groups do you mean? ATHENIAN: The one that reveres the gods, the one that loves honor, and the one whose desire has arisen not for bodies but for characters that are beautiful in soul. These, perhaps, are like wishes expressed in a kind of myth just now — yet they would be the very best thing, if they could actually come about, in every city. And perhaps, god willing, we might force through one of two arrangements regarding sexual love: either that no one dare touch any person of noble and free birth except his own wedded wife, and not sow unconsecrated and bastard seed in concubines, nor sow unnatural and unfruitful seed in males; or else we might do away with male relations altogether, while for women, if a man has intercourse with any woman except one who has come into his house through sacred and divine marriage rites, whether bought or acquired by some other means, and does so without hiding it from all the men and women alike, we might well be laying down the law rightly in declaring him disqualified from honors in the city, as being in truth no better than a foreigner.
ATHENIAN: Let this, then — whether we should call it one law or two — be laid down concerning sex and all matters of love, governing how we act rightly and wrongly toward one another out of such desires. MEGILLUS: For my part, stranger, I would gladly accept this law from you; but let Cleinias himself say what he actually thinks about it. CLEINIAS: I will do so, Megillus, whenever the right occasion seems to present itself to me. For now, let us allow the stranger to go on further with the laws. MEGILLUS: Rightly said. ATHENIAN: Well now, as we proceed, we are more or less at the point where the common meals have been set up — a thing we say would be difficult elsewhere, but in Crete no one would suppose it should be otherwise. As for the manner of it — whether as here, or as in Lacedaemon, or whether there is some third form of common meals, better than either of these two — this, I think, is not hard to discover, though discovering it would accomplish no great good; for indeed the arrangements already in place work well enough. Following on from these comes the arrangement of livelihood, and what form that should take for them. In other cities, livelihood might be drawn from all sorts of sources and many quarters — chiefly from twice as many as these people have; for most Greeks provide for their food from both land and sea, while these provide for it from land alone. This makes the lawgiver's task easier — not only do the resulting laws come to about half as many, and far fewer than that, but they are also more fitting for free men. For matters of shipping, trading, retailing, innkeeping, tax-farming, mining, moneylending and compound interest, and countless other such things, are for the most part dismissed altogether — the lawgiver of this city bids them good riddance — and he will legislate instead for farmers, herdsmen, beekeepers, and those who guard and oversee the tools of such trades, having already legislated on the greatest matters — marriages, the begetting and rearing of children, and further the beginnings of education and the establishment of offices in the city. Now he must necessarily turn to legislate for those who provide sustenance and all who labor alongside them in this very task. First, then, let there be laws called agricultural.
ATHENIAN: Let this be the first law of Zeus of Boundaries: no one shall move the boundary-markers of land, whether it belongs to a fellow citizen who is his neighbor, or, if he owns land on the frontier, belongs to some foreigner sharing the border, believing that to move the unmovable is truly what this would be. Let every man be more willing to try moving any other stone, however large, than a small one that marks the boundary of friendship and enmity sworn before the gods. For of the one Zeus of Kinship is witness, of the other Zeus of Strangers, and both gods, once roused, bring the bitterest wars. The man who obeys the law will never feel the evils that come from disobeying it, but whoever holds it in contempt shall be liable to a double penalty, the first and greatest from the gods, the second from the law. For no one should willingly move his neighbors' boundary-markers; but if someone does move them, let anyone who wishes report it to the farmers-in-charge, and let them bring the case before the court. And if a man is convicted in such a suit, since the guilty party has secretly and violently redistributed the land, let the court assess whatever penalty he must suffer or pay. After this comes the matter of the many small injuries neighbors do one another, which through their frequency breed a great mass of hostility and make for a harsh and deeply bitter neighborliness. For this reason a man must be entirely careful to do nothing to set himself at odds with his neighbor, and above all must be exceedingly wary about encroaching on his land in any way at all — for doing harm is nothing difficult, within anyone's reach, but doing good is not within everyone's reach. Whoever encroaches on his neighbor's land by crossing the boundary-lines shall pay for the damage, and, to be cured of both his shamelessness and his meanness, shall pay the injured party a further sum equal to twice the damage. Over all such matters the overseers, judges, and assessors shall be the land-wardens: for the more serious cases, as has been said earlier, the whole body of the twelfth-district officials; for the lesser, their district-captains. And if someone lets his livestock graze on another's land, let these officials judge the damage and assess the penalty after inspection. And if someone appropriates another man's swarm of bees by following the pleasure they take in some sound and drawing them off with clapping to make them his own, let him pay for the damage. And if a man burning brush is not sufficiently careful of his neighbor's property, let him be fined whatever amount the officials decide.
ATHENIAN: And if a man planting trees does not leave the proper distance from his neighbor's land, as has been adequately stated by many lawgivers already — whose laws we should make use of rather than expect the greater orderer of a city to legislate every small and petty matter that any ordinary lawgiver could handle. Take, for instance, the old and good laws already in place among farmers concerning water: they are not worth spelling out at length here. Rather — whoever wishes to channel water to his own land may draw it from the common springs, provided he does not cut off any private person's visible spring-source; he may lead it wherever he wishes except through someone's house, sacred precincts, or tombs, so long as he does no harm beyond the mere digging of the channel. But if in some places the ground is naturally so dry that it blocks off the rains that come from Zeus, and there is a shortage of the water necessary for drinking, the owner should dig on his own land down to the clay layer, and if at that depth he still finds no water, he may draw water from his neighbors for the necessary drinking needs of his household. But if the neighbors too are short on water, he shall set a fixed allowance of water with the land-wardens, drawing this ration each day, and in this way share the water with his neighbors. And if rainwater from Zeus causes harm — say a man farming above, or living in a house that shares a wall, refuses to allow drainage and so harms those below, or conversely the man above lets the water flow carelessly and harms the man below — and the parties are unwilling to come to terms over this, then whoever wishes may call in the city-warden, in town, or the land-warden, in the country, and have him set out what each party must do. Whoever does not abide by the ruling shall be liable to a penalty for both spite and an unaccommodating spirit, and if found guilty shall pay the injured party twice the damage, for having refused to obey the officials. As for the sharing of fruit, all should observe some such practice as this. This goddess grants us two kinds of gift from her favor: one is the playful gift of Dionysus that cannot be stored, the other is the gift meant by nature for storing away. Let this then be the law laid down concerning fruit: whoever tastes another's fruit from the countryside, whether grapes or figs, before the season for harvesting arrives — the season that runs together with the rising of Arcturus — whether on his own land or another's, shall owe fifty sacred drachmas to Dionysus if he picks it from his own land, a mina if from his neighbors', and two-thirds of a mina if from anyone else's.
ATHENIAN: Whoever wishes to gather the grapes now called 'the noble kind,' or the figs called 'the noble kind,' may harvest them in whatever way and whenever he pleases, if he takes them from his own property; but if he takes them from someone else's without asking, in violation of the law against moving what one has not put down, let him always be punished accordingly. And if a slave, without asking his master's permission, touches any such fruit belonging to another's land, let him be whipped, one stripe for every grape of the cluster and every fig of the tree. A resident alien who has bought the noble fruit may harvest it if he wishes; but if a foreigner visiting the country wishes to eat some fruit while passing along the roads, he may taste the noble kind, if he wishes, together with one attendant, without payment, receiving it as a guest-gift; but the law shall forbid foreigners from sharing with us in the fruit called 'of the countryside' and the like. If someone ignorant of this, whether the foreigner himself or a slave, touches it, the slave shall be punished with blows, and the free man sent off with a warning and instruction to touch instead the other fruit meant for storage — raisins, wine, and dried figs — which is not suitable to be treated this way. Concerning pears, apples, pomegranates, and all such fruit, there is no shame at all in taking some without asking; but whoever is caught, if under thirty years of age, shall be struck and driven off without wounds, and there shall be no legal action available to a free man for such blows. A foreigner shall be allowed to share in these too, just as with the other fruit; but if a man older than thirty touches them, eating on the spot and carrying nothing away, let him share in all such things just as the foreigner does; but if he does not obey the law, let him risk being disqualified from competing for the prize of virtue, should someone remind the judges of that time about his conduct. As for water, it is above all else the most nourishing thing for gardens, but also the easiest to spoil, since it is not easy to corrupt by poisoning, diversion, or theft the earth, sun, or winds that nourish along with water the things that grow from the ground — but all these things are entirely possible with the nature of water. For this reason it needs the law's assistance. Let this, then, be the law concerning it: if anyone deliberately spoils another's water, whether from a spring or gathered in a cistern, by poisoning, digging, or theft, let the injured party bring suit before the city-wardens, recording the value of the damage; and if someone is convicted of causing harm through poisoning of any kind, in addition to the assessed penalty let him purify the springs or the water-container, in whatever manner the laws of the interpreters direct that the purification should be carried out in each case and for each person.
ATHENIAN: Concerning the gathering-in of all seasonal produce, let anyone who wishes be permitted to carry his own goods by any route, so long as he either causes no harm to anyone or gains for himself three times whatever loss he causes his neighbor; and let the officials serve as overseers of this and of everything else that anyone does — whether harming another willingly or unwillingly, by force or in secret, to that man himself or to any of his belongings, through the use of his own property — for all such matters, let the injured party bring the case before the officials and seek redress, so long as the damage does not exceed three minas; but if the charge one party brings against another is greater than that, let him bring the suit to the common courts and seek redress against the wrongdoer there. And if any official seems to have judged the penalties with an unjust mind, let him be liable to the injured party for twice the damage; and let anyone who wishes bring the wrongdoing of officials, in each case, before the common courts. There are countless such small regulations, by which penalties must be assessed, concerning the filing of suits, summonses, and witnesses to summonses — whether two or some other number are required to be called — and everything of that sort; it is impossible for these to go unlegislated, yet they are not worthy of an aged lawgiver. Let the younger men legislate these matters, modeling them on the earlier laws, small things after the pattern of great ones, gaining practical experience of their necessary use, until it seems that everything has been adequately established; then, having fixed these rules unchangeable, let them live by them ever after, now that they have their proper measure. As for the other craftsmen, this is the principle to follow. First, let no native of the land be among those laboring at craft trades, nor any household servant of a native. For a citizen possesses a craft sufficient in itself, requiring much practice and much learning — the craft of preserving and securing the common order of the city — a craft not to be pursued as a sideline. And practically no human nature is capable of pursuing two occupations or two crafts with precision, nor of practicing one himself while properly overseeing another who practices it.
ATHENIAN: This, then, must be the first principle established in the city: no one working as a smith shall also work as a carpenter, nor shall a carpenter oversee others working as smiths more than his own craft, on the pretext that by overseeing the many household servants working for him, he can reasonably attend to his craft more effectively through them, since the income from that source is greater for him than from his own craft — no, let each single person in the city, having taken up a single craft, earn his living from that alone. Let the city-wardens labor to preserve this law: if a native citizen inclines toward some craft rather than the care of virtue, let them punish him with reproaches and marks of dishonor, until they set him straight on his own proper course; and if any foreigner pursues two crafts, let them punish him with imprisonment, fines of money, and expulsion from the city, compelling him to be one thing only, not many. Concerning wages for these workers and disputes over the completion of jobs, and if either they wrong someone else or someone else wrongs them, let the city-wardens render judgment up to fifty drachmas, and let the common courts decide cases above that sum, according to law. Let no one in the city pay any duty at all, whether on goods exported or imported; and as for frankincense and such foreign incense used for the gods, and purple dye and other imported dyes, since our region does not produce them, or anything else needed for some other craft that requires certain imported foreign goods, let no one bring such things in except for some necessary purpose, nor export anything necessary that ought to remain in the country; and let the overseers and managers of all these matters be the Guardians of the Law, with the five eldest excluded, the remaining twelve in charge. As for weapons and all instruments of war, if there is need to import some skill, plant, mined material, tanned good, or animal for such use, let the cavalry-commanders and generals have authority over the importing and exporting of these, the city both giving and receiving as needed, and the Guardians of the Law shall establish laws concerning these matters that are fitting and sufficient; but as for retail trade for the sake of profit, let there be none of this, whether in these goods or anything else, anywhere in our whole territory and city. Regarding food and the distribution of the produce of the land, the arrangement of the Cretan law seems, roughly, to be the right way to go about it properly. For all the produce from the land must be divided into twelve parts, which all must take, in the same proportion by which they must also spend it.
ATHENIAN: Each twelfth part of the produce—wheat and barley, say, along with all the other seasonal crops that go with them, and all the livestock that may be sold in each case—should be divided proportionally into three. One share goes to the free citizens, one to their household servants, and the third to the craftsmen and to foreigners generally: those resident aliens who live among us and need the food they must have, and those who come from time to time on some business of the city or of a private citizen. Of all the necessary goods, only this third share is to be available for sale as a matter of necessity; neither of the other two shares is to be under any obligation to be sold. How, then, should these shares be divided most correctly? First, it's clear that in one respect we divide equally, and in another unequally. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: The land must inevitably produce and yield some crops of each kind that are worse and some that are better. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then, of the three shares, none should get more of this kind of produce than another—neither the share given to masters or slaves, nor again the share for foreigners—but the distribution should give the same equality of proportion to everyone alike. Each citizen, having taken his two shares, should be free to distribute them to his slaves and to free persons as he wishes, in whatever quantity and kind he chooses. But the amount beyond this must be divided by measure and number in this way: one takes the total number of all the animals that must get their food from the land, and divides accordingly. After this, separate dwellings must be assigned to these groups; the following arrangement suits them. There should be twelve villages, one set at the center of each twelfth portion of the land. In each village, first of all, sacred precincts and a marketplace must be set aside for the gods and for the daimons who attend the gods—whether these are local shrines belonging to the Magnesians themselves or to others whose foundations have been preserved in memory from ancient times—rendering to them the honors the ancients paid; and everywhere, shrines must be founded to Hestia, Zeus, and Athena, and to whatever god is patron of each twelfth district. First, buildings should be put up around these shrines, wherever the ground is highest, to serve as a well-fortified refuge for the guards. The rest of the land is to be laid out by dividing the craftsmen into thirteen groups: one group to settle in the city itself, divided again into the twelve sections of the whole city, distributed both around its edges and throughout its center; in each village, the remaining crafts useful to farmers are to be settled together with them. The overseers of all this should be the officers in charge of the rural wardens, who will determine what kinds of craftsmen and how many each district needs, and where they should live so as to be least troublesome and most useful to the farmers.
ATHENIAN: For those in the city, the same kind of oversight should be exercised and carried out by the office of the city wardens. As for the market wardens, their concern should be with everything relating to the marketplace. Their duty, after seeing to the shrines, should be, second in importance for the people's needs, to keep watch that no one commits any wrong in the marketplace, acting as overseers of good order and of insolence, and punishing whoever needs punishing. As for goods for sale, they should first check whether everything set aside for sale to foreigners by the citizens is being done according to law. The law for each month is this: on the new moon, the guardians appointed for this—whether foreigners or even slaves who manage such matters for the citizens—must bring out the portion that is to be sold to foreigners: first, a twelfth part of the grain. The foreigner is to buy grain, and whatever else pertains to grain, for the whole month at the first market day. On the tenth of the month, some are to sell and others to buy liquids, a supply sufficient for the whole month. On the twenty-third, there is to be a sale of animals—whatever each party needs to sell or to buy—and of such tools or goods as farmers need to sell, like hides, or any kind of clothing, or woven or felted goods, or other such things, which foreigners must in turn buy from others who possess them. As for retail trading in these goods, or in barley or wheat ground into meal, or any other food generally, no citizen or slave of a citizen is to sell such goods to another, nor is anyone to buy from such a person; but in the marketplaces set aside for foreigners, a foreigner may sell to craftsmen and to their slaves, exchanging wine and selling grain—what most people call retail trade. And once animals have been divided up, butchers may sell portions to foreigners, to craftsmen, and to their household servants. Any foreigner who wishes may buy firewood in bulk, day by day, from the overseers in the countryside, and may sell it himself to other foreigners, in whatever quantity and whenever he wishes. As for all other goods and equipment that people need, they are to sell them by bringing them to the common marketplace, to whatever spot the guardians of the law and the market wardens, together with the city wardens, have judged suitable and marked out with boundaries for the sale of goods. In these places, and nowhere else, currency is to be exchanged for goods and goods for currency, with neither party giving credit to the other in the exchange.
ATHENIAN: Whoever extends credit, trusting the other party, must be content whether he recovers what is owed or not, on the understanding that there is no longer any legal remedy for such dealings. As for anything bought or sold beyond the price and quantity fixed by the law—which states how much may be added or subtracted before neither transaction is permitted—any excess must at once be entered in the register the Guardians of the Law keep, and any shortfall erased from it. The same rule shall apply to resident aliens regarding the registration of their property. Whoever wishes to take up residence as a resident alien may do so on fixed terms: residence is available to any foreigner who wishes and is able to settle there, provided he possesses a trade and stays no longer than twenty years from the date he registers, paying no resident's tax at all except good behavior, and no other fee for buying or selling. When the time expires, he must take his property and depart. But if within these years it happens that he has rendered some considerable service worth mentioning to the city, and he is confident he can persuade the council and the assembly, he may petition either for a lawful extension of the time before he must leave, or even for permission to remain for life; and whatever he persuades the city to grant, on approaching it and making his case, shall be binding for him. As for the children of resident aliens who are craftsmen, once they reach the age of fifteen, their own period of residency is to begin after their fifteenth year; having stayed twenty years on these terms, each may go wherever he pleases—but if he wishes to remain, he may do so on the same terms, having made his case. And whoever departs must first strike out the registrations that were previously recorded for him with the officials.
ATHENIAN: The lawsuits that come after this would naturally follow all the actions we've already covered, given the order of our legislation. As for what sorts of things should be grounds for lawsuits, some have been stated—those concerning farming and everything connected with it—but the most serious matters haven't yet been stated, not one by one, so that once each is named we can say what penalty it should carry and which judges should try it. We need to state these next in order. CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: There's something shameful, in a way, about legislating at all for the things we're about to do now, in a city we say will be well governed and will achieve every kind of correctness in the pursuit of virtue—and yet in such a city to suppose that someone will grow up ready to share in the worst forms of depravity found elsewhere, so that we must legislate in advance, threatening anyone who turns out that way, and set laws against such people both to deter them and to punish them if they arise, as though they were bound to exist—that, as I said, is shameful in a way. But since we are not, like the ancient lawgivers who legislated for the sons of gods, the heroes, as the story now goes—since they themselves were born of gods and legislated for others likewise born of such stock—but we are men legislating today for the offspring of men, it's no cause for indignation to fear that one of our citizens might turn out like a hard-shelled seed, so tough by nature that it won't soften; just as such seeds resist fire, some men remain untouched even by laws as powerful as these. For this reason—though I won't say it gladly—I will state first the law concerning temple robbery, in case someone dares to do such a thing. We wouldn't wish, nor would we really expect, that a citizen properly raised would ever fall sick with this disease; but their household slaves, and foreigners, and slaves of foreigners, might well attempt many such things.
ATHENIAN: It's mainly for their sake, but also as a guard against the whole weakness of human nature, that I will state the law concerning temple robbers and all others who commit crimes of this kind, ones hard to cure or incurable. Preludes to these laws, in keeping with what we agreed earlier, should be spoken to everyone as briefly as possible. Someone might address the man like this, reasoning with him and comforting him at the same time—the man whom some evil desire, urging him by day and rousing him by night, drives toward robbing a temple: 'My friend, it isn't any human evil, nor a divine one, that now stirs you and drives you toward temple robbery. Rather, some frenzy has taken root in you, born of ancient and unpurified wrongs done by men long ago, a destructive force that circles round—one you must guard against with all your strength. And learn what that guarding is. Whenever such a notion falls upon you, seek out the rites of aversion; present yourself in supplication at the shrines of the evil-averting gods; seek the company of those among you who are reputed good, and listen to some of what they say while trying to say some of it yourself—that every man must honor what is fine and just. But flee the company of the wicked, without ever looking back. And if, doing this, your sickness eases somewhat, well and good; but if not, then consider a nobler death and free yourself from life.' While we sing these preludes for all who contemplate such unholy, city-destroying deeds, the law itself must stay silent for the man who obeys, but for the one who disobeys, after the prelude, it must sing out loudly: whoever is caught robbing a temple, if he is a slave or a foreigner, shall have his misfortune branded on his face and hands, be whipped as many times as the judges decide, and be cast out naked beyond the borders of the country; for perhaps, paying this penalty, he might become better through being disciplined. For no penalty imposed lawfully is meant to do harm—it achieves, roughly, one of two things: it makes the one who undergoes it either better, or less depraved. But if a citizen is ever found doing such a thing—having wronged the gods, or his parents, or the city in one of the great and unspeakable ways—the judge must consider him already incurable, reckoning what kind of upbringing and education he received from childhood and still could not restrain himself from the worst crimes.
ATHENIAN: For such a man, the penalty is death—the least of evils—and he will benefit others by becoming an example, disgraced and made to vanish beyond the borders of the country. But for his children and family, if they flee their father's ways, let there be honor and praise spoken of them, as people who escaped nobly and bravely from evil into good. It would not be fitting for the property of any such person to become public funds in a constitution where the citizens' allotments must remain the same and equal forever. As for fines, whenever someone is judged to deserve a monetary penalty for wrongdoing, he should pay it only out of whatever surplus exists beyond his fixed allotment, up to that limit, and no more; the Guardians of the Law, examining the registers for accuracy, must always report the clear facts to the judges, so that no allotment ever lies idle for lack of funds. But if someone is judged to deserve a larger fine than this, then—failing friends prepared to go bail for him and join in paying off his release—he should be punished with long and public imprisonment and certain forms of public disgrace; but no one should ever be totally disenfranchised, not even for a single offense, nor exiled beyond the borders. Rather, the penalty in such a case should be death, or imprisonment, or blows, or being made to sit or stand in some disfiguring position, or being stationed at temples at the far edges of the country, or paying fines as we described before. Judges for cases involving death shall be the Guardians of the Law together with a court chosen by merit from among the previous year's officials; the introduction of such cases, the summonses, and all such procedural matters should be the concern of the younger lawgivers, while it is our task to legislate the manner of voting. Let the vote be cast openly, but before that, let the judge sit facing the accuser and the accused, in order of seniority, arranged as near to us as possible, and let all the citizens who have the leisure attend eagerly to hear such trials. Let one speech be given, first by the accuser, then by the accused; after these speeches, the eldest should begin questioning, examining what has been said thoroughly, and after the eldest, all the rest in turn must go through whatever each of the two opposing parties said or failed to say that still needs clarifying; whoever has nothing further to ask should hand the questioning to another.
ATHENIAN: Whatever in the testimony seems relevant should be sealed, with all the judges marking it in writing, and placed upon the hearth; then, gathering again the next day at the same place, they should question again in the same way, going through the case and again marking what is said with seals. Having done this three times, and having taken sufficient evidence and witnesses, each judge should cast a sacred vote, having sworn before the hearth to judge, as far as possible, what is just and true, and so bring this kind of trial to its conclusion. After matters concerning the gods come those concerning the overthrow of the constitution. Whoever, by bringing men under the control of an individual, enslaves the laws and makes the city subject to political factions, and does all this by force, stirring up civil strife in violation of the law—that man must be regarded as the worst enemy of the whole city. But the man who takes no part in such things, yet holds the highest offices in the city, and either fails to notice these developments, or notices but through cowardice does not act to defend his homeland—such a citizen must be considered second in wickedness. Every man, however small his worth, should denounce to the officials, bringing to trial, anyone plotting a violent and unlawful overthrow of the government; the judges for these cases shall be the same as for temple robbers, and the whole trial shall proceed for them exactly as for those, with the vote for death carried by majority. In a word, let no disgrace or punishment fall upon the children for the father's crimes, except when a man's father, grandfather, and great-grandfather in succession have all incurred the death penalty; such men, keeping their own property—except for whatever exceeds what's needed to fully furnish an allotment—shall be sent away by the city to their own ancestral homeland and city. And for those citizens who happen to have more than one son, at least ten years old, ten of these sons shall be chosen by lot, whichever ones the father or the grandfather on the father's or mother's side names; the names of those chosen by lot shall be sent to Delphi, and whichever one the god selects shall be established as heir to the household of those who left, with better fortune. CLEINIAS: Well said.
ATHENIAN: Let there be a third law, common to both cases, concerning the judges who should try these cases and the manner of the trials, for whenever someone brings a charge of treason before a court; and let there likewise be one law concerning the staying and departure of the offenders' descendants from their homeland—one law covering these three: the traitor, the temple robber, and the man who destroys the city's laws by force. As for the thief—whether he steals something large or small—let there be one single law and one single penalty for all: whoever is convicted of such an offense must first pay back double the amount stolen, if he is convicted of this charge and has enough remaining property beyond his allotment to pay it; but if not, he must be imprisoned until he pays it off or persuades the one who won the judgment against him. And if someone is convicted of theft against the public, he shall be released from imprisonment once he has persuaded the city or paid back double the amount stolen. CLEINIAS: How can we possibly say, Stranger, that it makes no difference to the thief whether he takes something large or small, from sacred or ordinary property, and all the other differences that exist regarding theft of every kind—differences the lawgiver ought to follow, being so varied, rather than punishing them all with the same penalties? ATHENIAN: Excellently put, Cleinias; you've practically stopped me in my tracks just as I was rushing ahead, and reminded me of something I had thought of before—that the business of lawmaking has never yet, in any way, been properly worked out, at least as far as we can judge from what has just come up. How do we mean this, again? We weren't wrong earlier when we compared all those who are now being legislated for to slaves being doctored by slave-physicians. For one must understand this well: if one of those doctors who practice medicine purely by experience, without theory, ever came upon a free physician conversing with a free patient who is ill, using arguments that verge on philosophy, addressing the illness from its very root, working back through the whole nature of bodies, he would laugh quickly and heartily, and would say nothing different from what most so-called doctors always have ready to say on such occasions: 'You fool, you're not treating the sick man, you're practically educating him, as though he needed to become a doctor rather than get well!' CLEINIAS: Wouldn't he be right to say such a thing? ATHENIAN: Perhaps, if he also considered that whoever discusses laws the way we are doing now is educating the citizens rather than legislating for them. Wouldn't that too seem a fitting thing to say? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Well, it has turned out fortunately for us as things stand. CLEINIAS: In what way?
ATHENIAN: There's no requirement that we legislate right away — we could instead sit back and, considering the constitution as a whole, try to work out both what is best and what is most necessary, and how each would come about if it did. And in fact, right now, it seems, we're free to consider the best arrangement, or if we prefer, the most necessary one, when it comes to laws. So let's choose which we want. CLEINIAS: That's a laughable choice you're offering us, stranger — we'd be acting exactly like lawgivers under duress, as if forced by some great necessity to legislate this very moment, with no chance to wait until tomorrow. But we — thank god — have the freedom, like stonemasons or people beginning some other construction, to haul in material at random and then pick out whatever suits the structure we mean to build, and to do the choosing at our leisure. So let's take it that we're not builders working under compulsion, but people who still have time to lay some things out for consideration and to actually assemble others — so that it's fair to say that some of our laws are already being enacted, others merely being set out for review. ATHENIAN: Then, Cleinias, our survey of the laws would come about more naturally. So let's look, in god's name, at the following point about lawgivers. CLEINIAS: What point is that? ATHENIAN: There are writings, and speeches recorded in writing, by all sorts of other people in our cities — and there are also the writings and speeches of the lawgiver. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: So should we pay attention to the writings of others — poets and all who have set down their counsel about life for future memory, whether in verse or without it — but not pay attention to the writings of lawgivers? Or should we attend to those most of all? CLEINIAS: Far more, certainly. ATHENIAN: But shouldn't the lawgiver, alone among all who write, be the one to give counsel about what is fine, good, and just, teaching what these things are and how those who mean to be happy must pursue them? CLEINIAS: Of course he should. ATHENIAN: Then is it really more shameful for Homer and Tyrtaeus and the other poets to have written badly about life and its practices, and less shameful for Lycurgus and Solon and all who became lawgivers and wrote things down?
ATHENIAN: Or isn't it the case, rather, that of all the writings found in our cities, those concerning the laws ought to appear, once unrolled and examined, by far the finest and best, while the rest either follow their lead or, if they clash with them, look ridiculous? Shouldn't we think that the writing of laws for our cities ought to happen in the manner of a father and mother, full of love and good sense, and that what's written should look that way — rather than being drawn up like the decree of some tyrant or master, posted on walls with threats attached, and left at that? So let's consider now whether we should try to speak about the laws with that aim in mind — whether or not we succeed, at least showing the eagerness for it — and, going along this road, if we must suffer something for it, let's suffer it. May it turn out well, and, god willing, it will turn out this way. CLEINIAS: Well said — let's do as you say. ATHENIAN: Then we must first examine carefully, as we set out to do, the matter of temple-robbers and theft of every kind and wrongdoing generally, and we shouldn't be troubled if, in the middle of legislating, we've already laid down some things while still examining others — for we're in the process of becoming lawgivers, not yet lawgivers, though perhaps we may become such before long. So if it seems right to examine the matters I've mentioned in the way I've described, let's examine them. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: Concerning fine and just things in general, then, let's try to see the following — where we now agree, and where we differ, both with ourselves and with each other, we who would surely claim, if nothing else, to differ from most people — and the many, too, differ among themselves. CLEINIAS: What differences among us do you have in mind? ATHENIAN: I'll try to explain. About justice as a whole, and just people, actions, and deeds, we all pretty much agree that all these things are fine — so that even if someone insisted that just people, even if they happened to be ugly in body, are, on the strength of their thoroughly just character, entirely beautiful in that respect, hardly anyone would think he was speaking out of tune. CLEINIAS: Isn't that correct? ATHENIAN: Perhaps. But let's see this: if everything that partakes of justice is fine, then surely what we experience as a result of it is included among 'all things' too, roughly on a par with what is done. CLEINIAS: What of it? ATHENIAN: Whatever is done, if it's just, shares in the fine to the same degree that it shares in the just. CLEINIAS: Certainly.
ATHENIAN: And what is suffered, then, insofar as it shares in what is just, would likewise be agreed to be fine to that same degree — wouldn't that follow without contradiction? CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: But if we agree that something is just, yet also agree that what is suffered in it is shameful, then the just and the fine will clash, since the just will be said to be utterly shameful. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by that? ATHENIAN: It's not hard to see. The laws we laid down only a little earlier would seem to prescribe things directly opposed to what's being said now. CLEINIAS: Which laws? ATHENIAN: We laid it down that the temple-robber, and the enemy of well-established laws, should justly die — and, about to establish a great many such laws, we held back once we saw that these are experiences unlimited in number and severity, and at the same time the most just of all experiences and, taken together, the most shameful. Don't the just and the fine, then, appear to us sometimes as wholly identical, and sometimes as complete opposites? CLEINIAS: It looks that way. ATHENIAN: So among the many, then, the fine and the just are spoken of in this disjointed, inconsistent way. CLEINIAS: So it appears, stranger. ATHENIAN: Well then, Cleinias, let's look again at how things stand with us on this very point of consistency. CLEINIAS: Consistency between which things? ATHENIAN: In our earlier discussions, I believe I said quite plainly — and if I didn't say it before, then take it as said now — CLEINIAS: Said what? ATHENIAN: That all wicked people are wicked against their will in every respect. And if that's so, a certain conclusion must necessarily follow from it. CLEINIAS: What conclusion do you mean? ATHENIAN: That the unjust person is wicked, and the wicked person is such against his will. And an unwilling act can never rightly be called willing — so to the person who holds injustice to be involuntary, the wrongdoer will appear to do wrong unwillingly. And I myself must now agree to this — yes, I maintain that all people do wrong unwillingly. Even if someone, out of stubbornness or love of honor, claims that people are unjust unwillingly but that many do wrong willingly — that's not my position, it's the other one. So how, then, could I reconcile this with my own arguments, if you asked me, Cleinias and Megillus: 'If this is really so, stranger, what do you advise us about legislating for the city of the Magnesians — should we legislate or not?' 'Of course we should,' I'll say.
ATHENIAN: Will you then distinguish for them between involuntary and voluntary wrongs, and set greater penalties for voluntary mistakes and wrongs, lesser ones for involuntary ones? Or will you treat them all equally, on the ground that there's no such thing as voluntary wrongdoing at all? CLEINIAS: That's a fair question, stranger — and what shall we do with what's just been said? ATHENIAN: Well asked. First, then, let's make this use of it. CLEINIAS: What use? ATHENIAN: Let's recall that a little earlier we rightly said there is a great deal of confusion and disagreement among us about matters of justice. Bearing that in mind, let's ask ourselves again — have we, in the face of this puzzle, neither worked our way out of it nor determined just how these things differ from one another, which every lawgiver there has ever been treats, in every city, as two kinds of wrongdoing — the voluntary and the involuntary — and legislates accordingly? Yet our own account, just given, as though delivered from a god, will simply say its piece and be done, without giving any reason for its correctness, and go on legislating in some fashion regardless? That can't be right. Rather, before legislating we must somehow show that these are indeed two distinct things, and how they differ, so that when someone imposes the penalty appropriate to each, everyone can follow the reasoning and judge, in some way at least, whether the penalty set is fitting or not. CLEINIAS: What you say seems right to us, stranger — we're bound to do one of two things: either stop saying that all wrongdoing is involuntary, or first draw the distinction and show that this claim is correct. ATHENIAN: Of these two options, the first — simply refusing to say it, holding as I do that it's the truth — is something I absolutely cannot accept, since that would be neither lawful nor pious. But in what way are these two things distinct, if not by differing as the involuntary and the voluntary? We must somehow find some other way to make this clear. CLEINIAS: Indeed, stranger, there's no other way for us to think about this at all. ATHENIAN: So be it. Come then — harms done by citizens to one another in their dealings and associations occur often, and both the voluntary and the involuntary are abundant among them. CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: But let no one, in treating all harms as injustices, suppose that the unjust acts within them are likewise split in two this way, some voluntary, some involuntary — for involuntary harms are, in total number and magnitude, no fewer than voluntary ones. Consider whether what I'm about to say makes any sense at all, or none whatsoever. I do not claim, Cleinias and Megillus, that if someone harms another without meaning to, unwillingly, he does wrong — even though unwillingly — and I won't legislate on that basis, treating this as involuntary wrongdoing; nor will I count such harm as injustice at all, whether great or small. Often, in fact, we'll say that someone who confers a benefit wrongly is himself doing wrong, if my view prevails. For, my friends, whether someone gives another something of value, or on the contrary takes it away, we shouldn't simply call the act just or unjust on that basis alone — rather, the lawgiver must look at whether, in character and just manner, a person benefits or harms someone else; that's what he must examine, keeping his eye on these two things, injustice and harm. What has been harmed, the laws must, so far as possible, restore to health — making good what has been lost, setting right what has fallen, healing what has been killed or wounded — and where compensation has settled accounts between the one who acted and the one who suffered for each instance of harm, the laws must always try to turn discord back into friendship. CLEINIAS: Well said, that. ATHENIAN: As for unjust harms, and gains too, when someone profits by wronging another — whatever of these can be cured, as being diseases of the soul, must be cured; and we must say that the cure for injustice tends in this direction. CLEINIAS: In which direction? ATHENIAN: So that whoever commits a wrong, great or small, the law will teach him and compel him, in the future, either never willingly to dare such a thing again, or to do so far less — in addition to paying compensation for the harm. And whether this is achieved through deeds or words, through pleasures or pains, through honors or dishonors, through fines of money or even gifts, or by whatever means at all one can bring someone to hate injustice and to love — or at least not hate — the nature of justice, this very thing is the work of the finest laws. But whomever the lawgiver perceives to be incurable in this respect, what penalty and law will he set for such people?
ATHENIAN: Knowing that for all such people it's better not to go on living, and that their departure from life would benefit everyone else doubly—by standing as an example that discourages wrongdoing, and by ridding the city of bad men—the lawgiver must, for cases like these, prescribe death as the penalty. There's simply no other way. CLEINIAS: What you say seems reasonable enough, put quite moderately, but I'd be glad to hear it laid out still more clearly—this distinction between wrongdoing and mere harm, and how the voluntary and involuntary are woven through it all. ATHENIAN: Then let me try to do as you ask. It's plain that you both say to one another, and hear said, at least this much about the soul: that one element in its nature—whether we call it an affection or a part—is spirit, an unruly and combative possession bred into us, which by its senseless force overturns much. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And pleasure, again, we don't call the same thing as spirit—we say it holds power from the opposite quarter, working through persuasion mixed with forceful deception to accomplish whatever its will desires. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: And a third thing—someone would not be wrong to call ignorance the cause of wrongdoings. But the lawgiver would do better to split this into two: the simple form of it he should treat as the cause of light offenses, but the double form—when someone is mistaken not merely because gripped by ignorance but because of a reputation for wisdom, thinking he knows perfectly well what he in fact doesn't know at all—when this is joined with strength and power, he should set it down as the cause of great and graceless offenses; but when it's joined with weakness, he'll set it down as offenses belonging to children, and to their elders too, and will class them under laws as offenses, yet the gentlest of all and most deserving of pardon. CLEINIAS: That's reasonable. ATHENIAN: Now about pleasure and spirit we pretty much all say that one of them masters us and the other is mastered by us—and that's how it is. CLEINIAS: Absolutely so. ATHENIAN: But about ignorance, that one part of us masters it and another is mastered by it—we've never heard that said. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: And we say that all these forces drive each person, drawing him toward their own particular wish, often toward opposite directions at once. CLEINIAS: Very often indeed.
ATHENIAN: Now I could define for you clearly, without any further elaboration, what justice and injustice are, at least as I understand them. The tyranny in the soul exercised by spirit and fear and pleasure and pain and envy and desire—whether or not it does harm—I call injustice in every case. But the opinion of what is best, however a city or private individuals may come to believe it will turn out, if this opinion prevails and governs every man's soul, ordering it completely, even if it sometimes goes wrong—whatever is done under its rule, and whatever anyone submits to from that kind of authority, must be called just in every case, and the best thing for the whole of human life, even though many believe that the harm such a rule sometimes causes is involuntary injustice. We're not now concerned with quarreling over names, but since three kinds of wrongdoing have been shown to exist, we should first fix them more firmly in memory. There is, then, one kind consisting of pain, which we call spirit and fear. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: A second is pleasure and desire; and a third, distinct from these, is the pursuit of hopes and true opinion about what is best. And this third one, split in two, makes five kinds in all, as we're now saying—and for these five kinds we must lay down laws that differ from one another, falling under two broad classes. CLEINIAS: Which two? ATHENIAN: The kind done each time through violent and open action, and the kind done stealthily, in darkness and deceit, and sometimes a kind done through both together—and it's for this last that the harshest laws would be fitting, if they're to get their proper due. CLEINIAS: That seems likely. ATHENIAN: Let's go back, then, to the point from which we departed, and finish laying down the laws. We had established laws, I believe, concerning those who rob temples, and concerning traitors, and further concerning those who corrupt the laws with a view to overthrowing the existing constitution. Now someone might do one of these things while mad, or overwhelmed by disease or extreme old age, or acting like a child, in no way different from such people. If it becomes clear to the judges chosen for each case—whether the doer himself brings it up, or someone pleading on his behalf does—and he's judged to have broken the law while in such a condition, let him simply pay back, in full, whatever harm he's done, and be released from all other penalties—except if he has killed someone and so is not clean of hands from murder. In that case let him go live in exile in another place and country for a year; but if he returns before the time the law has set, or even so much as sets foot anywhere in his own country, let him be bound in public bonds by the guardians of the law for two years, and only then released from his bonds.
ATHENIAN: Now, concerning murder, let's try to carry on as we began and lay down laws covering every kind of it from start to finish, and first let's speak of the violent, involuntary sort. If someone, in a public contest or public games, unintentionally kills a friend—whether on the spot or later from the effects of blows—or does so in war, or likewise in training for war, when officials are conducting exercises either with bare bodies or with weapons in imitation of warfare, once he has undergone the purification that the ordinance fetched from Delphi prescribes for such cases, let him be clean. As for physicians in general, if a patient dies under their care against their will, let them be clean according to law. But if one man kills another with his own hand, unintentionally, whether with his own bare body, or with a tool, or a missile, or by giving drink or food, or by fire or exposure to storm, or by depriving him of air—whether by his own body or through the agency of others—in every such case he shall be treated as having killed with his own hand, and shall pay the following penalties. If he kills a slave, thinking he has merely dealt with his own property, he shall provide the dead man's master compensation for the harm and go unpunished, or else undergo a penalty double the slave's assessed value—the judges to determine that value—and he must use purifications greater and more numerous than those prescribed for killings in athletic contests, and the authorities over these purifications shall be whichever interpreters the god designates. But if it's his own slave he kills, once he has been purified he shall be released from the pollution of murder according to law. If someone unintentionally kills a free person, let him undergo the same purifications as one who has killed a slave, but let him not dishonor a certain old story handed down from ancient times. It is said that the man who was violently put to death, having lived with a free spirit, feels anger, newly dead as he is, at the one who did the deed, and being himself filled with fear and dread on account of his violent suffering, and seeing his own killer going about in the very haunts of his former life, he is terrified, and being disturbed himself he disturbs the doer in every way he can, with memory as his ally—both the victim himself and his deeds. Therefore it's necessary that the doer withdraw from the one who suffered, for the full round of the year's seasons, and vacate every familiar place throughout the whole of his native land.
ATHENIAN: And if the one who died was a foreigner, let the killer be barred likewise from the foreigner's own country for the same length of time. Now if someone willingly obeys this law—the nearest kinsman of the deceased, who oversees all these matters—let him grant forgiveness, and in making peace with the killer show himself altogether moderate. But if someone disobeys, and first of all, while still unclean, dares to go to the sacred places and offer sacrifice, and further is unwilling to complete the prescribed period of exile abroad, let the nearest kinsman of the deceased prosecute the killer for murder, and let all penalties be doubled for the one convicted. And if the nearest relative fails to prosecute for the suffering done, on the ground that the pollution has, as it were, come round upon himself, since the victim's suffering calls out for vindication, let whoever wishes prosecute the case instead, and compel the negligent kinsman by law to keep away from his own homeland for five years. And if a foreigner unintentionally kills a foreigner living in the city, let whoever wishes prosecute under the same laws; and if the killer is a resident alien, let him go into exile for a year, but if he is entirely a foreigner, then besides the purification, whether he has killed a foreigner or a resident alien or a citizen, let him be barred for his whole life from the country under the authority of these laws. If he returns in defiance of this law, the Law-Guardians are to punish him with death; and whatever property he owns they shall deliver to the nearest kin of the victim. But if he returns unintentionally—if he is shipwrecked onto the country by sea, let him pitch camp at the water's edge, wetting his feet, and watch for passage away; or if he's brought onto land by force by others, let the first official of the city who comes upon him release him and send him off unharmed across the border. But if someone kills a free person with his own hand, and the deed is done in anger, we must first distinguish this case in two ways. For a deed is done in anger both by those who, suddenly and without premeditation, kill someone on the spot with blows or something of the sort, the impulse arising in that very moment, and immediate regret follows the deed; and also in anger by those who, having been insulted by words or by dishonoring acts, pursue vengeance and later kill someone, meaning to kill, and feel no regret at all for what they've done.
ATHENIAN: So it seems we must set down murders as twofold, both of them arising, roughly speaking, from anger, and most rightly described as falling somewhere between the voluntary and the involuntary. Still, each is only an image of the other: the one who nurses his anger, and takes revenge not on the spot suddenly but later, with premeditation, resembles the voluntary killer; while the one who acts on his rage without restraint, immediately and without forethought, resembles the involuntary killer—yet even he is not wholly involuntary, but only an image of the involuntary. That's why murders committed in anger are hard to classify—whether the lawgiver should treat them as voluntary or as, in some sense, involuntary. The best and truest course is to set both down as images, but to divide them from each other by premeditation and lack of premeditation, and to legislate harsher penalties for those who kill with premeditation and out of anger, gentler ones for those who act without forethought and on the spot. For it's fitting to punish the greater evil more heavily, the lesser more lightly. This, then, is how our laws should proceed as well. CLEINIAS: Absolutely so. ATHENIAN: Let's go back, then, and say: if someone kills a free person with his own hand, and the deed was done in anger without premeditation, let him suffer, in other respects, what would be fitting for one who killed without anger, but let him necessarily go into exile for two years, thereby punishing his own anger. But whoever kills in anger, yet with premeditation, shall suffer, in other respects, according to the previous case, but shall go into exile for three years—the one who acted without premeditation went for two—being punished the longer for the greater intensity of his anger. As for their return, let it be arranged as follows. It's difficult to legislate this with precision, for sometimes the one the law ranks as the harsher case would actually be the gentler man, and the one ranked gentler would be harsher, and might commit the murder more savagely, while the other did it more gently; but for the most part things do turn out as we've just described. So the guardians of the law must judge all these matters, and when the time of exile has come for each of the two, they must send twelve of their number as judges to the borders of the country, who in that time shall have examined the conduct of the exiles still more closely, and shall serve as judges concerning their reinstatement and reception back,
ATHENIAN: And the two exiles must abide by whatever judgment such officials hand down. But if either of them, once returned, again gives way to anger and does the same thing, then let him go into exile and never come back; and if he does come back, let him suffer whatever the law prescribes for a foreigner who arrives in the country. Whoever kills his own slave must purify himself; but if he kills another man's slave out of rage, he must pay double the damage to the owner. And if any killer refuses to obey this law, and remains unpurified and pollutes the marketplace, the games, and the other sacred places, then anyone who wishes may bring both the killer and the relative of the dead man who permitted this into court, and compel them to pay double the fine in money and in every other penalty, and the man who brings the charge shall keep the payment for himself, as the law provides. If a slave in a fit of rage kills his own master, the relatives of the dead man may deal with the killer however they wish, except that they may in no way spare his life. But if some other slave kills a free man in anger, the owners must hand the slave over to the relatives of the dead man, and they must put him to death, though in whatever manner they choose. If — as happens, though rarely — a father or mother in a fit of rage kills a child of their own, whether with blows or through some other violence, the parent must undergo the same purifications as everyone else and live in exile for three years; and when the killers return, husband and wife must part from one another, never again to have children together, nor ever to share hearth or holy rites with the child whose brother or sister they took from them. Anyone who acts impiously in these matters and disobeys shall be liable to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes. If a husband in anger kills his wedded wife, or a wife likewise kills her own husband, they must undergo the same purifications and complete three years of exile. When the one who has done such a thing returns, he must never join his own children in holy rites, nor ever take a place at their table; and if either the parent or the child disobeys, that one too shall be liable to a charge of impiety brought by anyone who wishes.
ATHENIAN: And if a brother in anger kills a brother or a sister, or a sister kills a brother or a sister, the same rules for purification and exile that were stated for parents and children must apply here as well — and those who have thereby deprived brothers of brothers, or parents of children, must never share a hearth with them nor a share in sacred rites; and if anyone disobeys, he would rightly be held liable, by due process, under the law just stated concerning impiety in these matters. But if someone should lose control of his anger to such a degree against his own parents that in a fit of rage he dares to kill one of them, then, if the dying parent freely releases the killer from the charge of murder before dying, the killer, once purified in the same way as those guilty of involuntary killing, and having done everything else that they do, shall be clean. But if the parent does not release him, the one who did such a thing shall be liable under many laws at once: he would be liable to the harshest penalties for assault, and likewise for impiety, and for sacrilege too, since he has plundered the very soul of the one who begot him — so that, if it were possible for the same man to die many times over, it would be perfectly just for the man who in anger killed his father or his mother to suffer many deaths. For this is the one man to whom, alone of all men, no law will grant the right to kill his father or mother in self-defense even though he is about to be killed by his own parents — the very ones who brought his nature into the light — but the law will require him to endure everything rather than do such a thing; so how, in that case, could this man justly meet with any penalty other than what the law prescribes? Let death, then, be fixed as the penalty for the man who kills his father or mother in anger. If a brother kills a brother in a factional clash, in the course of a fight, or in some similar circumstance, defending himself against one who struck the first blow, let him be clean, just as if he had killed an enemy in war; and the same holds if a citizen kills a citizen, or a foreigner a foreigner. And if a citizen kills a foreigner, or a foreigner a citizen, in self-defense, he shall likewise be clean on the same grounds. The same applies if a slave kills a slave. But if a slave kills a free man in self-defense, he shall be liable to the same laws as one who kills his father. And whatever has been said about a father releasing his killer from the charge of murder shall apply in exactly the same way to every such release, whenever anyone at all willingly releases anyone else, on the understanding that the killing was involuntary; the killer must then undergo purification, and the law shall require one year of exile. Let this, then, suffice as a moderate account of killings that are violent, involuntary, and done in anger. Next we must speak of killings that are deliberate and done out of complete injustice, arising from a plot laid because a man has been overcome by pleasures, desires, and envy. CLEINIAS: You are right.
ATHENIAN: Let us then, once more, speak first, as best we can, of how many such cases there might be. The greatest of them is desire, when it masters a soul made savage by longing; and this occurs above all where the craving that most people feel is strongest and most powerful — the passion, born of a bad nature and a bad upbringing, for insatiable and unlimited acquisition of wealth, which breeds countless such longings. And the cause of this bad upbringing is the reputation wealth wins, wrongly praised by both Greeks and non-Greeks alike; for by ranking it first among goods, when really it is third, they cripple both the generations to come and themselves. For the truest and finest thing that could be said about wealth in every city is that it exists for the sake of the body, and the body for the sake of the soul; so that, granted the goods for whose sake wealth naturally exists, it would rank third, after the excellence of the body and of the soul. This argument, then, would teach us that the man who is to be happy should not seek to be wealthy, but should seek to be wealthy justly and with self-control; and if this were so, murders requiring purification by further murder would not occur in cities. But as it is, this is one thing, and the greatest thing, that produces the gravest cases of deliberate murder, just as we said when we began this subject. The second cause is a soul disposed to love honor, which breeds envy, a dangerous companion to live with, most of all for the man who feels it himself, and second most for the best people in the city. And third, cowardly and unjust fears have brought about many murders, whenever someone has done or is doing things he wants no one to know about, and so, having no other way, he does away with those who might expose him, by killing them. Let this, then, stand as the prelude spoken concerning all these cases; and in addition to this, let us add the account that many who take such matters seriously in the mystery rites hear and are strongly persuaded by — that such deeds are punished in Hades, and that those who return again to this life must inevitably pay a penalty in keeping with nature: that the one who suffered must, by another's hand, meet the same fate the killer himself once inflicted, in that later life.
ATHENIAN: For a man who is persuaded and altogether fears such a punishment, from the prelude alone, there is no need to chant further the law that follows on it; but for the man who disobeys, let this law be set down in writing. Whoever with premeditation and unjustly kills, with his own hand, any member of his own community, shall first be barred from everything lawful: he shall pollute no sacred place, no marketplace, no harbor, no other public gathering, whether or not anyone forbids him to do so — for the law forbids it, and in forbidding it speaks, and will always be seen to speak, on behalf of the whole city. And whoever, though bound to prosecute or to proclaim that the killer be barred, fails to do so — being a relative of the dead man within the degree of first cousin, on either the father's or the mother's side — shall first take upon himself the pollution and the enmity of the gods, since the curse of the law drives that reputation onto him, and second, he shall be liable to prosecution by anyone who wishes to avenge the dead man. The one who wishes to avenge him must observe all the rules concerning the washings and whatever other customs the god hands down concerning these matters, and must make the proclamation, and then proceed to compel the guilty man to submit to the exaction of justice according to law. That these things must be accompanied by certain prayers and sacrifices to gods who are concerned with such matters, so that murders may cease in cities, is easy for a lawgiver to declare; but which gods they are, and what manner of bringing such cases to trial would be most correctly in accord with the divine, the Guardians of the Law must determine, together with the interpreters, the seers, and the god, and it is they who shall bring these cases to trial. The judges of these cases shall be the same men who were said to have full authority to judge those who plunder temples. The man found guilty shall pay the penalty of death, and burial anywhere in his victim's land shall be refused him, because of the shamelessness heaped on top of his impiety. If he flees and refuses to stand trial, let him be banished forever; and if he ever sets foot anywhere in the territory of the murdered man, the first relative of the dead man, or any citizen, who comes upon him may kill him with impunity, or may bind him and hand him over to the officials who judged the case, to be put to death. And the man bringing the charge must, at the same time, require the accused to provide sureties; the accused must furnish guarantors, judged sufficient by the officials who preside over such cases — three sufficient guarantors pledging to produce him for trial. And if a man is unwilling, or unable, to provide such guarantors, the officials shall take him into custody, keep him bound, and produce him for the trial.
ATHENIAN: If a man does not kill with his own hand, but plots the death of another, and by his wish and his scheming is responsible for the killing, and his soul remains impure of the murder while he lives on in the city, the same trials shall apply to him in these matters as well, except for the matter of bail; but if he is convicted, he shall be permitted burial in his own land, while everything else concerning him shall proceed in the same way as stated before. The same rules shall hold between foreigners and foreigners, between citizens and foreigners toward one another, and between slaves and slaves, in matters both of killing with one's own hand and of plotting, except for the matter of bail; that, as has been said, applies to those who kill with their own hand — and the man who makes the proclamation of murder must also require bail from these as well. If a slave willingly kills a free man, whether with his own hand or by plotting, and is convicted, the public executioner of the city shall lead him to the tomb of the dead man, from a spot where he can see the grave, and shall flog him with as many strokes as the man who won the case orders, and if the murderer still lives after the beating, put him to death. If a man puts a blameless slave to death, out of fear that the slave might reveal some shameful and wicked deeds of his own, or for some other such reason, then just as he would be liable to the penalties for murder had he killed a citizen, so too, when such a slave dies in this way, he shall be liable in the same manner. Now if there should be cases — as there must be laws even for matters that are dreadful and in no way welcome to legislate about, though it is impossible not to legislate for them — of killing kinsmen with one's own hand or through a plot, willingly and altogether unjustly, cases which mostly occur in cities badly governed and badly raised, though such a thing could happen even in a place where one would least expect it, then it is right to repeat again the account stated a little earlier, in the hope that anyone who hears us might be more willing to hold back, of his own accord, from murders of this kind, which are the most unholy of all. For the story, or account, or whatever one ought to call it, has been clearly told by priests of old: that Justice, the avenger of the blood of kinsmen, keeps watch, employing the very law just now stated, and has ordained that whoever does such a thing must of necessity suffer the very same thing he did — that if a man ever killed his father, he must in time suffer the same violence himself at the hands of his own children; and if he killed his mother, he must of necessity come to share in a female nature, and, once born as a woman, must in a later time lose his own life at the hands of those he bore.
ATHENIAN: For once the shared blood has been polluted, there is no other purifying it — the pollution refuses to wash clean until the soul that did the deed pays back murder for like murder, and by that payment calms the wrath of the whole kindred and lays it to rest. A person should be held back from such acts by fear of these penalties from the gods. But if some wretched calamity should so seize a man that he dares, deliberately and with forethought, to rob his father or mother or brothers or children of their soul, here is how the law laid down by our mortal lawgiver deals with such cases. The proclamations barring him from the customary places, and the same sworn guarantees, apply as were stated for the earlier cases. If anyone is convicted of such a murder, having killed one of these kin, the officers and attendants of the court, once they have put him to death, shall throw his naked body out at an appointed crossroads outside the city, and each of the magistrates, acting for the entire city, shall carry a stone and hurl it at the head of the corpse, thereby cleansing all the city of its defilement; after that they shall carry it to the borders of the territory and cast it out unburied, as the law commands. But what should be done to a man who kills the one closest and dearest of all to him — I mean one who kills himself, doing violence to his allotted share of fate, when no judgment of the city has ordered it and no unavoidable and agonizing misfortune has forced it upon him, nor has he fallen into some disgrace beyond bearing or beyond living with, but simply through laziness and a coward's want of manhood inflicts this unjust sentence on himself? For such a man, the god knows what customary rites should govern the purifications and the burial, and his nearest kin must inquire of the interpreters and of the laws that concern these matters and act as instructed. But the graves of those destroyed in this way shall, first, be solitary, with no one else buried alongside; and further, they shall be buried without honor in the waste, unmarked plots at the borders of the twelve districts, with neither headstone nor name to mark the grave. And if a beast of burden or some other animal kills a person — except in the case of something that happens to a contestant in a public athletic contest — the relatives of the dead shall prosecute the killing, and the rural wardens whom the relative appoints, in whatever number he directs, shall judge the case; and whatever animal is convicted shall be killed and thrown out beyond the borders of the territory.
ATHENIAN: And if some lifeless thing deprives a person of life — except for a thunderbolt or some other such missile sent by a god — but any other thing that kills someone by falling on him or by his falling upon it, the nearest relative shall appoint one of the neighbors as judge over it, thereby purging the pollution on behalf of himself and the whole kindred, and the guilty object shall be cast out beyond the border, exactly as was said of the class of animals. And if a person is found dead, but the killer is unknown and cannot be found despite a diligent search, the same proclamations shall be made as in the other cases, and the killing shall be publicly proclaimed against the doer, and the one who brings the charge shall have it announced in the marketplace that whoever killed so-and-so, being convicted of the murder, may not set foot in the temples nor anywhere in the territory of the victim, on the understanding that if he is discovered and identified he shall be put to death and his body thrown out unburied beyond the territory of the victim. Let this, then, stand as a single binding law concerning murder. So much, then, for these matters up to this point. Now, the conditions under which a killer might rightly be considered clean of guilt shall be these. If a man catches a thief entering his house at night to steal his property, and kills him, he is clean. And if he kills a robber in defending himself against him, he is clean. And if anyone forces himself sexually on a free woman or a free child, he may be killed with impunity by the one who was violated, or by the father or brothers or sons of the victim. And if a husband comes upon his wedded wife being raped and kills the rapist, he is clean before the law. And if anyone comes to the aid of his father when the father's life is in danger, and the father is doing nothing impious, and kills someone in the process — or comes to the aid of his mother, or his children, or his brothers, or the mother of his children — he shall in every case be clean. So much, then, stands legislated concerning how the living soul is to be reared and trained — that soul for whom success here makes life worth living, and failure the reverse — and concerning the penalties that violent deaths require. What concerns the nurture and education of bodies has already been said; what comes next, we must, as far as we are able, distinguish and define — namely the violent acts committed by one person against another, whether unintentional or intentional, how many kinds there are and what they are, and what penalties, once applied to each, would be fitting. It seems that it is these matters which, after the foregoing, ought properly to be legislated next. Wounds, and the maiming that results from wounds, even the most casual person turning his mind to lawmaking would rank second only to killings. Wounds, then, must be divided just as killings were divided — some unintentional, some done in anger, some out of fear, and some that occur intentionally and with forethought.
ATHENIAN: Something of this sort must be said as a preface to all such matters — that it is necessary for human beings to lay down laws and live according to laws, or else be no different from the wildest of beasts. And the reason is this: no man's nature is by itself adequate both to recognize what is beneficial for human beings in the running of a city, and, having recognized it, to possess at every moment both the power and the willingness to act on the best course. For, in the first place, it is hard to recognize that the true political craft must concern itself not with the private but with the common good — for the common good binds cities together, while the private good tears them apart — and that it benefits both the common and the private interest, of the two, when the common good is set in order well rather than the private. And second, even if a man should grasp with sufficient mastery that this is how things naturally stand, and should then rule a city with power unaccountable and absolute, he could never remain steadfast in this conviction throughout his life, governing the city with the common good as his guide and the private good following after it; rather, his mortal nature will always drive him toward greed and self-interest, fleeing pain without reason and pursuing pleasure, setting both of these ahead of what is more just and better, and, breeding darkness within itself, will in the end fill both itself and the whole city with every evil. Yet if ever a man were born with a nature capable enough, by some divine allotment, to take on this understanding, he would need no laws to rule over him; for no law or ordinance is mightier than knowledge, nor is it right for reason to be subject to anything or a slave to anything, but rather to rule over everything — if indeed it is truly and by nature free. But as things stand, such a nature exists nowhere at all, or only in some small degree; and that is why we must choose the second-best thing, order and law, which see and look to what holds for the most part, but are unable to grasp every single case. This has been said for the following reason: we are now about to determine what a person who has wounded another, or done some other harm, ought to suffer or to pay. And it is easy for anyone, in any case, to raise the fair objection: what do you mean — wounded whom, in what way, and when? For there are countless such particulars, and they differ enormously from one another. To hand all of this over to the courts to decide, or none of it, is equally impossible.
ATHENIAN: There is one thing which must, in every case, necessarily be entrusted to the courts to decide — whether each of these things happened or did not happen. But to leave to them entirely the question of what penalty ought to be imposed and what an offender in these matters ought to suffer, without the lawgiver himself legislating on all points, great and small, is nearly impossible. CLEINIAS: What, then, is the argument that follows from this? ATHENIAN: This: that some matters must be entrusted to the courts, and others must not, but must instead be legislated by the lawgiver himself. CLEINIAS: Then which matters must be legislated, and which handed over to the courts to judge? ATHENIAN: The most correct thing to say after this would be as follows: in a city where the courts are poor and voiceless, hiding their own opinions and deciding cases behind closed doors — or, worse still, when they judge cases not even in silence but in courts full of uproar, like theaters, shouting their applause and their condemnation of each speaker in turn — a grievous condition tends to afflict the whole city. To legislate for courts of this sort, if one is forced by some necessity to do so, is no happy business, but if one is nonetheless compelled to it, one should entrust to them the setting of penalties only in the very smallest matters, and legislate most things oneself in explicit detail, in case anyone should ever have to legislate for such a constitution. But in whatever city the courts are established as rightly as possible, and those who are to serve as judges have been well brought up and thoroughly tested and examined, there it is right and good and proper to entrust much of the judging to such judges — deciding what those convicted ought to suffer or pay. So it is no reproach to us now that we do not legislate for our judges on the greatest and most numerous matters, things which even judges of rather poorer education could work out for themselves and attach to each offense the penalty fitting the suffering and the deed. Since we believe that those for whom we are legislating will prove to be judges especially competent in such matters, most things must indeed be entrusted to them. All the same, as we have often said and done in our earlier legislation, it is right — having stated the outline and the general patterns of penalties — to give the judges models, so that they may never step outside the bounds of justice; and that was the most correct approach then, and this same thing must now be done, returning once more to the laws themselves.
ATHENIAN: Let our statute on wounding, then, be laid down as follows. If anyone, intending in his purpose to kill a kinsman — except in the cases the law permits — inflicts a wound yet proves unable to accomplish the killing, the one who so intended and so wounded does not deserve pity, nor should he be shown any leniency; rather, he must be forced to stand trial for murder exactly as if he had killed. But out of respect for the fortune that was not wholly evil, and for the guardian spirit who took pity on both him and the wounded man and turned aside from them the fate that would have made the wound incurable for the one and the sentence and calamity accursed for the other — out of gratitude to this spirit, and not opposing it, we should spare the wounder's life, but let him be exiled for life to a neighboring city, enjoying the full use of his own property. And if he did damage to the wounded man, he must pay compensation to the injured party, the amount to be assessed by whichever court would have judged the case had the man died of the blow, the same court that would have tried it as murder. If a child wounds his parents, or a slave his master, in the same deliberate way, the penalty shall be death; and if a brother wounds a brother or a sister, or a sister a brother or a sister, in the same way, and is convicted of wounding with forethought, the penalty shall be death. But a wife who wounds her own husband, plotting to kill him, or a husband his wife, shall go into permanent exile. As for their property, if they still have sons or daughters who are children, the guardians shall administer it and take care of the children as of orphans; but if the children are grown men, the exile shall not be under any obligation to be supported by his offspring, and the offspring shall keep the property themselves. And if anyone who falls into such a misfortune is childless, the relatives, gathering together as far as the children of first cousins on both sides — both through the men and through the women — of the exile, shall, after taking counsel with the priests and with the law-guardians, appoint an heir to that household, to be the five-thousand-and-fortieth household of the city, reasoning in this manner: that none of the five thousand and forty households belongs to the man living in it, or even to his whole family line, so much as it belongs to the city, both publicly and privately; for the city ought, as far as possible, to keep its own households as holy and as prosperous as it can.
ATHENIAN: Now when a household is struck by misfortune and impiety at once, so that its owner leaves no children behind — dying unmarried, or married but childless, convicted of willful murder or of some other crime against gods or citizens for which the law explicitly prescribes death, or going into permanent exile without children — that household must first be purified and ritually cleansed, as the law requires. Then the relatives, together with the Guardians of the Laws, must meet, as we said just now, and look through the city for whichever family is most highly regarded for virtue and at the same time fortunate, one in which there are several sons. From that family they should adopt one son for the dead man's father and for the ancestors above him, naming him after them for the sake of the family name, and pray that he prove, as their begetter, hearth-keeper, and tender of their rites both sacred and secular, luckier than the father was. Having made this prayer, they should install him as heir according to law, and let the wrongdoer lie nameless, childless, and without a share, whenever such disasters overtake him. Not everything that exists, it seems, has a boundary that touches directly on another's boundary; rather, where there is a borderland between two things, that middle ground touches each of the two first and lies between them both. And indeed, among involuntary and voluntary acts, we said that what is done in anger is just such a middle thing. So let this be the rule for wounds inflicted in anger: if a man is convicted, he must first pay double the damage, if the wound proves curable, and quadruple if it proves incurable. But if the wound is curable yet brings some great and shameful disgrace upon the one wounded, he must pay four times the damage. And whenever a man's wounding of another harms not only the victim but the city as well, by making him unable to help his homeland against enemies, the wrongdoer must, besides his other penalties, pay the city for that harm too — for in addition to his own campaigns he must serve on campaign in place of the man now unable to serve, and take up that man's post in battle; or, failing to do this, he becomes liable to prosecution, according to law, by anyone who wishes to bring charges of draft evasion. As for the value of the harm — whether it comes to double, triple, or quadruple — the jurors who convict him shall set the amount. And if one member of a family wounds another of the same family in this same way, the kinsmen and relatives on both the women's and the men's side, down to the children of cousins, men and women together, shall meet, judge the case, and hand the offender over to his natural parents for punishment. If the assessment of the penalty is disputed, the male relatives shall have final authority over it; and if they cannot agree, the matter shall finally be left to the Guardians of the Laws.
ATHENIAN: In cases where children wound parents in this way, the judges must be men over sixty years old who have genuine children of their own, not adopted ones. If someone is convicted, they must decide whether he ought to die, or suffer something even worse than death, or something not much lighter. None of the offender's own relatives may serve as judge, even if he has reached the age the law requires. If a slave wounds a free man in anger, his owner must hand the slave over to the wounded man to deal with as he pleases; if the owner does not hand him over, he must himself make good the damage. If the owner claims that the slave and the wounded man conspired together to fake the incident, he may contest the charge; if he fails to prove this, he must pay triple the damages, but if he succeeds, the one who devised the scheme, together with the slave, becomes liable to a charge of kidnapping. Whoever wounds another unintentionally must pay simple damages — for no lawgiver is able to legislate against chance — and jurisdiction shall belong to the same court that was named for children's offenses against parents, and they shall assess the value of the harm. All the wrongs we have described so far involve violence, and every form of assault is likewise violent. Every man, woman, and child must always bear this in mind concerning such matters: that age is honored far more than youth, both among gods and among men who are to be safe and happy. It is a shameful thing, hateful to the gods, for an assault upon an older person to occur in the city at the hands of someone younger. It is fitting for any young man, if struck by an old man, to bear the anger patiently, storing up this honor for himself against his own old age. So let it be thus: let every one of us revere our elders in deed and word. Let a man regard anyone twenty years older than himself, male or female, with the same caution he would show a father or mother, and for the sake of the gods of birth let him always keep his hands off anyone of an age still capable of begetting or bearing children. In the same way he must restrain himself from striking a foreigner, whether long resident or newly arrived; whether starting the quarrel or defending himself, let him never dare to correct such a person with blows. But if he thinks some foreigner deserves punishment for behaving insolently and violently toward him, let him seize the man and bring him before the city-wardens, but keep himself from striking him, so that the local citizen may be kept far from ever daring to strike a foreigner. The city-wardens, once they have taken charge of the case and examined it — being mindful of the god of foreigners — shall, if it appears the foreigner struck the citizen unjustly, give the foreigner as many lashes with the whip as he himself gave, and so put a stop to his foreign insolence. But if he is found not to have done wrong, the accuser shall receive threats and reproaches from them, and both men shall be released.
ATHENIAN: If a man of equal age, or one who has no children, strikes another equal in age — an old man an old man, or a young man a young man — the one struck may defend himself naturally, with bare hands and without a weapon. But if a man over forty years old dares to fight with anyone, whether as the aggressor or in self-defense, he shall be called boorish, ill-bred, and slavish, and it will be fitting for him to receive a humiliating penalty. If a man is persuaded by such warnings, he will prove easy to guide; but the man who is hard to persuade and pays no heed to the preamble should readily accept the following law: if anyone strikes a person twenty years older than himself or more, then first, whoever happens to be present — provided he is neither the same age nor younger than the combatants — must separate them, or be counted a coward under the law. But if he is the same age as the one struck, or younger, he must defend the wronged party as he would a brother, a father, or someone still older. Further, the man who has dared to strike his elder, as described, must stand trial for assault, and if he is convicted, he must be imprisoned for not less than a year; but if the jurors assess a longer term, the time they set shall stand. If a foreigner or a resident alien strikes a person twenty years older than himself or more, the same law shall apply with the same force regarding those present who must help; and whoever loses such a case — if he is a foreigner not permanently settled — must serve two years in prison in payment for this offense, while a resident alien who disobeys the laws in this way shall be confined in prison for three years, or for whatever longer period the court may fix. Anyone present at any such incident who fails to give the help the law requires must also be fined: the man of the highest property class a mina, the second class fifty drachmas, the third thirty, and the fourth twenty. The court for such cases shall consist of the generals, the company commanders, the tribal commanders, and the cavalry commanders. Laws, it seems, are made for the sake of decent people, to teach them how they may live together in friendship; but they are also made for those who have escaped education, whose natures are unyielding and untouched by any softening, so that they rush headlong into every kind of wickedness. It is for the sake of these people that the arguments about to be given will be spoken; it is for them that the lawgiver will necessarily legislate, though he wishes there were never any need to use such laws at all.
ATHENIAN: Whoever, in an act of outrage, dares to raise a violent hand against the father or the mother who bore him, or against their parents in turn, without fearing the wrath of the gods above nor the punishments spoken of beneath the earth, but instead — as though he knew what in truth he does not know at all — scorns the ancient and universally attested traditions and breaks the law, needs the harshest possible deterrent. Death is not the harshest thing; the sufferings said to await such people in Hades are harsher still than death, yet, however truly they are described, they accomplish nothing to deter souls of this kind — otherwise there would never arise men bold enough to strike their mothers or commit such unholy assaults against their other parents. It follows that the punishments inflicted here in life for such acts must, as far as possible, fall no short of those in Hades. Let it therefore be declared as follows: whoever, not gripped by madness, dares to strike either parent, or the father or the mother of either of them, must first be met with help from whoever happens to be present, just as in the earlier cases; and the resident alien or foreigner who helps shall be invited to a seat of honor at the public games, while one who fails to help shall be banished from the country forever. The citizen who is not a resident alien shall be praised for helping, and blamed for failing to help. A slave who helps shall be set free, but one who fails to help shall receive a hundred lashes of the whip — administered by the market officials if the incident occurs in the marketplace, by the city-wardens if it occurs elsewhere within the town and the offender is a resident there, and by the officers of the country-wardens if it occurs somewhere out in the countryside. If the bystander happens to be a native — whether child, man, or woman — everyone must come to the defense, denouncing the offender as unholy; anyone who fails to help shall be subject to the curse of Zeus, god of kindred and of fathers, according to law. If a man is convicted of assaulting his parents, he must first go into permanent exile from the city into the rest of the country, and be barred from all the sacred places; and if he does not stay away, the country-wardens shall punish him with blows and however else they wish, and if he returns, he shall be put to death. If any free person eats or drinks with such a man, or shares in any other such fellowship with him, or even merely meets and willingly touches him, he must not enter any temple, nor the marketplace, nor the city at all, until he has been purified, considering that he has shared in a cursed fate.
ATHENIAN: If, in defiance of the law, someone pollutes the sacred places and the city unlawfully, then whichever official becomes aware of it and fails to bring the offender to justice shall have this counted as one of the gravest charges against him at his official review. And if a slave strikes a free person — whether foreigner or citizen — whoever happens to be present must help, or else pay the prescribed fine according to his property class; those present, together with the one struck, must bind the slave and hand him over to the injured party, who, taking him, shall bind him in chains and give him as many lashes as he wishes, without harming his master's property thereby, and then hand him back to his owner to keep, according to law. Let the law be this: whoever, being a slave, strikes a free man without the order of the magistrates — his owner, once he receives him bound from the man who was struck, shall keep him in bonds until the slave convinces the man he struck that he has earned the right to live unshackled. The same rules shall hold for women toward one another in all such matters, and for women toward men and men toward women.
ATHENIAN: After assault, let one general rule about violent acts be stated: no one is to take or carry off anything belonging to another, and no one is to use anything of his neighbor's without the owner's consent. That is the root from which all the evils I've named have sprung, do spring, and will spring. Of the rest, the greatest are the license and outrageous behavior of the young, worst of all when directed at sacred things, and worse still when directed at public and holy things, or things held in common by members of a tribe or some other such group.
ATHENIAN: Offenses against private shrines and tombs come second in rank, offenses against parents third, apart from what I've already mentioned, whenever someone treats them outrageously. A fourth kind of outrage is when a person, disregarding the officials, takes, carries off, or uses something of theirs without their consent. Fifth would be the offense against the political rights of each individual citizen, calling for a lawsuit. Each of these must be given a common rule. Temple-robbery, whether by force or in secret, has already been dealt with, along with what should happen to the offender. But as for whatever a person does in word or deed to insult the gods, whoever lays down the preamble must also state what such a person ought to suffer. Here it is: no one who genuinely believes in the gods as the laws describe them has ever willingly done an impious deed or let loose a lawless word. Anyone who does so is in one of three conditions: either, as I said, he does not believe; or he believes the gods exist but pay no attention to human affairs; or third, he believes they are easily won over by sacrifices and prayers. CLEINIAS: Then what should we do or say to such people? ATHENIAN: My good friend, let's first listen to what I imagine they would say to us in mockery, out of contempt for us. CLEINIAS: What sort of thing? ATHENIAN: They might taunt us like this: 'Strangers of Athens, Sparta, and Knossos, you're right. Some of us don't believe in gods at all, others believe in gods of the sort you describe. We claim the right—just as you yourselves have claimed when it comes to laws—that before you threaten us harshly, you should first try to persuade and teach us that gods exist, offering adequate proof, and that they are too good to be turned aside from justice by bribes. As it stands, this is what we hear, from those said to be the finest poets, orators, prophets, priests, and countless others besides, and it doesn't turn most of us away from wrongdoing—instead, once we've done wrong, we try to make amends. But from lawgivers, who claim to be gentle rather than savage, we expect to be won over by persuasion first—if not with far better arguments about the gods' existence than others give, then at least with truer ones. So go ahead: if what we ask is reasonable, try to give us what we're calling for.'
CLEINIAS: Well, stranger, doesn't it seem easy enough to speak the truth and show that gods exist? ATHENIAN: How so? CLEINIAS: First, there's the earth, the sun, the stars, and everything in the heavens, and the seasons arranged so beautifully, divided into years and months. And besides, all people—Greeks and non-Greeks alike—believe gods exist. ATHENIAN: I'm afraid, my good man, of the wicked—I certainly wouldn't say I'm ashamed of them—that they might look down on us for this. You don't understand the real source of their disagreement; you assume it's simply weakness before pleasures and desires that drives their souls toward an impious life. CLEINIAS: Then what else could be the cause, stranger? ATHENIAN: Something you, living entirely outside of it, could hardly know—it would escape you completely. CLEINIAS: What is it you mean by that? ATHENIAN: A kind of ignorance, very stubborn, that passes itself off as the deepest wisdom. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: We have among us, in writing, arguments that don't exist among you—thanks, I gather, to the excellence of your constitution—some in verse, some in prose, speaking about the gods. The oldest of these tell how the first nature of the heavens and everything else came to be; and not far past the beginning, they go on to recount the birth of the gods, and how, once born, they dealt with one another. Whether these tales are good or bad for other purposes is not easy to judge, given their antiquity; but as concerns the honor and care owed to parents, I would never praise them as either beneficial or, in fact, altogether true. Let the tales of the ancients, then, be set aside and dismissed—let them be told however is pleasing to the gods. But the views of our modern so-called wise men must be blamed for the harm they cause. Here is what the arguments of such people accomplish: when you and I offer proof that gods exist by pointing to the sun, moon, stars, and earth as gods and divine beings, people persuaded by these clever men will say that these are just earth and stone, incapable of caring about human affairs at all, and that such claims have merely been dressed up in persuasive-sounding words. CLEINIAS: That's a difficult argument you've brought up, stranger, even if there were only one such thinker; but now that there are a great many, it's harder still.
ATHENIAN: Well then, what do we say? What must we do? Shall we mount a defense, as if someone had brought an accusation against us among impious men, who charge, in speaking against our legislation, that we do a terrible thing in making laws on the assumption that gods exist? Or shall we let that be and turn back to the laws themselves, so our preamble doesn't grow longer than the laws? The discussion would not be brief if it were stretched out—if we were to give the enthusiasts for impiety a reasonably adequate demonstration of the very things they demanded we discuss, turn them toward fear, and make them recoil from certain things, and only then, after that, go on to legislate as is fitting. CLEINIAS: But stranger, we've said this very thing several times already in a short space of time—that on the present occasion there's no reason to prefer brevity over length. No one, as the saying goes, is chasing us in haste. It would be ridiculous and shabby to appear to choose the shorter over the best. It matters a great deal that our arguments have some persuasive force—that gods exist and are good, honoring justice far more than men do. This, I think, would be about the finest and best preamble we could give for all our laws taken together. So without any reluctance or hurry, let's go through, as fully as we're able, whatever power we have to persuade people of such things, holding nothing back. ATHENIAN: What you've just said seems to call for a kind of prayer on my part, since you press forward so eagerly—there's no room left for delay. Come then, how can one speak about the existence of the gods without anger? For it's inevitable to feel resentment and hatred toward those who are and have been responsible for putting us in this position—people who refuse to trust the stories they heard as young children, still nursing at their mothers' and nurses' breasts, stories told half in play and half in earnest, like incantations, and heard again at sacrifices amid prayers, together with the sights that accompany them—sights a child delights most to see and hear performed—their own parents, in the greatest earnestness, on their own behalf and on behalf of their children, addressing the gods in prayers and supplications as beings that most certainly exist; and again, whenever sun or moon comes up or goes down, hearing and watching as Greeks and barbarians alike bow down in acts of reverence, in every sort of misfortune and good fortune, directed not to beings who don't exist but to beings who most certainly do, leaving no room whatsoever for suspicion that gods do not exist—
ATHENIAN: All of this, then, is what those people despise, without a single adequate argument, as anyone with even a little sense would agree, yet they now force us to say what we are saying. How could one, in gentle words, admonish and at the same time instruct such people, teaching them first that gods exist? Still, it must be attempted—for it would hardly do for some of us to be driven mad by gluttonous pleasure while others are driven mad by anger at people like this. Let this be our address, free of anger, spoken to those whose thinking has been so corrupted, speaking gently, our own anger extinguished, as though addressing one of them directly: 'My child, you are young, and time, as it goes on, will make you change many of the views you now hold, and adopt their opposites. So wait until then to become a judge of the most important matters—and the most important, though you now think it nothing, is whether one lives well or not by thinking rightly about the gods. Let me point out one great thing about them first, in which I could never be shown false. You are not the first, nor are your friends, to hold this opinion about the gods first or alone—there have always been people, more or fewer, afflicted with this same sickness. But here is something I can tell you, having encountered many of them: no one who has taken up this opinion about the gods from youth—that they do not exist—has ever persisted in that conviction all the way to old age. The other two states of mind concerning the gods do sometimes persist, though not in most people: that the gods exist but pay no heed to human affairs, and, following that, that they do care but are easily won over by sacrifices and prayers. As for the clearest judgment you'll be able to form about these matters, if you trust me, you will wait, examining whether things are this way or otherwise, inquiring both from others and, above all, from the lawgiver. In the meantime, do not dare commit any impiety toward the gods. For the one giving you these laws now, and in what follows, must try to teach you how these things truly stand.' CLEINIAS: What has been said so far, stranger, is excellent. ATHENIAN: Entirely so, Megillus and Cleinias—but we have, without noticing it, fallen into a remarkable argument. CLEINIAS: Which one do you mean? ATHENIAN: The one held by many to be the wisest of all arguments. CLEINIAS: Explain more clearly. ATHENIAN: Some say that all things that come to be, have come to be, and will come to be, arise partly by nature, partly by art, and partly by chance. CLEINIAS: Isn't that well said?
ATHENIAN: It's likely, I suppose, that wise men speak correctly. Still, let's follow them and consider what those on that side actually have in mind. CLEINIAS: By all means. ATHENIAN: It seems, they say, that nature and chance produce the greatest and finest things, while art produces the lesser ones—art, taking over from nature the generation of the great, primary works, then molding and fashioning all the smaller things, which we all call the products of art. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: I'll put it more clearly still. Fire, water, earth, and air, they say, all exist by nature and by chance, none of them by art; and the bodies that come after these—earth, sun, moon, and stars—came into being through these very elements, entirely soulless as they are. Each element, carried along by chance according to its own power, and however it happened to combine fittingly with its kin—hot with cold, dry with moist, soft with hard, and all such combinations as necessarily arose by chance from the mixture of opposites—in this way and by these means they generated the whole heaven and everything in it, and likewise all animals and plants, all the seasons arising from these same causes—not through intelligence, they say, nor through any god, nor through art, but, as I said, by nature and chance. Art came later, itself born of these things, itself mortal and born of mortal things, and it produced afterward certain playthings that have little share in truth, mere images akin to itself, such as painting and music create, and the other arts that serve alongside them. But such arts as do produce something serious are those that join their own power with nature—medicine, for instance, farming, and gymnastics. Politics too, they say, shares only a small part with nature, and is mostly a matter of art; and likewise all lawgiving is not by nature but by art, and its positions are not true. CLEINIAS: What do you mean?
ATHENIAN: These people say, my good friend, that the gods exist first of all by art, not by nature, but by certain conventions, and that these conventions differ from place to place, however each group agreed among themselves in making their laws. And they say that noble things are one thing by nature and another by law, and that just things do not exist by nature at all, but that people are forever disputing about them and constantly shifting them around, and whatever they shift them to, and whenever, that becomes authoritative at that time — coming about by art and by laws, not by any nature at all. These are the doctrines, my friends, that clever men spread among young people, both private thinkers and poets, who claim that the most just thing is whatever wins by force. From this impiety falls upon young people, as though the gods were not the kind the law demands we believe in, and factions arise on account of this, dragging people toward the life that is 'right by nature' — which in truth is a life of dominating others rather than being enslaved to them by law. CLEINIAS: What an argument you have laid out, stranger, and what ruin it brings on young people, both in the public life of cities and in private households. ATHENIAN: What you say is true, Cleinias. So what do you think the lawgiver should do, given that these doctrines have long since been prepared? Should he simply stand up in the city and threaten all the people, saying that if they do not admit the gods exist, and do not come to believe in them as the sort the law describes — and the same for noble things and just things and all the greatest matters, and whatever bears on virtue and vice, that they must act in these matters as the lawgiver has laid down in writing — and that whoever fails to render himself obedient to the laws must die, or another be punished with blows and imprisonment, another with loss of civic standing, others with poverty and exile? Should he give the people no persuasion at all when he lays down the laws for them, tame them by argument as far as possible? CLEINIAS: By no means, stranger. Rather, if there is even a little persuasion available in such matters, the lawgiver worth even a little must never grow weary, but must, as the saying goes, use every kind of voice to come to the aid of the ancient law with the argument that gods exist, and all you just now went through, and indeed to come to the defense of law itself and of art, on the ground that these too exist by nature, or no less than by nature, if indeed they are the offspring of mind according to right reason — which you seem to me to be saying, and which I now believe from you. ATHENIAN: Most eager Cleinias, well then — is it not hard to follow arguments spoken at such length to a general crowd, and besides, they run to enormous length?
CLEINIAS: What of it, stranger? On drunkenness and music we waited through such long speeches ourselves — shall we not endure it concerning the gods and such matters? And surely for lawgiving pursued with wisdom this is the greatest help, because prescriptions about laws, once set down in writing, remain perfectly still for all time, as though ready to give an account of themselves — so that there is no need to fear if they are hard to hear at the start, since even the slow learner will be able to go over them repeatedly; nor, if they are long but beneficial, does that give any reason to hold back — indeed it seems to me not even pious for any man to fail to help these arguments to the best of his power. MEGILLUS: What Cleinias says seems excellent to me, stranger. ATHENIAN: Very much so, Megillus, and we must do as he says. Indeed, if such doctrines had not been sown among practically all mankind, there would be no need at all for arguments defending the existence of the gods — but as it is, there is necessity. So when the greatest laws are being corrupted by wicked men, who is more fitting to come to their defense than the lawgiver? MEGILLUS: No one. ATHENIAN: Then tell me again, Cleinias, you too — for you must be a partner in the argument — the man who says these things presumably holds that the primary things of all are fire, water, earth, and air, and it is precisely to these that he gives the name 'nature,' with soul coming from them later. And it seems he is not merely likely but really does mean to signify this to us by his argument. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Then by Zeus, have we not discovered something like a spring of senseless opinion in all the men who have ever taken up inquiries about nature? Examine every argument closely — for it is no small difference if those who take hold of such arguments turn out to be impious, and leaders of others into the same error besides, using their arguments not well but mistakenly. This, then, is how the matter seems to me to stand. CLEINIAS: You put it well; but try to explain how. ATHENIAN: It seems, then, that we must take hold of rather unaccustomed arguments. CLEINIAS: Do not hesitate, stranger. I understand that you think you would be stepping outside lawgiving if we take hold of such arguments. But if there is no other way to agree that the gods now spoken of according to law are rightly conceived except by this route, then it must be said, admirable one, by this route too. ATHENIAN: Then I will speak, it seems, an argument that is by now nearly unfamiliar. Those who have fashioned the soul of impious men have declared that what is first, the cause of coming-to-be and passing-away of all things, is not first but comes later, and what is later, earlier; and from this they have erred concerning the true being of the gods.
CLEINIAS: I do not yet understand. ATHENIAN: Soul, my friend — nearly everyone, it seems, has failed to grasp what it really is and what power it has, both in other respects and especially concerning its origin: that it is among the first things, having come to be before all bodies, and that it rules more than anything else over their change and every rearrangement. But if this is so, must not the things akin to soul necessarily have come to be prior to the things that belong to body, since soul itself is older than body? CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: Then opinion and care and mind and art and law would come before the hard and the soft, the heavy and the light; and indeed the great and primary works and actions would belong to art, being among the first things, while the things of nature and 'nature' itself — which they wrongly call by that very name — would be later, and would take their beginning from art and mind. CLEINIAS: Why wrongly? ATHENIAN: By 'nature' they mean to say the coming-to-be that concerns the first things. But if soul will be shown to be first — not fire nor air, but soul, having come to be among the first things — then it would be most correctly said to be, in a distinctive sense, by nature. This is so, if one can show that soul is older than body, but in no other way. CLEINIAS: What you say is most true. ATHENIAN: Then shall we set out toward this very point next? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Let us then guard entirely against a deceptive argument, lest somehow, being old men ourselves, it beguile us by seeming youthful, and slip away and make us look ridiculous, and we seem to have aimed at big things and missed even the small ones. Consider, then: if the three of us had to cross a swiftly flowing river, and I, being the youngest of us and experienced with many currents, said that I ought to try it first by myself, leaving you in safety, to see whether it is fordable for you, being older, or how matters stand — and if it appeared fordable, then to call you and help you across with my experience, but if it were unfordable for you, then the risk would have fallen on me alone — I would seem to speak reasonably. And indeed the argument now before us is more forceful still, and perhaps nearly impassable for your strength.
ATHENIAN: So that it may not cause you dizziness and vertigo by sweeping you along and asking questions you are unused to answering, thereby breeding an unpleasant awkwardness and impropriety in you, it seems to me that I ought now to do the following: question myself first, with you listening in safety, and then afterward answer myself again, and go through the whole argument this way, until it has worked its way through concerning soul and shown that soul is prior to body. CLEINIAS: You seem to us to speak excellently, stranger; do as you say. ATHENIAN: Come then — if we must ever call upon a god, let this now be the occasion for doing so, since these men are being called upon in all earnestness to prove that they themselves exist. And holding fast as to some safe mooring-rope, let us step into the present argument. It seems safest to me, when questioned on such matters, to answer questions of this sort as follows: Stranger, when someone asks: does everything stand still, with nothing that moves? Or is the reverse the case? Or do certain things move while certain others stay at rest? — My answer will be: certain things move, and certain others stay at rest. — Now do not the things at rest stand still in some place, and the things in motion move in some place? — Of course. — And some of them would do this in a single seat, so to speak, and others in several. — You mean, we shall say, those that keep the position of standing things at their center move in one place, just as the revolution of circles said to 'stand still' turns? — Yes. — And we understand that in such a revolution, carrying around at once the largest and the smallest circle, this kind of motion distributes itself proportionally to the small and the large, being lesser and greater in due proportion; and this is why it has become the source of all wonders, moving great and small circles together with harmonized slownesses and speeds — an effect one would think impossible. — Most true. — And when you speak of things that move 'in many places,' I take you to be referring to whatever travels by locomotion, always shifting to another place, sometimes having the base of one center, sometimes of several by rolling around; and whenever such things meet with one another, if they meet what stands still they are split apart, but if they meet others coming from the opposite direction and moving toward them, they combine, becoming a mean and middle term between such things. — Yes, I say these things are so, as you say. —
ATHENIAN: And further, things that combine grow, and things that separate out then diminish, whenever the established condition of each persists; but if it does not persist, then through both processes it perishes. So when does the coming-to-be of everything occur — under what condition? Clearly whenever a beginning, having taken on growth, arrives at the second stage of change, and from this to the neighboring one, and having reached as far as three, gains perceptibility for perceiving beings. It is by changing and shifting in this way that everything comes to be; and a thing is truly existent whenever it remains, but once it has changed into another condition it is wholly destroyed. Have we not, then, named all the kinds of motion, taking them in their forms along with number — except, my friends, for two? CLEINIAS: Which two, then? ATHENIAN: Very nearly, my good man, those two for the sake of which our whole inquiry now exists. CLEINIAS: Speak more clearly. ATHENIAN: It was for the sake of soul somewhere, was it not? CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Then let one kind of motion be that which is able to move other things but unable to move itself, always one particular motion; and let another be that which is always able to move both itself and other things, in combinations and separations, in growths and their opposite, and in comings-to-be and passings-away — this too being one further motion among all the motions. CLEINIAS: So let it be. ATHENIAN: Then shall we not set down as ninth the motion that always moves something else and is itself changed by another, while the motion that moves both itself and something else, fitting all doings and all sufferings, and truly called the change and motion of all existing things — this we shall call, I think, the tenth? CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Of our ten motions, then, which could we most rightly judge to be the strongest of all and preeminently effective? CLEINIAS: It is a thousand times necessary to say that the one able to move itself is superior, and all the others come after it. ATHENIAN: Well said. Should we then correct one or two of the points just wrongly stated? CLEINIAS: Which do you mean? ATHENIAN: What was said about the tenth was said, I think, not quite rightly. CLEINIAS: In what way? ATHENIAN: Like this. That which is first in origin and in strength stands first by reason; but the one we placed second to it we just now called, absurdly, ninth. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: This: whenever one thing changes another, and that other something else again, always in this way — will there ever be among such things some first thing that changes? And how, when it is moved by another, will it ever be first among the things that cause alteration? It is impossible.
ATHENIAN: But when a thing moves itself and thereby alters something else, and that in turn alters something else again, and so on until a thousand upon ten thousand things have been moved — will there be any starting point for all that motion other than the change brought about by the thing that moves itself? CLEINIAS: Beautifully put, and we must grant it. ATHENIAN: Let's put it this way too, and answer ourselves again. Suppose everything came to a stop all together, as most people who talk this way are bold enough to claim — which motion, of those we've named, would necessarily be the first to arise among them? Surely the one that moves itself. It could never be shifted first by anything else, since by hypothesis no prior shift exists among them. So we'll say that the motion which moves itself — whether it arises among things at rest or exists among things in motion — is necessarily the oldest and mightiest change of all, the first principle of every motion, while the change that is altered by something else, and in turn moves other things, is second. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Now that we've reached this point in the argument, let's answer this. CLEINIAS: What? ATHENIAN: If we should see this self-moving motion arising in something earthy, or watery, or fiery, whether by itself or in combination — what would we say is happening in such a case? CLEINIAS: Are you asking whether we'll call it alive, when it moves itself? ATHENIAN: Yes. CLEINIAS: Alive — of course. ATHENIAN: And what of it? Whenever we see soul present in things, must we not agree that this is the very same thing — that it's alive? CLEINIAS: Nothing else. ATHENIAN: Then hold on, by Zeus — wouldn't you be willing to think of three things about each thing? CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: One, its being; one, the definition of its being; one, its name. And in fact there are two kinds of questions about anything that is. CLEINIAS: Two, how? ATHENIAN: Sometimes each of us, when the name is put forward, demands the definition for it; other times, when the definition itself is put forward, we ask in turn for the name. Is this the sort of thing we mean now? CLEINIAS: What sort? ATHENIAN: Take something that's divided in two, as with other things and also with number. For this, taken numerically, the name is 'even,' and the definition is 'a number divided into two equal parts.' CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: That's the sort of thing I mean. Don't we call the same thing by either approach, whether we're asked for the definition and give the name, or asked for the name and give the definition — calling the same thing 'even' by name, and by definition 'a number divided in two'? CLEINIAS: Absolutely so.
ATHENIAN: Now, for the thing whose name is 'soul' — what is its definition? Do we have any other than the one just given: the motion capable of moving itself? CLEINIAS: Are you saying that 'moving itself' gives the definition of that very being whose name we all call 'soul'? ATHENIAN: I am. And if that is so, do we still feel the lack of a sufficient proof that soul is the same thing as the first coming-to-be and motion of all things that are, have come to be, and will come to be, and of all things opposite to these as well — since it has been shown to be the cause of every change and motion for everything? CLEINIAS: No — it has been shown most sufficiently that soul is the oldest of all things, having become the source of motion. ATHENIAN: And isn't the motion that arises in one thing because of another, but never in itself provides motion to anything, a second kind — as many places down the list as one might wish to count it, being in reality the change of a body without soul? CLEINIAS: Correct. ATHENIAN: Then we would be speaking rightly, properly, most truly, and most completely, if we said that soul came to be before body for us, and body second and later, since soul rules and body, by nature, is ruled. CLEINIAS: Most true indeed. ATHENIAN: And we surely remember agreeing earlier that if soul should prove older than body, then the things of the soul would also be older than the things of the body. CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: So character, manner, will, reasoning, true belief, care, and memory would have come to be before the length, breadth, depth, and strength of bodies — if indeed soul came before body. CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: Well then, mustn't we next agree that soul is the cause of good things and bad, of noble and shameful, of just and unjust, and of all opposites, if we are going to set it down as the cause of everything? CLEINIAS: How could it be otherwise? ATHENIAN: And soul, governing and dwelling in all things that move in every way — must we not say it governs the heavens too? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: Is it one soul, or several? Several — I'll give the answer for the two of you. Let's set the number at no fewer than two: the one that does good, and the one capable of working the opposite. CLEINIAS: You've spoken quite rightly.
ATHENIAN: Very well. Soul, then, drives everything in heaven and earth and sea by its own motions, whose names are: wishing, considering, taking care, deliberating, believing truly or falsely, rejoicing, grieving, being confident, being afraid, hating, loving, and all the motions akin to these or that are their primary forms — which then take up the secondary motions of bodies and drive everything toward growth and decay, separation and combination, and the qualities that follow from these: heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hard and soft, white and black, harsh and sweet, and everything soul makes use of. Whenever soul takes on understanding, an ever-present god, rightly guided toward the gods, it directs everything rightly and happily; but when it keeps company with folly, it produces everything the opposite of this. Shall we set this down as so, or are we still hesitant whether it might be otherwise? CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: Which kind of soul, then, shall we say has gained mastery over heaven and earth and the whole circuit — the one possessed of wisdom and full of excellence, or the one possessing neither? Would you like us to answer this way? CLEINIAS: How? ATHENIAN: Suppose, my friend, we hold that the whole path and motion of heaven, together with everything heaven holds, has a nature like the motion and revolution and reasoning of intelligence, and proceeds in kinship with it, then clearly we must say that the best soul cares for the whole cosmos and drives it along that same path. CLEINIAS: Right. ATHENIAN: But if it proceeds madly and in disorder, then it's the bad soul. CLEINIAS: That too is right. ATHENIAN: What nature, then, does the motion of intelligence have? This, my friends, is already a hard question to answer sensibly — so it's only fair that I take on the answering for you both now. CLEINIAS: Well said. ATHENIAN: Let's not, then, make our answer by staring straight at it as if at the sun, bringing on night at midday, as though we were going to see and know intelligence sufficiently with mortal eyes; it's safer to look at an image of the thing in question. CLEINIAS: How do you mean? ATHENIAN: Let's take, as our image, whichever of the ten motions we spoke of before intelligence most resembles; recalling it together with you, I'll give the answer jointly with you. CLEINIAS: You couldn't propose better. ATHENIAN: We still remember this much from before, that of all things, we set down some as moving and some as at rest? CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: And of the things in motion, some move in one place, while others travel through several. CLEINIAS: That's so. ATHENIAN: Of these two motions, the one that travels in one place must always move around some center, being a kind of copy of turned circles, and it must be as closely akin and similar as possible to the revolution of intelligence. CLEINIAS: How do you mean? ATHENIAN: Surely, in saying that intelligence and the motion that travels in one place both move in the same way, uniformly, in the same place, around the same things, in reference to the same things, by one account and one order — likening intelligence and the motion of a thing turned in one place to the revolutions of a turned sphere — we would hardly show ourselves poor craftsmen of fine images in speech. CLEINIAS: Very rightly said. ATHENIAN: And then again, the motion that is never uniform, nor in the same way, nor in the same place, nor around the same things, nor in reference to the same things, nor moving in one place, nor orderly, nor arranged, nor following any account — wouldn't that be akin to folly in every form? CLEINIAS: That would be most true indeed. ATHENIAN: Now it's no longer hard to say plainly that, since soul is what carries everything around for us, the revolution of the heavens must be said to be carried around, of necessity, by a soul that takes care of it and orders it — either the best soul, or the opposite one. CLEINIAS: But stranger, given what's been said now, it isn't even reverent to say anything but that it is a soul possessing every excellence — one soul, or more than one — that carries these things around. ATHENIAN: You have followed the argument beautifully, Cleinias. Now follow this further point too. CLEINIAS: What is it? ATHENIAN: If it is soul that drives round the sun, the moon, and the rest of the stars, does it not also drive each of them round singly? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Then let's make our argument about one of them, which will turn out to fit all the stars alike. CLEINIAS: Which one? ATHENIAN: The sun. Every human being sees its body, but no one sees its soul — nor indeed the soul of any other body, whether of a living or a dying creature; but there's every reason to believe that this whole class is by nature imperceptible to all our bodily senses, and is an object of thought alone. Let's grasp this fact about it by intelligence and reasoning alone. CLEINIAS: How? ATHENIAN: If soul drives the sun, we won't be far wrong in saying it does one of three things.
ATHENIAN: Either it dwells within this visible round body and carries it about everywhere, just as our own soul carries us about everywhere; or, having procured a body for itself from outside — of fire, say, or some kind of air, as some claim — it pushes body against body by force; or, third, being itself entirely without body but possessing certain other powers that surpass wonder, it leads the way. CLEINIAS: Yes, this much is necessary — that soul, doing one or another of these things, drives everything along. ATHENIAN: Well then, whether this soul carries the sun for us with a chariot-like body, bringing light to all, or from outside, or in whatever way and manner — every man must consider it a god. Or how else? CLEINIAS: Yes, at least anyone who hasn't reached the utter extreme of folly must. ATHENIAN: And concerning all the stars and the moon, the years and months and all the seasons, what other account shall we give than this same one — that since soul, or souls, have been shown to be the cause of all these things, and good souls possessed of every excellence, we shall say they are gods, whether they dwell within bodies as living beings and order the whole heaven that way, or do so in some other way and manner? Is there anyone who, granting this, will still hold out against admitting that everything is full of gods? CLEINIAS: No one is so out of his mind as that, stranger. ATHENIAN: Then, Megillus and Cleinias, let's state the terms for the man who up to now has not believed in gods, and be done with him. CLEINIAS: What terms? ATHENIAN: Either he must teach us that we are wrong in laying it down that soul is the first coming-to-be of all things, and wrong in all the further conclusions we drew that follow from this; or, if he cannot argue better than we have, he must be persuaded by us and live out the rest of his life believing that the gods exist. Let's see, then, whether we've spoken adequately to those who don't believe in gods, that gods exist, or whether we've fallen short. CLEINIAS: Least of all, stranger — not short in any way at all. ATHENIAN: Then let our discussion with these people have its conclusion here. But the man who believes gods exist, yet holds that they take no thought for human affairs, must be gently persuaded otherwise. Let's say to him: Best of men, that you believe in gods at all is perhaps due to some divine kinship drawing you to honor and acknowledge your own kind; but the fortunes of wicked and unjust men, in private and public life — not truly happy, but held to be tremendously happy by opinion, though improperly so — sung of wrongly in the arts and in every kind of discourse alike, drive you toward impiety.
ATHENIAN: Or perhaps it's this: you've seen men reach old age, leaving their children's children in the highest honors, and this disturbs you now, seeing it in all these cases — or hearing of it, or even having witnessed it yourself firsthand — coming across many acts of impiety and terrible deeds done by certain people, who through these very acts rose from small beginnings to tyranny and the greatest power. Because of all this you're plainly unwilling to blame the gods as being responsible for such things, on account of your kinship with them, yet led on by faulty reasoning, and unable at the same time to resent the gods, you've arrived at this condition: believing that they exist, but that they despise and neglect human affairs. So that this belief you now hold doesn't grow into a greater impiety, but rather — if we're somehow able to head it off with argument before it takes hold — let's try. Let's take up the discussion we used from the start against the man who doesn't believe in gods at all, and put it to use now against this one. You two, Cleinias and Megillus, answer on behalf of the young man as before, taking turns; and if some difficulty crops up in the arguments, I'll take it over from you both, as I did just now, and ferry us across the river. CLEINIAS: You're right. You do that, and we'll do as you say to the best of our ability. ATHENIAN: Well, it probably won't be hard to show this much at least — that the gods care for small things no less, in fact more, than for things distinguished by their greatness. You were listening, I think, and present for what was just said — that being good, they possess care for everything as belonging most intimately to their virtue as a whole. CLEINIAS: Yes, I heard that closely. ATHENIAN: Next, then, let's jointly examine what virtue we mean when we agree that they are good. Come — do we say that self-control and possessing intelligence belong to virtue, and the opposites to vice? CLEINIAS: We do. ATHENIAN: And what about this — that courage belongs to virtue, and cowardice to vice? CLEINIAS: Certainly. ATHENIAN: And shall we say the former are shameful, the latter admirable? CLEINIAS: Necessarily. ATHENIAN: And that the shameful ones belong to us, if to anyone, whatever base things there are, while we'll say the gods have no part in such things, great or small? CLEINIAS: Everyone would agree to that as well. ATHENIAN: What then? Shall we count neglect, idleness, and self-indulgence as virtue of soul, or how do you put it? CLEINIAS: How could we? ATHENIAN: Rather as their opposite? CLEINIAS: Yes.
ATHENIAN: So the opposites of these belong to the opposite? CLEINIAS: The opposite. ATHENIAN: What then? Would every such person — self-indulgent, neglectful, and idle — become for us like what the poet called 'most like drones with no stingers'? CLEINIAS: Very rightly said. ATHENIAN: Now surely we mustn't say that god has such a character, since he himself hates it, and we mustn't allow anyone even attempting to say such a thing. CLEINIAS: No indeed — how could we? ATHENIAN: Now take someone whose proper business it is to act and take care of something in particular — if his mind cares for the great matters but neglects the small ones, on what grounds could we praise such conduct without going utterly wrong? Let's look at it this way. Doesn't the one who acts in such a fashion — whether god or man — act on one of two grounds? CLEINIAS: What two do we mean? ATHENIAN: Either because he thinks it makes no difference to the whole if the small things are neglected, or through laziness and self-indulgence he neglects them even though it does make a difference. Or is there some other way neglect comes about? For surely, when it's impossible to care for everything, there won't be neglect of the small or the great when someone — whether a god or some inferior being — fails to care for things he lacks the power to attend to. CLEINIAS: How could there be? ATHENIAN: Now then, let the two of you answer for the three of us — both of you agreeing that gods exist, but one of you holding they can be swayed by prayer, the other that they neglect small things. First: you both say gods know and see and hear everything, and that nothing can escape them of whatever falls within perception and knowledge. Is that how you hold it, or how? CLEINIAS: That's how. ATHENIAN: And further, that they're capable of everything within the capacity of both mortals and immortals? CLEINIAS: Of course they'll grant that this holds too. ATHENIAN: And indeed we've agreed, the five of us, that they're good, in fact the best. CLEINIAS: Very much so. ATHENIAN: So isn't it impossible for us to admit they do anything at all out of laziness and self-indulgence, given that they're the kind of beings we've agreed they are? For among us idleness is the offspring of cowardice, and laziness of idleness and self-indulgence. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: So no god neglects anything through idleness and laziness — since cowardice has no part in him. CLEINIAS: Quite right.
ATHENIAN: So what remains, if they neglect the small and few things concerning the whole, is that they'd do this either knowing that such things need no care at all, or — what else could remain except the opposite of knowing? CLEINIAS: Nothing. ATHENIAN: Which then, my excellent and noble friend, shall we take you to be saying — that they're ignorant, and neglect out of ignorance when they ought to care, or that they know they ought, yet, as the basest of men are said to do, knowing that other things are better to do than what they actually do, fail to do them because overcome by certain pleasures or pains? CLEINIAS: How could that be? ATHENIAN: And don't human affairs share in a living, ensouled nature, and isn't man the most god-fearing of all living creatures? CLEINIAS: So it seems, at any rate. ATHENIAN: And we say that all mortal creatures are possessions of the gods, as is the whole heaven besides. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: Well then, let someone call these things small or great to the gods — either way it wouldn't be fitting for their owners to neglect us, since they are most caring and best of all. Let's consider this further point too. CLEINIAS: What point? ATHENIAN: Concerning perception and power — aren't the two naturally opposed to each other where easiness and hardness are concerned? CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: To see and hear small things is harder than large ones, but to bear, master, and care for small and few things is easier for anyone than for their opposites. CLEINIAS: Much easier. ATHENIAN: Take a doctor charged with healing a whole body — willing and able to care for the major parts, but neglecting the small parts — will the whole ever be in good condition for him? CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: Nor indeed for pilots, generals, household managers, or any statesmen or anyone else of that sort — apart from a few small things, many great things go wrong; for stone-masons say that not even large stones lie well without small ones. CLEINIAS: How could they?
ATHENIAN: Let's not, then, ever judge god to be inferior to mortal craftsmen, who, the better they are, produce their proper works — small and great alike — all the more precisely and completely by a single skill; while god, who is wisest, and both willing and able to care for things, should care not at all for the things easier to care for because they're small — as if he were some idler or coward growing lazy through toil — but only for the great things. CLEINIAS: Let's never accept such an opinion about the gods, stranger; for in no way would thinking that be either pious or true. ATHENIAN: I think we've now argued quite adequately, in fact, with the man who loves to find fault about the gods' neglect. CLEINIAS: Yes. ATHENIAN: In that we've forced him by argument to admit he wasn't speaking correctly. Still, it seems to me he needs some further persuasive tales as incantations. CLEINIAS: What sort, good sir? ATHENIAN: Let's persuade the young man by argument that the one who cares for the whole has arranged everything with a view to the preservation and excellence of the whole, and that each part, so far as it can, undergoes and does what is proper to it. Rulers have been assigned over each of these parts, down to the smallest detail of every experience and action, carried through to the furthest point of division; and one of these parts — you unhappy man — is your own portion too, which, though utterly small, always strains toward the whole. But this very point escapes you — that all becoming happens for the sake of that whole, so that the whole, in its very being, may enjoy a blessed existence — not coming to be for your sake, but you for its sake. For every doctor and every skilled craftsman does everything for the sake of the whole, working toward what is best in common, fashioning each part to serve the whole rather than bending the whole to serve any part; and you're vexed because you don't know how what's best for you individually also turns out best for the whole and for you, according to the power of your shared origin. Since soul, always joined to a body — now this one, now that one — undergoes all manner of changes, either through itself or through another soul, nothing else remains for the divine player of the game except to move the character that becomes better into a better place, and the one that becomes worse into a worse place, each according to what is fitting, so that it may obtain its proper lot. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by this?
ATHENIAN: I mean to explain in just the way that would give the gods the greatest ease in caring for everything. For if someone were always shaping and remolding everything with a view to the whole — say, turning fire into living water, rather than producing a multitude from a single thing, or a single thing from a multitude, each partaking of a first, second, or even third birth — the arrangements to be rearranged would be endless in number; but as it stands, there's a wondrous ease for the one who cares for the whole. CLEINIAS: How do you mean, again? ATHENIAN: Like this. Since our king saw that all our actions are ensouled, and that there is much virtue in them, and much vice too, and that soul and body, once come to be, are indestructible though not eternal — as the gods established by law are, for there would never be generation of living creatures if either of these two perished — and he understood that whatever is naturally beneficial belongs to the good of soul, while whatever is harmful belongs to its evil; having grasped all this, he devised where each of the parts should be placed so that virtue might prevail and vice be defeated within the whole, in the easiest and best way possible. And he has devised, with a view to this whole matter, what sort of position each thing that comes to be of a certain character must take up and inhabit, and in what places; but as for the origin of what particular character each of us has, he left the causes to the wishes of each of us. For according to whatever each of us desires, and whatever sort of soul he has, in that way and to that character each of us becomes, for the most part, on each occasion. CLEINIAS: That's likely, at least. ATHENIAN: Everything, then, that has a share of soul changes, having within itself the cause of its own change; and in changing it is carried along according to the order and law of destiny: things that change in lesser ways in their character move a correspondingly small distance along the plane of the region, but things that undergo greater and more unjust changes move down into the depths, into those places called below — which men, naming them Hades and its related names, greatly fear and dream about, both while living and once released from their bodies. And whenever a soul takes on a greater share of vice or virtue, through its own will and the strong company it has kept, then, if it comes into contact with divine virtue and becomes exceedingly such, it changes correspondingly and moves to a different, holy place altogether, being transported to some better region; but when the opposite happens, it relocates its own life to the opposite place.
ATHENIAN: Such, then, is the sentence passed by the gods whose home is Olympus, my boy, you young man who fancies the gods have forgotten you: growing worse, you move toward the worse souls; growing better, toward the better; and in life, and in death after death, you undergo, and yourself carry out, whatever it befits like to do to like. From this justice neither you nor anyone else who has fallen into misfortune will ever boast of escaping the gods. It is the justice that its founders set above all other justices, and one must guard against it with everything in oneself. You will never be overlooked by it — you will not be so small that you can sink down into the depths of the earth, nor so lofty that you can fly up into the heavens, but you will pay it the penalty owed, whether you remain here, or pass through Hades, or are carried off to some place still wilder than these. The same account holds for those men you have seen rise from small beginnings to greatness by committing unholy acts or something of the kind, whom you supposed to have become happy out of wretchedness — and then, gazing on their doings as though in a mirror, you thought you had seen there the neglect of all things by all the gods, not knowing how their final outcome contributes to the whole. Do you not think you need to understand this, bravest of all men? Whoever fails to understand it could never even glimpse its outline, nor could he ever put together an account of life bearing on happiness and its opposite, unhappy fortune. If Cleinias here and this whole council of ours can persuade you of this — that you are speaking about the gods without knowing what you say — then may god himself come to your aid. But if you still feel the need of some further argument, listen to what we have to say concerning the third charge, if you have any sense left at all. That gods exist and that they care for human beings — I would say this has been demonstrated to us not at all badly. But that the gods can be won over by the wrongdoers, that they accept gifts — this must not be conceded to anyone, and it must be refuted with every means at our disposal. CLEINIAS: Beautifully said — let us do as you say. ATHENIAN: Come then, in the gods' own name, in what way could they be won over by us, if indeed they can be won over at all? And who or what sort of beings would they be? Those who are to govern the whole heaven continuously must, surely, be rulers of some kind. CLEINIAS: So it seems.
ATHENIAN: Well then, which rulers are they like? Or rather, which of those lesser beings whom we can liken to them, comparing small things to great, might they resemble? Would they be like charioteers in a contest of racing teams, or pilots of ships? Or perhaps they might be likened to certain commanders of armies; or they might resemble physicians guarding against the onslaught of disease in the body, or farmers anxiously awaiting the harsh seasons that threaten the growth of their crops, or even shepherds watching over their flocks. For since we have agreed among ourselves that heaven is full of many good things, and also of their opposites, though of more that are not — this, we say, is an undying battle, and one demanding wondrous vigilance, in which the gods and spirits are our allies, and we in turn are the possession of gods and spirits. Injustice and arrogance joined with folly destroy us, while justice and self-control joined with wisdom save us, and these dwell in the living powers of the gods; and a small trace of such a thing one might see clearly dwelling even here among us. But certain souls that live on earth, having acquired unjust gain, are plainly beastlike; falling before the souls of the guardians — whether of dogs, or of herdsmen, or of the very highest masters of all — they persuade them with flattering words and by certain incantations offered in prayer, as the reports of wicked men claim, that it is possible for them to go on profiting at the expense of others among men without suffering anything harsh. We say, surely, that what is now called wrongdoing — this taking more than one's share — is called disease when it occurs in bodies of flesh, and plague when it occurs in the seasons of years, and this very same thing, under a different name, is called injustice when it occurs in cities and constitutions. CLEINIAS: Absolutely so. ATHENIAN: This, then, is the account that anyone must give who says that the gods are always forgiving toward the unjust deeds and unjust men among mortals, provided one gives them a share of the spoils — just as if wolves gave small portions of their plunder to dogs, and the dogs, tamed by the gifts, allowed them to tear apart the flocks. Is this not the account given by those who claim the gods can be won over? CLEINIAS: It is indeed. ATHENIAN: To which, then, of the guardians we named before could one liken the gods without becoming utterly laughable to any human being? To pilots who are turned aside by a libation of wine and the savor of roasting meat, and who then capsize both ships and sailors? CLEINIAS: Not at all. ATHENIAN: Nor surely to charioteers arrayed in a race who, persuaded by a bribe, betray victory to other teams. CLEINIAS: That would indeed be a dreadful image, if you were to make that comparison. ATHENIAN: No, nor to generals, nor to physicians, nor to farmers, nor indeed to shepherds, nor to dogs bewitched by wolves.
CLEINIAS: Hush — how could it be so? ATHENIAN: But are not all the gods the greatest of all guardians, guardians over the greatest things entrusted to us? CLEINIAS: By far. ATHENIAN: Are we then to declare that the beings who keep watch over the noblest things, and who themselves excel in the guardian's virtue, rank below dogs and worse than middling men — men of the sort who would not sell out what is right in return for gifts that unjust hands offer impiously? CLEINIAS: In no way at all. That is an intolerable thing to say, and anyone who clings to this opinion runs the risk of being judged, most justly, the worst and most impious of all the impious, since it belongs to the very heart of impiety. ATHENIAN: Shall we say, then, that the three claims we set out — that the gods exist, that they are concerned with us, and that they are wholly incorruptible where justice is concerned — have been adequately demonstrated? CLEINIAS: How could they not be? And we cast our vote together with these arguments. ATHENIAN: And yet they have been spoken, I suppose, somewhat too vehemently, out of eagerness to defeat wicked men. It was for this reason, dear Cleinias, that we grew so contentious — so that the wicked might never suppose that by winning arguments they gain license to do whatever they please, all the many and terrible things they think about the gods. It is on this account that our eagerness led us to speak somewhat too youthfully. But if we have accomplished even a small measure of good toward persuading these men somehow to hate themselves and to come to love, in some way, the opposite character, then our prelude concerning impiety, as it applies to the laws, will have been well spoken. CLEINIAS: There is hope of it. But even if not, the nature of the argument itself will bring no blame upon the lawgiver. ATHENIAN: Once the prelude is finished, the fitting sequel is a pronouncement standing as interpreter to our laws, one that gives every impious man advance warning: abandon your own ways for the ways of reverence. For those who will not be persuaded, let this be the law concerning impiety: if anyone commits impiety in word or deed, whoever is present shall come to the law's defense by reporting it to the magistrates, and the first magistrates who learn of it shall bring the matter before the court appointed to judge such cases, according to the laws. And if any magistrate, upon hearing of it, fails to act, let that magistrate himself be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone willing to avenge the laws. If someone is convicted, let the court assess a separate penalty for each individual act of impiety committed.
ATHENIAN: Imprisonment, then, shall be imposed on all such offenders. And since there are to be three prisons in the city — one common prison near the marketplace, for the safekeeping of the persons of most people; another near the assembly-place of those who gather by night, called the house of correction; and yet a third in the middle of the countryside, in whatever place is most desolate and wildest, bearing a name suggesting retribution — and since impiety arises from three causes, which we have already gone through, and since two forms arise from each of these causes, there would be six kinds altogether worth distinguishing among those who transgress in matters concerning the divine, kinds that do not deserve equal or similar punishment. For whoever holds that the gods do not exist at all, but has by nature acquired a just character, becomes one who hates the wicked, and because he is repelled by injustice does not bring himself to commit such acts, and he avoids unjust men while cherishing the just. But those in whom, besides the belief that all things are godless, there fall also a lack of self-control over pleasures and pains, together with strong memory and sharp powers of learning — in both these types the failure to believe in gods will be a shared affliction, but in the harm they do to other people, the one will do less evil, the other more. For the one will be full of outspokenness concerning the gods, and concerning sacrifices and oaths, and by mocking others he would likely make others like himself, if he escapes punishment; but the other, holding the same opinion as the first, yet called naturally gifted, full of cunning and deceit — out of such men are fashioned many diviners and men active in every kind of trickery, and from among them arise, at times, tyrants and demagogues and generals, and those who plot through private mystery rites, and the contrivances of those called sophists. Of these there could be many kinds, but two deserve the setting of laws: of these, the ironic type deserves not one death penalty or two for its offense, while the other kind requires both admonition and imprisonment.
ATHENIAN: In the same way, the belief that the gods exist but are negligent produces two further types, and the belief that they can be won over produces two others. Since these are distinguished in this way, the judge shall place those who have become such through folly, without wickedness of temper or character, into the house of correction according to law for no less than five years; and during this time no other citizen shall have contact with them except the members of the nocturnal council, who shall converse with them for the sake of admonition and the saving of their souls. When the time of their confinement has run out, if any of them seems to have come to his senses, let him live among the sound-minded; but if not, and he is convicted again of the same offense, let him be punished with death. As for those who become beastlike, holding not only that the gods do not exist but that they are negligent or can be won over, and who, holding humankind in contempt, lead astray the souls of many of the living, claiming to summon the souls of the dead and promising to persuade the gods, as though bewitching them with sacrifices, prayers, and incantations, and who attempt for the sake of money to ruin utterly private individuals, whole households, and even cities — whoever among these is judged guilty, let the court assess for him, according to law, imprisonment in the prison in the middle of the countryside, and let no free person ever approach them, and let them receive a fixed ration of food from the slaves as determined by the guardians of the law. When such a man dies, let him be cast outside the borders unburied; and if any free person joins in burying him, let that person be liable to a charge of impiety at the hands of anyone willing to bring it. If he leaves behind children fit for the city, those who care for orphans shall care for these as well, as being orphans, treating them no worse than the others, from the day their father is convicted of the offense. And in addition to all this, a common law must be laid down, one that would make the majority of such men commit fewer offenses in word and deed against the gods, and indeed become less foolish, because it would not be lawful to deal with the divine contrary to law. For let this law be laid down for all, simply stated: let no one possess shrines of his own in private houses; but when anyone feels moved to sacrifice, let him go to the public shrines to make his offering, and let him place his victims in the hands of the priests and priestesses who have the purity of these rites in their keeping. And let him join in prayer himself, and whoever else he wishes may join him in prayer.
ATHENIAN: Let this be the reason such things happen. It's not easy to found shrines and set up gods, and doing so correctly takes a great deal of thought. But it's the custom of everyone, and especially of women, and of anyone who is sick or in danger or at a loss in any way whatsoever, and likewise, in the opposite case, when people come into some stroke of good fortune, to consecrate whatever is at hand at the moment, to vow sacrifices, and to promise shrines to gods and spirits and children of gods. And because of apparitions seen while awake, out of fear, and because of dreams, and in just the same way because they remember many visions, people make remedies for each of these by setting up altars and shrines in every house and every village, in open places and wherever else they happen to be. For all these reasons we must do everything in accordance with the law now being stated. But beyond this, we must also act for the sake of the impious, so that they don't compound their wrongdoing by such practices too — setting up shrines and altars secretly in private houses, thinking they can make the gods gracious to themselves through private sacrifices and prayers, and so increase their injustice without limit, bringing charges against themselves before the gods and against those who allow it, who are better people than they are — with the result that the whole city, in a way, justly shares in the punishment for their impiety. The god himself will not blame the lawgiver for this; so let this law be laid down: no one is to keep the gods' shrines within a private home. Should anyone come to light as owner of such shrines, celebrating worship apart from the public rites, then — provided the man or woman who has done this has committed no great or unholy wrong — whoever notices it should report it to the Guardians of the Law, and they should order the private shrines removed to the public ones; and if the offenders don't obey, they should be fined until the shrines are removed. But if someone is shown to have committed an act of impiety that is not a child's offense but the sort unholy men commit — whether by setting up shrines in private, or by sacrificing in public places to gods of any kind — then, since he sacrifices without being pure, he should be punished with death. As for whether the offense is a child's or not, the Guardians of the Law shall judge, and having brought the matter before the court in this way, they shall see the case for impiety carried through to judgment.
ATHENIAN: After this would come the matter of contracts between us with one another, which need a proper ordering. That much, at least, is simple: no one should touch my property if he can help it, nor move even the smallest part of it, without first persuading me in any way whatsoever; and I should do the same regarding the property of others, if I have any sense at all. Let us speak first of one kind of such property: a treasure which a man has laid up as a store for himself and his family, when he is not one of my ancestors. I would never pray to the gods to find such a thing, and if I did find it I would not move it, nor would I consult the people called seers who advise me in some way or other to dig up a deposit hidden in the earth. For I would never gain so much by taking it for my own property as I would gain in weight for the virtue and justice of my soul by not taking it—acquiring a better possession in place of a worse, in a better part of myself, valuing justice in my soul above wealth stored up in property. For there is a saying that applies to many cases, that it is well not to move the immovable, and this case would be counted as one of them. One should also believe the traditional stories told about this, that such things are not advantageous for one's line of children. But if a man cares nothing for children, and neglecting the lawgiver who laid down the rule, takes for himself what neither he nor any ancestor of his ever deposited, without persuading the one who deposited it—destroying the finest of laws, the simplest and most nobly conceived enactment of a lawgiver, who said, 'What you did not deposit, do not take up'—if a man shows contempt for both these lawgivers and takes for himself no small thing (since sometimes the bulk of a treasure is enormous), what ought he to suffer?
ATHENIAN: What he suffers at the hands of the gods, the god knows. But whoever first discovers such a thing should report it—if it happens within the city, to the city-wardens; if somewhere in the marketplace of the city, to the market-wardens; if in the rest of the countryside, he should make it known to the country-wardens and their officers. When it has been reported, the city should send to Delphi, and whatever the god decrees concerning the property and the one who moved it, the city should carry out in service to the god's oracles. And if the informer is a free man, let him gain a reputation for virtue; if he fails to inform, a reputation for baseness. If he is a slave, if he informs he should rightly be made free by the city, which pays his price to his master; but if he fails to inform, let him be punished with death. Following on from this would come the same rule applying equally to small and great matters. If someone leaves something of his own behind somewhere, whether willingly or unwillingly, whoever comes upon it should let it lie, believing that the spirit of the roadway guards such things, which have been consecrated to the goddess by the law. But if someone disobeys this and picks it up and carries it home, then if he is a slave and the thing is of small value, let him be flogged with many blows by whoever comes upon him, provided that person is not less than thirty years old. But if a free man does it, then besides being reckoned illiberal and a man with no part in the laws, he must repay the person who left the item ten times what the object he disturbed was worth. If someone accuses another of holding more or even less of his property than is rightfully his, and the other admits to holding it but says it is not the plaintiff's, then if the property has been registered according to law with the officials, the holder should be summoned before the office, and he should present it. Once it is made clear, if it appears in the records as registered to one of the two disputants, that person should take it and go; but if it belongs to someone else who is not present, whichever party provides an adequate guarantor undertaking to hand it over to the absent owner according to that owner's claim should take it away. But if the disputed property is not registered with the officials, it should be held until trial by the three eldest of the officials; and if the item held in trust is a living creature, the one who loses the case concerning it should pay its upkeep to the officials. The officials must decide the case within three days. Let anyone who wishes lead away his own slave, if the man is of sound mind, to use him for any lawful purpose he wishes; and let him also lead away, on behalf of another relative or friend, a slave who has run off, for the purpose of keeping him safe. But if someone tries to free a person being led away as a slave, claiming he should be free, the one leading him should let him go, and the one claiming him should only take him on these terms: by providing three adequate guarantors, and not otherwise.
ATHENIAN: If someone takes a person away contrary to these rules, he shall be liable for the charge of violent seizure, and if convicted he shall pay double the assessed damage to the one from whom the person was taken. Let a man also bring in a freedman, if he fails to attend properly upon those who freed him, or does not attend sufficiently. The service required is that the freed person visit the hearth of the one who freed him three times a month, offering to do whatever is just and also possible, and to arrange marriage matters however seems best to his former master. He must not be allowed to grow richer than the one who freed him; whatever surplus arises shall belong to the master. The freed person shall not remain longer than twenty years, but like other resident foreigners he must depart, taking all his own property with him, unless he persuades both the officials and the one who freed him to let him stay. If the property of a freedman, or of any other resident foreigner, becomes greater than the third property class, then within thirty days from the day this happens, he must take his belongings and depart, and no request to remain longer shall be granted to him thereafter by the officials. If someone disobeys these rules and, being brought to court, is convicted, let him be punished with death and his property confiscated to the state. Cases of this kind shall be tried in the tribal courts, unless the parties settle their disputes earlier before neighbors or chosen arbitrators. If someone lays claim to an animal, or anything else, as his own property, the one holding it should refer him to the seller, or to whoever gave it to him—provided that person is solvent and answerable at law, or transferred it to some other person legitimately—within thirty days if the transfer was to a citizen or resident foreigner within the city, and within five months if it was a transfer from abroad, the middle month being the one in which the summer sun turns toward winter. Whatever exchanges people make with one another by way of buying or selling should be carried out by handing over the item in the designated place assigned to each kind of goods in the marketplace, and receiving payment on the spot; exchanges should be made in no other way and nowhere else, nor should any sale or purchase be made on credit for anything. But if someone exchanges anything for anything else in some other way or in other places, trusting the person he is dealing with, let him do so understanding that there are no lawful actions available, according to what has just been said, concerning goods not sold in the proper way. As for friendly loan-pools, anyone who likes may gather them, friend collecting from friend; yet should a quarrel break out over the collection, all concerned must act on the understanding that no legal action of any kind will lie over such affairs.
ATHENIAN: Anyone who makes a sale and takes fifty drachmas or more as the price is required to stay on in the city ten days, and the seller's house must be known to the buyer, both because of the complaints that customarily arise about such transactions and for the sake of returns required by law. The return required by law shall be as follows and no other. If someone sells a slave suffering from consumption, or kidney stones, or strangury, or the disease called sacred, or some other disease of the body or mind that is long-lasting and hard to cure and not obvious to most people, then if the sale was to a doctor or a trainer, that buyer shall have no right of return against such a seller, nor if the seller told the truth beforehand when he made the sale. But when a professional sells such a slave to a layman, the purchaser has six months in which to bring him back; only for the sacred disease is a full year allowed for making the return. The case shall be judged before some of the doctors whom both parties jointly propose and select; and whoever loses the case shall pay double the price at which the slave was sold. If a private individual sells to another private individual, there shall be a right of return just as was said before, and a trial as well, but the loser shall pay only the simple price. If someone knowingly sells a murderer to another person who also knows it, there shall be no right of return for that sale; but if the buyer did not know, the right of return shall exist from whenever one of the buyers becomes aware of it, and the case shall be judged by the five youngest of the Guardians of the Law. Should the seller be judged to have known, he must cleanse the purchaser's house as the interpreters' law directs, and refund the buyer triple the price paid. Whoever exchanges coin for coin, or any other living creature or non-living thing, must give and receive everything free of adulteration, in keeping with the law; and let us also adopt a preamble, as with other laws, concerning this whole category of wrongdoing. Every man ought to think of adulteration and falsehood and deception as one and the same kind of thing, the very thing to which most people, wrongly, attach the reputation that, occurring as it does at the right moment on each occasion, it might often be a correct thing to do—while leaving vague and undefined just what that 'right moment' is, and where and when, and by this way of speaking they harm themselves greatly in many cases, and harm others too. It is not permissible for a lawgiver to leave this undefined, but he must always make clear either broader or narrower limits, and so let it now be defined.
ATHENIAN: Let no one, invoking the name of the gods, commit any falsehood or deception or adulteration, whether in word or deed, unless he intends to become most hateful to the gods. Such a man is the one who, swearing false oaths, has no regard for the gods; and second to him is the one who lies before those who are stronger than himself. Now the stronger are the better as opposed to the worse, and, generally speaking, the elder as opposed to the younger—which is why parents are stronger than their children, and men than women and children, and rulers than the ruled. All these it would be fitting for everyone to respect, in every other office and especially in the political offices, which is the very point from which our present discussion arose. For every dishonest dealer in the marketplace lies and deceives, and calls on the gods as he swears an oath in accordance with the laws and regulations of the market-wardens, respecting neither men nor revering the gods. It is altogether a fine practice not to defile the names of the gods lightly, keeping to the purity and holiness that most of us, most of the time, maintain in matters concerning the gods. But if someone will not be persuaded, here is the law: whoever sells anything in the marketplace should never name two prices for what he is selling, but having named a single price, if he does not get it, he may rightly withdraw the item and take it away again, and on that same day he must not price it higher or lower; and there must be no praising or swearing of oaths over anything for sale. If someone disobeys these rules, any citizen present who is not less than thirty years old may strike the one who swears the oath without penalty; but if he pays no heed and disregards it, he shall be liable to reproach for betraying the laws. As for a person selling something adulterated who cannot be persuaded by the present rules, whoever among those present who understands the matter and is able to prove it should expose it before the officials; then, if the exposer is a slave or a resident foreigner, let him carry off the adulterated item for himself; but if he is a citizen and fails to prove his charge, let him be publicly denounced as cheating the gods, while if he proves it, let him dedicate the item to the gods who preside over the marketplace. And whoever is caught openly selling such an adulterated item shall, besides being deprived of the adulterated goods, be whipped with the lash one stroke for every drachma of the price he set on the item for sale, a herald proclaiming in the marketplace the reasons for which he is about to be whipped. The market-wardens and the Guardians of the Law, having inquired from experts in each field about acts of adulteration and other malpractices of sellers, shall write down what a seller must and must not do, and shall post these rules, inscribed on a pillar in front of the market-officials' building, to serve as clear guides for those concerned with the proper use of the marketplace.
ATHENIAN: The matter of city-wardens has been adequately covered earlier. If anything seems to be missing, let them report it to the Guardians of the Law, write down what seems to have been left out, and set up in the wardens' office, on a stone tablet, both the first and second sets of ordinances laid down for their office. Close on the heels of counterfeit trades comes shopkeeping, and about the whole business of it we should first give advice and reasoning, and only afterward add a law. For shopkeeping, in a city, has arisen not for the sake of harm by its nature, but quite the opposite. Isn't anyone who takes wealth of any kind, when it is unevenly and unequally distributed, and makes it even and proportionate, a benefactor? We must say that this is exactly what the power of money achieves, and that the merchant is stationed there for this purpose. The hired laborer, the innkeeper, and others -- some in more respectable occupations, some in less -- all have this same capacity: to supply everyone's needs with assistance and to bring evenness to people's possessions. Let us see, then, why shopkeeping is thought not fine or respectable, and what it is that has brought it into disrepute, so that even if we cannot cure the whole of it, we may at least set right its parts by law. This, it appears, is no trivial business, nor one demanding only a small share of excellence. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: My dear Cleinias, there is a small class of people, few by nature and raised on the finest upbringing, who, when they fall into need or desire of something, are able to hold to moderation, and who, when it is possible to take a great deal of money, stay sober and choose the moderate amount over the large. But the mass of humanity is the complete opposite: their wants are boundless, and even when it is possible to gain moderately, they choose insatiably to gain more. This is why all the classes involved in shopkeeping, trading, and innkeeping have gotten a bad name and fallen into shameful disgrace. Suppose someone -- it would never happen and never will, but it's worth saying even though it sounds absurd -- forced the best men everywhere to keep an inn for some time, or to run a shop, or do something of that sort, or forced women by some fated necessity to share in such a way of life: we would then recognize how welcome and dear each of these services is, and that if it were carried out in a genuinely uncorrupted way, all such things would be honored as a mother and a nurse are honored.
ATHENIAN: But as things stand now, when someone settles in desolate places, at the ends of long roads leading everywhere, purely for the sake of shopkeeping, and receives travelers who have fallen into difficulty with welcome shelter, or those driven violently by fierce storms, providing them fair weather and calm, or relief from stifling heat -- what he does afterward is not to receive them as companions and offer the friendly hospitality that ought to follow such a welcome, but instead, as though they were captured enemy prisoners, to ransom them for the longest, most unjust, and foulest ransom money. It is this, and things like it, done wrongly in all such dealings, that has produced the bad reputation attached to relieving people's need. For this the lawgiver must always cut a remedy. It has long and rightly been said that fighting on two fronts against opposing forces is difficult, as in the case of illnesses and many other things; and indeed the fight here, too, concerning this matter, is against two things: poverty and wealth -- the one having corrupted people's souls through luxury, the other having driven them, through hardship, into shamelessness itself. What relief, then, from this sickness could there be in a city with any sense? First, to make use of the class of shopkeepers as sparingly as possible, given the constraints; next, to assign this work to those people whose corruption would do the least great harm to the city; and third, to find some device by which those who do take up such occupations will not easily fall, unchecked, into habits of shamelessness and an ignoble soul. After what has just been said, let this law, with good fortune, be established for us concerning these matters: of the Magnesians, whom the god is restoring and resettling, as many as are landholders among the forty-five thousand hearths -- let none of them become a shopkeeper, whether willingly or unwillingly, nor a merchant, nor hold any service position for private citizens who are not his equal, except for his father and mother and their forebears further up the line, and all his elders, so long as they are free men serving freely. What counts as freeborn conduct and what as unfree is not easy to legislate precisely, but let it be judged by those who have received the prizes of excellence, according to what they hate and what they welcome.
ATHENIAN: Whoever engages in some craft of unfree shopkeeping, let anyone who wishes bring a charge of disgracing his lineage against him before those judged first in virtue; and if it is decided that he is befouling his ancestral hearth with an unworthy occupation, let him be bound and refrain from that occupation for a year; and if he does it again, for two years, and with each conviction let the period of confinement keep doubling from the previous term. A second law: whoever intends to keep a shop must be a resident alien or a foreigner. And a third point, the third law: so that such a person may be as good as possible, or as little bad as possible, as a fellow resident among us in the city, the Guardians of the Law must understand that they are guardians not only of those who are easy to keep from becoming lawless and bad -- those who have been well brought up in birth and rearing -- but must keep even closer watch over those who are not of that sort, who pursue occupations that carry some strong pull toward becoming bad. In this way, then, concerning shopkeeping -- which is extensive and involves many such occupations -- as many of these as it is judged, out of sheer necessity, must remain in the city, let the Guardians of the Law again meet together with experts in each branch of shopkeeping, just as we earlier directed regarding counterfeiting, a matter akin to this one, and having met, let them examine what income and what expenditure yields a moderate profit for the shopkeeper, and having written down the resulting expenditure and income, let them establish and guard it -- the market-wardens some of it, the city-wardens some, the country-wardens the rest. In this way shopkeeping would, more or less, benefit each party while doing the least possible harm to those in the cities who make use of it. Whenever someone, having agreed to a contract, fails to fulfill it according to the agreement -- except for cases where laws or a decree forbid it, or where someone was compelled to agree under some unjust force, or where, through some unexpected turn of fortune, a person is unwillingly prevented -- there shall be lawsuits over the rest of the unfulfilled agreement in the tribal courts, if the parties cannot reach a settlement before that through arbitrators or neighbors. The class of craftsmen is sacred to Hephaestus and Athena, those who have equipped our life together with their arts; and sacred, in turn, to Ares and Athena are those who preserve the works of the craftsmen with other, defensive arts. Rightly is this class, too, sacred to these gods. All of these continually serve the land and the people -- some as leaders in the contests of war, others by bringing forth, for pay, the production of tools and works.
ATHENIAN: For those engaged in such work, it would not be fitting to deal falsely, out of respect for the gods who are their ancestors. If a craftsman fails to complete a commissioned work within the stated time, through his own fault, showing no respect at all for the god who gives life, thinking that as a kinsman that god will simply forgive him, and giving no thought at all to the matter with his mind, he shall first pay a penalty to the god, and second, let this law stand attached to that: he shall owe the price of the work for the client he has deceived, and he must carry it out again from the beginning within the stated time, free of charge. And for the one commissioning the work, there is an advisory law as well, matching what was advised to the seller: he must not try to bargain for a higher price but should assess it as simply as possible at its true worth -- the same instruction applies to the one commissioning it, for the craftsman, at least, knows the work's true value. In free cities, then, one must never use a craft -- a thing whose nature is clear and honest -- to try the wits of ordinary citizens by scheming, on the part of the craftsman himself; let there be lawsuits over these matters for the wronged party against the wrongdoer. And if, in turn, someone who has commissioned work from a craftsman fails to pay the wages properly, as agreed under the legal contract, dishonoring Zeus, guardian of the city, and Athena, both partners in our civic life, and clinging to a small profit, breaks apart great bonds of community -- let there be a law to support the bond of the city together with the gods: whoever, having received a finished work in advance, fails to pay the wages within the agreed time shall be made to pay double; and if a year passes, though other sums lent out at interest bear no interest under our other laws, in this case the debtor shall pay one obol per drachma for each month, and suits over these matters shall be held in the tribal courts. Since it is fitting to speak, if only in passing, about the preservation of those craftsmen of war -- generals and all who are skilled in such things -- we should note that we have spoken of craftsmen throughout as applying equally to them, as being craftsmen of another kind. If any of these, too, having undertaken a public work, whether willingly or as assigned, carries it out well, let the honors -- which are, for men of war, their wages -- be paid to him justly; the law, in praising him, will never grow weary of it.
ATHENIAN: But if, having received payment in advance, he fails to deliver some fine work of war, the law will find fault with him. Let this law, then, be established for us, mixed with praise concerning these matters -- advisory, not compulsory -- for the mass of the citizens: to honor the good men, all who are saviors of the whole city whether by acts of courage or by feats of strategy in war, as second in rank; for the greatest prize of all must be given, first, to those who have proven able to honor, above all else, the writings of good lawgivers. The greatest of the contracts that people make with one another have now, more or less, been arranged by us, apart from matters concerning orphans and the guardianship and care of orphans. These must, after what has just been said, somehow be put in order as well. The starting points of all this are, on the one hand, the wishes of those about to die concerning the disposal of their property, and on the other, the circumstances of those who die leaving no disposition at all. I called this necessary, Cleinias, having in mind how awkward and difficult it is. For it cannot be left unregulated either -- each person would make many different and conflicting arrangements, at odds with the laws, with the customs of the living, and even with their own earlier wishes before they were about to make final arrangements, if anyone is to be given the plain, sovereign authority to dispose, in whatever way he pleases, of a will made at the end of his life however he happens to feel. For most of us are, in a way, thoughtless and unsettled in our judgment whenever we suppose that we are about to die. CLEINIAS: How do you mean this, stranger? ATHENIAN: It is a hard thing, Cleinias, for a man about to die, and full of talk that gives lawgivers real cause for fear and difficulty. CLEINIAS: In what way? ATHENIAN: Seeking to be master over everything, he tends to speak with anger. CLEINIAS: What sort of things does he say? ATHENIAN: 'It is a terrible thing, gods,' he says, 'if it will not be possible for me to give what is mine to whomever I wish, and not to another -- more to one, less to another, depending on who has shown himself base toward me and who good, each having been thoroughly tested through illnesses, or through old age, or through all sorts of other misfortunes.' CLEINIAS: Well then, stranger, don't they seem to you to speak well? ATHENIAN: To me, Cleinias, the lawgivers of old seem to have been soft, and to have legislated with too narrow a view and too little thought about human affairs. CLEINIAS: How do you mean?
ATHENIAN: It was fear of that very argument, my friend, that led people to make the law allowing anyone to dispose of his own property exactly as he pleases, without qualification. But you and I will give a more measured answer to those in your city who are about to die. Friends, we will say, you creatures of a single day, it is hard for you just now to know what is truly yours, and harder still to know yourselves, as the inscription at Delphi tells us. As lawgiver, then, I hold that neither you yourselves nor this property belong to you, but that both you and it belong to your whole family, past and future, and even more than that, to the city. And since that is so, I will not willingly agree if someone flatters you while sickness or old age has you reeling, and talks you into disposing of things against your own best interest. Rather I will legislate with an eye to what is best for the whole city and the whole family, weighing the individual's claim as it deserves, in a lesser place. Go now in kindness and goodwill toward us, following the human path you are already following by nature; the rest of your affairs will be our concern, cared for as best we can, with no favoritism among you. Let this stand, Cleinias, as consolation and preamble for both the living and the dying. Now here is the law itself. Whoever writes a will disposing of his property, if he is the father of children, shall first name which of his sons he judges fit to become his heir, and write this down. As for his other children, if he gives any of them to another household for adoption, with that household's consent, let him record this in writing as well. And if a son is left over who has not been provided for by any inheritance, one whom the law allows hope of being sent out to a colony, the father may give him whatever he wishes of the remaining property, except the ancestral plot of land and all its furnishings; and if there are several such sons, the father may distribute what is left of the estate among them in whatever proportion he wishes. But to a son who already has a household of his own, he need not allot any of the property; and likewise for a daughter, if she is already betrothed to become someone's wife, he need not allot to her, but if she is not, he should. And if, after the will is made, some parcel of the estate's land turns up unexpectedly for a son or daughter, let it be left to the heir named in the will. And if a man leaves no male children but only females, the one making the will shall choose a husband for one of his daughters and leave him behind as his own son, writing him down as heir.
ATHENIAN: And if a man's son should die while still a child, before reaching manhood, whether that son was born to him or adopted, the man making the will shall also provide in writing for such an eventuality, stating who ought to become his second son, in case of better fortune. And if a man is entirely childless and makes a will, he may set aside a tenth part of whatever he has newly acquired, and give it away to anyone he wishes, if he so desires; but he must hand over everything else, without reservation and with good grace, to the one he adopts, making him his son according to the law. When children need guardians, if their father dies having made a will and named guardians for them, willing men who have agreed to serve as guardians, as many and whoever he wishes, then the choice of guardians as written shall be authoritative. But if a man dies either without having made any will at all, or having failed to name guardians, the nearest relatives on both the father's and the mother's side shall be the authoritative guardians, two from the father's side and two from the mother's side, plus one chosen from among the deceased's friends; and the Guardians of the Law shall appoint these for whichever orphan needs them. Of the whole body of guardianship and of the orphans, the fifteen eldest of the Guardians of the Law shall always take charge, in order of seniority, dividing themselves into groups of three, three for one year and then another three the next, until the five rotations have gone full circle; and this duty must never lapse, so far as it can be helped. Whoever dies without having made any will at all, but leaves children who need guardianship, the use of these same laws shall extend to his children as well. But if a man, meeting with unexpected misfortune, leaves only daughters, let the lawgiver be forgiven if, in deciding how to give the daughters in marriage, he weighs two of three considerations — nearness of kinship and preservation of the family estate — but omits the third, namely what a father would consider if he examined the character and habits of all the citizens to find one suited to be his own son and his daughter's bridegroom, since such an examination is impossible. Let this law, then, be laid down for such cases as far as it can be: if a man who has made no will leaves daughters, and he dies, his full brother, or a brother by the same mother who has no inheritance of his own, shall take the daughter and the estate of the deceased; and if there is no brother, but a brother's son, the same rule applies, provided they are close enough in age to each other; and if none of these exists, but there is a sister's son, likewise; fourth in line is the father's brother, fifth this man's son, and sixth the son of a sister of the father.
ATHENIAN: In the same way the succession shall always proceed by nearness of kinship, whenever a man leaves only female children, tracing back through brothers and their children, first the males of a given line, and afterward the females of that same line. The judge shall examine and decide whether the ages of this couple are fitting or unfitting for marriage, viewing the males naked, and the females naked down to the navel. And if the family lacks relations even as far as a brother's grandsons, or likewise as far as a grandfather's children, then, whoever the girl herself chooses from among the rest of the citizens, with the consent of the guardians, and he consenting in turn, that man shall become heir of the deceased and bridegroom of the daughter. And there will often be, in more cases than one might think, such a lack even within the city itself. So if a woman who cannot find anyone at home sees a man who has gone out among the colonists, and wants him to become heir to her father's estate, then, if he is a relative, let him proceed to claim the inheritance according to the order the law prescribes; but if he is outside the family, one of those living in the city but unrelated by blood, he shall have authority, with the consent of the guardians and of the deceased's daughter, to marry her and to return home and take the estate of the man who made no will. And if a man dies without a will and leaves no children at all, male or female, in other respects the earlier law shall apply to his case; but a female and a male, like a mated pair, shall proceed from the family into the household that has in each instance been left empty, and the inheritance shall rightly belong to them in this order: first a sister, second a brother's daughter, third a sister's granddaughter, fourth the father's sister, fifth the father's brother's daughter, and sixth would be the daughter of a sister of the father. These women shall be united with their respective claimants in accordance with kinship and custom, as we legislated earlier. Now let us not overlook how burdensome such laws are, in that they sometimes harshly command the nearest male relative of the deceased to marry the female relative, seeming to take no account of the countless obstacles that arise among human beings against such commands, making people unwilling to obey — obstacles that would make many prefer to suffer almost anything rather than comply, whenever bodily diseases or deformities, or mental ones, occur in some of those ordered to marry or be married. Some might think the lawgiver gives no thought to such cases — but that opinion would not be correct.
ATHENIAN: Let it be said, then, on behalf of both the lawgiver and those subject to the law, as a kind of shared preamble: that those under the law's commands should have forgiveness for the lawgiver, on the ground that, being occupied with public affairs, he could never at the same time manage the private misfortunes that befall each individual; and forgiveness in turn for those under the law, since it is only reasonable that they sometimes cannot fulfill the lawgiver's commands, given as he gives them without knowing the particulars. CLEINIAS: What, then, stranger, might one do in such cases to act most fittingly? ATHENIAN: It is necessary, Cleinias, to choose arbitrators for such laws and for those subject to them. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: There are times when the nephew of a wealthy man would not willingly take his uncle's daughter, being spoiled and setting his mind on a grander marriage; and there are times when the lawgiver's command would force someone into the greatest of misfortunes, compelled to disobey the law because it forces him to accept a mad household connection, or some other terrible misfortune of body or soul, for one whose life such a marriage would make unlivable. Let the following, then, be laid down as our law concerning these matters: if anyone brings a complaint against the established laws regarding a will, whether about other matters or specifically about marriages — claiming that the lawgiver himself, if present and alive, would never have forced him to act this way, to marry or be given in marriage, being now forced to do either — and some relative or some guardian says so, let the lawgiver be understood to have left behind the fifteen Guardians of the Law as arbitrators and fathers for the orphaned boys and girls; and let those disputing any such matter bring their case before these men, whose judgments shall be final. But if anyone thinks this grants the Guardians of the Law too much power over them, let him bring the matter before the court of select judges and have the dispute decided there; and upon the loser let blame and reproach be laid, from the lawgiver himself, as a penalty heavier than a large fine for one who thinks himself wise. Now for the orphaned children this becomes, as it were, a kind of second birth. After the first birth, each child's nurture and education have already been prescribed; but after the second — the birth into being fatherless — we must contrive some way that the misfortune of orphanhood brings as little pity as possible upon those who suffer it. First, then, we say the Guardians of the Law are established by law to be fathers to them in place of their begetters, no worse than real fathers, and we further instruct them to watch over the orphans each year as if they were their own kin — having first given, as a fitting preamble on the nurture of orphans, instruction to the guardians themselves as well as to these officials.
ATHENIAN: It seems to me, then, that this is the fitting moment to recall what we said earlier, that the souls of the dead have some power after death by which they take an interest in human affairs. These are true accounts, but they involve long tales; still, we must trust the other traditions concerning such things, since they are so numerous and so very ancient, and we must trust those who make our laws that things stand this way, unless they show themselves altogether senseless. If, then, this is indeed how things stand by nature, first let people fear the gods above, who perceive the desolation of orphans, and next the spirits of the departed, whose nature it is to watch over their own offspring with exceptional care, kindly toward those who honor them and hostile toward those who slight them; and further let them dread those living souls that have reached old age and stand in the highest honor — for wherever a city under good laws flourishes, there children's children live with affection and delight toward such elders — and these old people see keenly and hear keenly all that concerns such matters, and are well-disposed toward those who act justly regarding them, while they feel the greatest indignation toward those who commit outrage against orphans and the desolate, since they count these as a deposit supreme in greatness and sanctity. To these injunctions every guardian and ruler must hold fast, however small his mind may be, taking care about the nurture and education of orphans, as one contributing to a shared fund for himself and his own, doing good in every way and to the full extent of his power. Whoever, persuaded by the tale preceding this law, commits no outrage against an orphan, will not come to know directly the lawgiver's anger regarding such things; but whoever disobeys, and wrongs someone bereft of father or mother, shall pay double the whole damage compared to one who commits the same wrong against a child with both parents living. As for the rest of the legislation concerning guardians over orphans, and officials overseeing the guardians' care — if these men themselves possessed no model of raising free children, having raised their own and managed their own household's property, and moreover had laws set out with some moderation on these very matters, there would be some reason to lay down certain special laws for guardianship, as being genuinely and greatly different, shaping the orphan's life by special practices apart from that of children who are not orphans. But as things stand, in our city orphanhood does not differ much overall from being under a father's rule; though in honors and dishonors together with attentive care, it tends by no means to be treated as equal.
ATHENIAN: This is why the law has taken such care over legislation concerning orphans, using both encouragement and threats. And here is a threat that would be quite timely: whoever acts as guardian to a child, male or female, and whoever among the Guardians of the Law is appointed to oversee a guardian, must love the child who has fallen into orphanhood no less than his own children, and must look after the property of the one being raised no worse than his own — indeed, with even more eagerness than his own. Let every guardian hold this single law concerning orphans. If anyone acts otherwise in such matters, contrary to this law, the magistrate is to fine the guardian, and the guardian, bringing the magistrate before the court of selected judges, is to fine him double whatever penalty the court decides. If a guardian seems to the child's relatives, or indeed to any other citizen, to be neglecting or mishandling his duty, they are to bring him before the same court; whatever he is convicted of, he must pay four times over, half going to the child, half to the one who won the case. When any of the orphans comes of age, if he believes he was badly guarded, he may bring suit over the guardianship within five years of its ending. If a guardian is convicted, the court is to assess what he must suffer or pay; if a magistrate is convicted of harming the orphan through negligence, the court is to assess what he must pay the child, but if through deliberate wrongdoing, then in addition to the fine he is to be removed from the office of Guardian of the Law, and the city as a whole is to appoint another Guardian of the Law in his place for the country and the city. Disputes arise between fathers and their own children, and between children and their parents, greater than they ought to be — disputes in which fathers might think the lawgiver should legislate that they be allowed, if they wish, to have a herald publicly disown a son before everyone, declaring him by law no longer a son; and sons, in turn, might think they should be allowed to indict a father for insanity when he is reduced to a shameful condition by sickness or old age. Such things do in truth tend to happen among people of thoroughly wicked character; but where only half the badness is present — say, a bad son with a good father, or the reverse — such disasters do not spring from so bitter a hostility.
ATHENIAN: Now in another kind of constitution, a disowned child would not necessarily become stateless. But in this one, whose laws we are now framing, a fatherless child of this sort is bound of necessity to be resettled in another land — for beyond the five thousand and forty households, not one more can be added. So the one who is to suffer this by judgment must be disowned not by one father alone, but by the whole clan. This is how such matters ought to be handled by law: whenever anger seizes someone — rightly or wrongly, it makes no difference to good fortune — and he desires to cut off from his kinship the son he begot and raised, he must not be allowed to do this lightly or on the spot. First he must gather his own relatives as far as cousins, and likewise the son's relatives on the mother's side, and bring his accusation before them, showing why the young man deserves to be cast out of the family by all; and the son too must be given equal opportunity to argue that he deserves none of this. If the father persuades them, and gets the votes of more than half of all the kinsmen present — not counting the father and mother and the accused himself, but counting all the other men and women of full age — then, and only then, may the father disown his son; in no other way. If any citizen wishes to adopt the disowned young man as his own son, no law shall prevent him from doing so — for the characters of the young are apt to undergo many changes in the course of life. But if ten years pass and no one has wished to adopt the disowned man, those in charge of the excess population meant for colonies are to see to it that he too takes part properly in that same colony. And if sickness, or old age, or a harshness of temper — or all these together — renders someone unusually deranged, more than most people, and this escapes everyone except those who live with him, and he squanders his estate as though he were still master of it, while his son is at a loss and hesitates to bring the suit for insanity, then let this law be established for him: he must first go to the eldest of the Guardians of the Law and explain his father's misfortune. They, once they have examined the matter sufficiently, are to advise him whether or not the suit should be brought; and if they advise bringing it, they are to serve as both witnesses and advocates for the one bringing the charge. Whoever is convicted shall for the rest of his life have no authority to dispose of even the smallest part of his own property, and shall live out the remainder of his life like a child in the household.
ATHENIAN: If a husband and wife cannot get along at all, being unlucky in temperament, then ten of the middle-aged Guardians of the Law must always take charge of such cases, along with ten of the women who oversee marriages. If they are able to reconcile the couple, that reconciliation shall stand; but if their feelings are too stormy for that, the officials must seek out, as best they can, who would suit each of them. It is likely that people of this kind do not have gentle characters; so an attempt should be made to match them with partners of deeper and gentler disposition. Those among them who are childless or have few children should form their new union for the sake of children; those who already have enough children should separate and remarry for the sake of growing old together and caring for one another. If a wife dies leaving both daughters and sons, the law that is laid down should be advisory rather than compulsory — that the father raise the surviving children without bringing in a stepmother. But if there are no children, he must remarry by necessity, until he has fathered children enough for both household and city. If the husband dies leaving enough children, the mother of his children should remain and raise them; but if she seems too young to remain healthily without a husband, then her relatives, in consultation with the women who oversee marriages, are to do whatever seems best to them and to the women concerning such matters. If the couple lack children, they should remarry for that reason too, and the law shall set the sufficient number of children at two, one male and one female. When it is agreed whose child a newborn is, but a ruling is needed as to whose status it should follow: if a slave woman has relations with a slave, a free man, or a freedman, the child born shall belong entirely to the master of the slave woman; if a free woman lies with a slave, the offspring becomes the property of the slave's owner. And when a child is born of a man's own slave woman, or of a woman's own slave, and this is publicly known, the women are to send the mother's child away to another land along with the father, and the Guardians of the Law are to send the father's child away along with the mother who bore it. No god, and no sensible human being, would ever counsel neglect of one's parents. To think rightly about this, a preamble concerning the honoring of the gods, properly framed, should come before our laws on the honor and dishonor due to parents, something like this:
ATHENIAN: Ancient laws concerning the gods are established for everyone in two forms. Some gods we honor because we see them clearly; for others we set up images as likenesses, and though these statues are lifeless, we believe that the living gods they represent feel great goodwill and gratitude toward us because of them. So the man in whose house lies a father or a mother, or the aged parents of either, worn out with years like stored-up treasures, must never suppose that any image he could own carries greater power than these, provided their possessor tends them in the right and proper way. CLEINIAS: What do you mean by rightly? ATHENIAN: I will explain — for indeed, friends, such things deserve to be heard. CLEINIAS: Just tell us. ATHENIAN: We say that Oedipus, dishonored, called down curses on his own children, and that everyone sings of how these curses were fulfilled and heard by the gods; that Amyntor in anger cursed his son Phoenix, and Theseus cursed Hippolytus, and countless others cursed countless others — and it has become clear that the gods do listen to parents concerning their children. For a parent's curse against his offspring is more just than any other curse could be against anyone. Let no one, then, believe that when a father or mother is dishonored by their children, a god listens to their prayers against nature, while when they are honored and made joyful, and out of that joy pray earnestly to the gods for good things for their children, we will not believe the gods listen equally and grant these too. If they did not, they could never be just distributors of good things — and that is the very thing we say is least fitting for gods. CLEINIAS: Very true. ATHENIAN: Then let us reflect on what we said a little earlier — that we could possess no image more honored by the gods than a father or forefather worn down by age, or a mother possessing the same power; for when someone honors them with tribute, the god rejoices — otherwise he would not listen to them at all. For truly, the image of our ancestors set up among us is a marvel, far beyond lifeless statues. Living images, when we tend them, join in our prayers each time, and when dishonored, do the opposite, while lifeless ones do neither. So if a person makes right use of father, forefather, and all such kin, he would possess, of all images, the one most sovereign in securing the favor of the gods. CLEINIAS: Beautifully said.
ATHENIAN: Everyone with sense fears and honors the prayers of parents, knowing that they have been fulfilled for many people many times. Since nature has ordered things this way, aged ancestors are a windfall for the good, living to the very end of life, and when they depart while still young at heart, deeply missed; but for the bad, they are a source of great fear. Let everyone, then, persuaded by what has now been said, honor his own parents with every lawful honor. But if some remain deaf to such preambles, the following law would rightly apply to them: if anyone in this city cares for his parents less than he ought, and does not defer to and satisfy the wishes of his father and mother, and of all his ancestors, more than those of his own sons and all his descendants and himself, the one suffering such treatment — either in person or by sending someone — must lay the matter before the three senior-most of the Law-Guardians, together with three of the women who supervise marriages. These are to take charge of the matter, punishing the wrongdoers, if they are still young, with blows and imprisonment — men up to the age of thirty, women up to ten years older, receiving the same punishments. If, being older than these ages, they still do not give up the same neglect of their parents, and in fact mistreat them, they are to be brought before a court of one hundred and one citizens, whoever are the eldest of all. If convicted, the court shall assess what he must pay or suffer, holding back nothing that a human being is capable of suffering or paying. If someone is unable to report his mistreatment, any free person who learns of it must report it to the magistrates, or be deemed base and liable to prosecution by anyone willing, for the harm done. If a slave brings information, he shall be freed; and if he belongs to either the wrongdoer or the wronged, he shall be released by the authorities, while if he belongs to some other citizen, the public treasury shall pay his owner his value. The magistrates must take care that no one wrongs such a person in retaliation for the information given. As for poisoning one person harms another with drugs, the cases involving death have already been dealt with, but concerning other kinds of harm — whenever someone, by drinks or foods or ointments, deliberately and with forethought harms another — none of this has yet been addressed. This is because there are two kinds of poisoning among the human race, and this double nature has held back our discussion of it.
ATHENIAN: The kind of harm we just described plainly is bodies harming bodies according to nature. But there is another kind, which by means of certain charms, spells, and so-called bindings persuades those who dare to do harm that they truly have such power, and persuades their victims that they are being harmed above all by people with the power to bewitch. Now about all these things it is neither easy to know how they really work, nor, even if one did know, would it be easy to persuade others. And it isn't worthwhile to try to convince people, when they distrust each other's souls about such things — say if they ever see waxen images molded and set at doorways, or at crossroads, or on the graves of their own parents — to simply disregard all of this, when we ourselves have no clear doctrine about it. Instead we should divide the law about drug-use into two, and however someone attempts to use drugs, first we must ask, urge, and advise that he not attempt any such thing, nor frighten the mass of people the way one frightens children, nor force the lawgiver and judge to cure people of such fears — since, in the first place, the man who attempts to use drugs does not know what he is doing, whether it concerns bodies (unless he happens to have medical knowledge) or concerns those charms (unless he happens to be a seer or a diviner of portents). So let this statement stand as the law about drug-use: whoever administers a drug to someone causing harm that is not fatal, whether to that person himself or to his people, or harm to livestock or beehives, whether fatal or not — if he happens to be a physician and is convicted on the charge of drugging, let him be punished with death; but if he is a private person, let the court assess what he must suffer or pay. But if by bindings, invocations, incantations, or any such forms of drug-use he seems to be the kind of person who does harm, then if he is a seer or diviner of portents, let him die; and if he is convicted of drug-use without possessing such divinatory skill, let the same apply to him as well — for in his case too the court shall assess what it judges he must suffer or pay.
ATHENIAN: Whatever harm one person does another by theft or violence, if the harm is greater, let him pay the injured party a greater restitution, and if he has done lesser harm, a smaller one — in every case, exactly as much as the harm he has done, until the injury is made good. And beyond that, in addition to what corresponds to each wrongdoing, let each offender pay a further penalty for the sake of correction — lighter for one who did wrong through someone else's folly, having been led by persuasion because of youth or some such thing, but heavier for one who did wrong through his own folly or through lack of self-control over pleasures or pains, becoming so in cowardly fears or in certain desires or envies or fits of anger hard to cure — not because the wrongdoing itself is being punished (for what has happened can never be made not to have happened), but for the sake of the future, so that either the wrongdoer himself and those who see him justly punished may come to hate injustice altogether, or so that much of that kind of misfortune may be lessened. For all these reasons, and with an eye to all such things, the laws, like a good archer, must aim at the magnitude of the punishment appropriate in each case and at what is altogether deserved. And in performing this same task the judge must serve as assistant to the lawgiver, whenever some law entrusts to him the assessment of what the one on trial must suffer or pay, while the lawgiver, like a painter, must sketch in outline the works that follow from his writing. This, then, Megillus and Cleinias, is what we must now do as finely and as well as we can: we must state what the penalties should be, as they are called, for all thefts and acts of violence, so that the gods and children of gods may allow us to legislate. If someone is mad, let him not appear openly in the city; let his relatives keep watch over each such person at home, by whatever means they know how, or else pay a fine — the man of the highest property class a hundred drachmas if he lets him wander loose, whether the madman is a slave or a free man; the second class four-fifths of a mina; the third class three-fifths; and the fourth class two-fifths. Now people go mad in many ways. Those we have just mentioned go mad from disease; but there are others whose bad nature, together with a bad upbringing, produces madness through anger, so that over some petty quarrel they raise their voices and hurl abuse at one another — none of which is fitting to happen anywhere at all in a well-governed city. Let there be one law about abusive speech applying to everyone: Let no one speak abusively of anyone. If a person is disputing something in argument with another, let each teach and learn, both the disputant and those present, while entirely refraining from abuse.
ATHENIAN: For out of calling down curses on one another and hurling shameful, womanish accusations at each other, first from words — a light matter — deep hatreds and the heaviest enmities arise in deed. For the speaker, indulging in an ungracious thing, his temper, and gorging his anger on a foul feast, savaging back into wildness whatever civilizing his upbringing once achieved, comes to live in a brutish, ill-tempered state, accepting a bitter satisfaction from his rage. And in such exchanges everyone tends, in time, to slide over into saying something ridiculous about his opponent; and no one who makes a habit of this has ever failed either to lose his serious character altogether or to lose a great part of his greatness of mind. For these reasons, let no one ever utter any such thing at all in a sacred place, or at any public sacrifices, or at games, or in the marketplace, or in a law court, or in any common assembly; and let the official presiding over each of these punish it without penalty to himself, or else let him never again be allowed to compete for a prize, on the ground that he cares nothing for the laws and does not carry out what the lawgiver has prescribed. But if someone in other places, whether starting the abuse or defending himself, does not refrain from such language, let any older person who comes upon it enforce the law by driving off with blows those who are indulging their anger — another form of evil — or else himself be liable to the appointed penalty. We are saying now that a person tangled up in abuse, without trying to say anything funny, cannot help himself, and it is this that we condemn, whenever it arises out of anger. But what of this: shall we accept the eagerness of comic poets to say funny things about people, so long as they attempt such comic remarks about our citizens without anger? Or shall we distinguish two cases, joking and not joking, and allow someone who is joking to say something funny about a person without anger, but forbid anyone to do so in earnest and with anger, as we said? This latter must never be permitted at all — but as to who shall be allowed and who not, let us make that our law.
ATHENIAN: Let it not be permitted for a writer of comedy, or of iambic verse, or of lyric song, to mock any of the citizens whatsoever, whether in word or in image, whether in anger or without anger. If anyone disobeys, let the judges of the contests banish him from the country altogether on that very day, or else let him be fined three sacred minas belonging to the god in whose honor the contest is held. But those who were said earlier to have permission to compose about someone, they may do so to one another without anger, in play, but they may not do so in earnest and with anger at the same time. The distinguishing of this shall be entrusted to the overseer of the whole education of the young; and whatever he approves, the poet may bring forward publicly, but whatever he rejects, let the poet neither perform it himself for anyone, nor ever be shown to have taught it to another, slave or free, or else let him be judged a base man and disobedient to the laws. A man is not to be pitied for being hungry or suffering some such thing, but rather the man who is self-controlled, or who possesses some virtue or part of it, if in addition to this he has acquired some misfortune. It would be astonishing, then, if such a person were utterly neglected, so as to fall into the extreme of beggary, whether slave or free, in a city and constitution that is inhabited and moderately governed. So it is safe for the lawgiver to establish some such law as this for such people: Let there be no beggar among us in the city; and if anyone attempts to do such a thing, gathering a livelihood by endless prayers, let the market officials drive him out of the marketplace, the board of city officials drive him out of the town, and the officials of the countryside send him out across the borders from the rest of the territory, so that the land may be made entirely clean of such a creature. If a male or female slave does any harm at all to another's property, and the person harmed was not himself partly responsible through inexperience or some other improper use, the master of the one who did the harm must either make full restitution for the damage or hand over the one who did it. But if the master claims that the accusation was contrived jointly by the slave and the injured party in order to deprive him of the slave, let him bring a suit for malicious prosecution against the one claiming to have been harmed, and if he wins, let him receive double the value of the slave as assessed by the court; but if he loses, let him make good the damage and surrender the slave. Should a beast of burden, or a horse, a dog, or any other creature, do injury to something belonging to a neighbor, the damage is to be paid in the same way.
ATHENIAN: If someone is unwilling to testify voluntarily, let the party who needs him summon him, and let the one summoned appear for the trial; and if he knows the facts and is willing to testify, let him testify; but if he claims to know nothing, let him take an oath by the three gods, Zeus, Apollo, and Themis, that in truth he knows nothing of it, and thus be dismissed from the suit. But whoever is summoned to give testimony and does not appear before the one who summoned him shall be liable at law for the damage caused. And if someone calls up a witness in the course of a trial already in progress, that witness, once he has testified, shall not take part in the vote on that case. A free woman may testify and act as an advocate if she is over forty years of age, and she may bring a suit if she has no husband; but while her husband lives, she may only testify. A male slave, a female slave, and a child may testify and act as advocates only in a case of murder, provided they furnish an adequate guarantor that they will remain available until the trial, in case they are charged with giving false testimony. Either party in a dispute may bring a charge against the whole of a testimony or a part of it, claiming that someone has testified falsely, before the case is decided; and the officials in charge shall keep these charges sealed by both parties, and produce them for the judgment on the false testimony. If anyone is convicted twice of bearing false witness, let no law any longer compel anyone to accept his testimony; and if three times, let him no longer be permitted to testify at all. And if, having been convicted three times, he dares to testify anyway, let anyone who wishes report him to the officials, and let the officials hand him over to a court, and if he is convicted, let him be punished with death. As for all those whose testimonies are convicted at trial as judged false, and are found to have secured the victory for the one who won, if more than half of such testimonies are condemned in some case, let the suit decided on the strength of them be reopened, and let there be a fresh dispute and adjudication as to whether the case was decided on the basis of those testimonies or not; and however it is decided, let that be the final resolution of the earlier suits. Though there are many fine things in human life, upon most of them something like a blight has grown, which stains and befouls them. And indeed is not justice among human beings a fine thing, since it has civilized everything human? And if this is fine, how could joining in the pursuit of justice for others not also be fine? Yet, being what they are, some vile art defames these things, dressing itself up under a fine name — an art which claims, first, to be a kind of contrivance for lawsuits, capable of winning both when pleading one's own case and when assisting another, whether or not the actions concerning that particular suit were just.
ATHENIAN: Let this skill—and the speeches that come from it—be given free of charge, if anyone offers money in exchange. As for this practice in our city, whether it counts as a skill or is merely an untrained knack built from experience, it would be best if it never arose at all. But if the lawgiver asks its practitioners to obey and not speak against justice, and instead to leave for another country, then those who obey will be met with silence, but for those who disobey, the law says this: if anyone appears to be trying to twist the force of just claims in the minds of jurors, or to bring lawsuits out of season too often, or to help others do so, then whoever wishes may indict him for malicious litigation or malicious advocacy, and he shall be judged before the court of selected judges. If he is convicted, the court shall assess whether he did this out of love of money or love of winning. If it was love of winning, the court shall fix a period during which such a person may not bring a suit or assist in one for anyone. If it was love of money, then a foreigner convicted of it shall leave the country and never return, on pain of death, while a citizen shall be put to death, because of his love of money—a vice that is condemned among us in every form. And if anyone is convicted twice of doing this out of love of winning, let him be put to death.
ATHENIAN: If anyone, acting as ambassador or herald, misrepresents the city and deals falsely on its behalf with some other city, or, when sent, fails to report the actual message he was sent to deliver, or again is shown to have brought back incorrectly, whether as ambassador or as herald, what came from enemies or even from friends — against such men let there be indictments for having impiously violated, contrary to law, the messages and commands of Hermes and of Zeus; and let there be an assessment of what he must suffer or pay, if convicted. Theft of property is illiberal; robbery is shameless. None of the sons of Zeus has ever practiced either of these, delighting in fraud or in violence. Let no one, then, deceived by poets or by any of the tellers of misguided tales on these matters, be persuaded otherwise, and think, when he thieves or uses force, that he is doing nothing shameful but only what the gods themselves do. That is neither true nor plausible: whoever does any such lawless thing is neither a god nor a child of gods; and it belongs to the lawgiver to know this better than all the poets put together. So whoever is persuaded by our argument fares well, and may he fare well for all time; but whoever disbelieves must thereafter contend with a law of this kind: if anyone steals any public property, great or small, he needs the same penalty. For the man who steals something small has stolen with the same lust, only with lesser power; and the man who removes the greater sum without having deposited it does wrong to the full. So the law thinks it right to punish neither with a lighter penalty than the other on the ground of the size of the theft, but on the ground that the one may perhaps still be curable, the other incurable.
ATHENIAN: If, then, someone convicts in court a foreigner or a slave of stealing something public — since he is in all likelihood curable — let the judgment determine what he must suffer or what fine he must pay. But the citizen, reared as he will have been reared, if he is caught plundering or doing violence to his fatherland, whether taken in the act or not — him, as being practically incurable, punish with death. Concerning armies, much counsel and many laws arise, and rightly; but the greatest is this: that no one, male or female, ever be without a commander, and that no one's soul acquire the habit, in earnest or in play, of acting on its own initiative, alone; rather, in every war and in every peace, one must live looking always to the commander and following him, steered by him even in the smallest things — to halt when someone orders it, to march, to exercise, to bathe, to take meals, to wake at night for guard duty and for the passing of orders; and in the midst of danger itself neither to pursue anyone nor to give ground before another without the commanders' signal. In a single word: to teach one's soul, by habit, neither to know nor to understand at all how to do anything apart from the rest, but for life to be lived, as far as possible, gathered, together, and in common, by all and with all. For than this there is not, nor will there ever be, anything stronger, better, or more skillful for safety in war and for victory. This must be practiced in peacetime, from childhood on — to rule others and to be ruled by others; and anarchy must be rooted out of the whole life of all human beings, and of the beasts subject to human beings. Moreover, all choral dances are to be danced with a view to excellence in war, and the whole cultivation of nimbleness and dexterity is to be practiced for the same ends — likewise endurance of food and drink, of cold and its opposite, and of hard bedding; and, greatest of all, not to ruin the power of the head and the feet by wrapping them in coverings not their own, destroying the natural growth of one's own hair-felt and footgear.
ATHENIAN: For these are the extremities, and kept sound they hold the greatest power of the whole body, as ruined they hold the opposite: the one part is the body's greatest servant, the other its greatest ruler, holding by nature all its sovereign senses. Such is the praise of the soldier's life that the young man should think he hears; and now the laws: he who is enrolled, or posted to some assignment in rotation, must serve. If anyone deserts out of some cowardice, without the generals' discharge, let there be indictments for failure of service before the military officers when they return from the field; and let those who served sit in judgment, each arm separately — hoplites, cavalry, and every other branch of the service likewise — bringing hoplites before the hoplites, cavalry before the cavalry, and the others in the same way before their own fellows. If a man is convicted, let it be his lot never to compete for any prize of overall valor, never to indict another for failure of service, never to be an accuser in these matters; and in addition let the court assess what he must suffer or pay. After that, when the suits for failure of service have been judged, let the officers of each branch again hold an assembly, and let whoever wishes be judged for the prizes of valor among his own corps — presenting, concerning any earlier war, neither token nor sworn confirmation of witnesses, but only concerning the campaign then just completed. Let the prize for each be a wreath of olive; this the winner shall inscribe and dedicate in whichever temple of the war-gods he chooses, as evidence for the judging of prizes of valor his whole life long, first, second, and third. If someone serves, but goes home early, before his time, without the officers' withdrawal order, let there be indictments for desertion of post before the same judges as for failure of service, and on conviction let the penalties stand that were fixed before. Now every man bringing any suit against another must fear to inflict a false penalty, whether willingly or, so far as he can help it, unwillingly — for Justice is called, and truly called, the maiden daughter of Reverence, and falsehood is naturally hateful to Reverence and Justice. In all matters, then, one must be wary of striking a false note against justice, but especially concerning the loss of weapons in war — lest, mistaking losses that were forced for shameful ones and making them a reproach, one bring unworthy suits against an unworthy target.
ATHENIAN: It is by no means easy to draw the line between the two, yet the law must try somehow to distinguish them case by case. Let us call a story to our aid. If Patroclus had been carried to his tent without his arms and had come to — as has happened to thousands — while those earlier arms, which the poet says the gods gave to Peleus as a dowry with Thetis at his wedding, were in Hector's hands, then every coward of that day would have been free to reproach the son of Menoetius with loss of arms. Then there are all those who have lost weapons by being flung down cliffs, or at sea, or when a sudden great rush of water caught them, struggling, in a storm — one could chant a thousand such cases in consolation, prettying up an evil that invites slander. One must therefore cut apart, as best one can, the greater and worse evil from its opposite. Roughly speaking, the use of these names as reproaches admits of a division: a man would not justly be called shield-flinger in every case, but arms-loser. For the man stripped of his arms by a reasonable degree of force is not equally a shield-flinger with the man who let them go on purpose — they differ wholly and entirely. So let the law say this: if a man is overtaken by the enemy with his weapons on him and does not turn and defend himself, but lets them go or throws them away on purpose, gaining a coward's shameful life rather than the fine and happy death of courage, for such a loss of arms — arms flung away — let there be a suit; but of the other kind described before, let the judge not neglect to take account. For it is the bad man one must always punish, so that he may be better — not the unlucky man; that gains nothing. What penalty, then, would be fitting for the man who has thrown away the defensive power of such weapons for its opposite? A human being cannot do the reverse of what the god is said to have done when he changed Caeneus the Thessalian from a woman into a man's nature; but for a shield-flinger the change opposite to that one — from man back into woman — would in a way be, of all penalties, the most fitting for him.
ATHENIAN: As it is, since that is impossible, let this law stand upon such men, as the nearest thing to it, for their love of mere life — so that he may not risk what remains of it, but live on as long as possible in his cowardice, harnessed to disgrace: whatever man is convicted in a suit of having shamefully thrown away his weapons of war, no general nor any other officer of war shall ever employ him as a soldier or post him to any station whatsoever. Otherwise, the auditor shall fine the man who posted the coward: a thousand drachmas if he is of the highest property class, five minas if of the second, three minas if of the third, a mina if of the fourth. And the man convicted in the suit, besides being excluded from manly dangers, as suits his nature, shall pay a fee in addition: a thousand if he is of the highest class, five if of the second, three if of the third, and likewise a mina, as with the former, if of the fourth class. Now, concerning auditors, what account would be fitting for us, seeing that some of our officials are appointed by the chance of the lot and for a year, others for several years and from a pre-selected list? Who will be a sufficient auditor of such men, if any of them, warped in some way, or bowed by the weight of the office, handles it in a manner unworthy of it, his own capacity falling short of the office's dignity? It is by no means easy to find an official who exceeds the officials in virtue, but still we must try to discover some auditors of divine quality. For the matter stands thus: there are many critical points at which a constitution can come undone, as with a ship or an animal — the stays, the undergirders, the tendons' sinews, one nature dispersed everywhere, which we call by many names in many places; and this is one such point, and not the least, for a constitution's being preserved or dissolving and perishing. For if those who audit the officials are better than they, and act with blameless justice and blamelessly, the whole country and city flourishes and is happy; but if the auditing of the officials goes otherwise, then the justice that binds all political functions into one is dissolved, every office is torn apart from every other, and, no longer inclining to the same end, they make of one city many, fill it with faction, and swiftly destroy it. That is why the auditors must be marvelous in every virtue.
ATHENIAN: Let us then contrive their creation in some such fashion as this. Every year, after the sun's turning from summer toward winter, the whole city must assemble in the precinct shared by Helios and Apollo, to present to the god three men from among themselves — each man naming the one he judges best in every way, himself excluded, a man no younger than fifty. Of those nominated, let them select those who received the most votes, down to half, if the number comes out even; if it is odd, let them remove the one with the fewest votes, and keep the half, marking them off by the count of votes. If a tie among some makes the half too many, let them remove the excess by striking off the younger, and vote again on the rest thus approved, until three are left with unequal votes. If all three, or two, are equal, let them commit it to good destiny and fortune and separate by lot the winner and the second and the third, crown them with olive, and, having awarded these prizes of excellence, proclaim to all: the city of the Magnesians, by god's favor finding safety once more, presents to Helios its three best men, and dedicates them, according to the ancient law, as a shared first-fruit to Apollo and to Helios, for as long as they live up to the judgment. In the first year let them appoint twelve such auditors, each serving until he reaches seventy-five years of age; thereafter let three be added each year. These, dividing all the offices into twelve parts, shall scrutinize them with every test befitting free men. For as long as they serve as auditors, they shall reside in the precinct of Apollo and Helios in which they were chosen; and judging — sometimes each alone, sometimes together with one another — those who have held office for the city, they shall declare, by posting notices in the marketplace, what each office-holder must suffer or pay according to the auditors' verdict. Any official who does not admit he has been judged justly shall summon the auditors before the select judges; and if he is acquitted at the audit, let him accuse the auditors themselves, if he wishes. But if he is convicted, then if the auditors' assessment against him was death, let him simply die — for that cannot be otherwise; but of the other assessments, all that can be paid double, let him pay double. And now we must hear what the audits of these men themselves will be, and how conducted.
ATHENIAN: While these men live, then, having been judged worthy of the prizes of excellence by the whole city, let them have front seats at every public festival, and let them be sent out from among their number as heads of every sacred delegation the city sends jointly to the other Greeks — sacrifices, festival-viewings, and any other sacred rites shared in common — and let these alone, of all in the city, be adorned with a crown of laurel. All of them shall be priests of Apollo and Helios, and one shall be chief priest each year, the one judged first among that year's priests, and his name shall be recorded year by year, to serve as a measure for counting time, as long as the city stands. When they die, let their lying-in-state, their funeral procession, and their burial-places differ from those of the other citizens: the dress worn throughout shall be white, there shall be no dirges or lamentations, and a chorus of fifteen girls and another of boys shall stand around the bier, singing in turn, as it were a hymn composed in praise of the priests, blessing them in song the whole day through. At dawn the bier itself shall be carried to the tomb by a hundred of the young men from the gymnasia, chosen by the relatives of the deceased; the unmarried young men shall go first, each dressed in his war-gear, the cavalrymen with their horses, the hoplites in their armor, and the rest likewise; boys shall sing the ancestral song around the bier itself in front, and girls shall follow behind, along with all the women who are past childbearing. After these, priests and priestesses shall follow, since the tomb is pure — even if they are otherwise barred from other burials — provided the oracle at Delphi gives its assent to this arrangement as well. The tomb itself shall be an underground vault, oblong, built of stone as lasting and imperishable as can be managed, containing stone couches set side by side, where they shall lay the one who has become blessed, then heap earth around it in a mound and plant a grove of trees encircling it on every side but one, so that the tomb may keep, for all time to come, room to grow by that much earth for those laid there afterward. Each year they shall hold for them a contest in music, and one in athletics and horsemanship.
ATHENIAN: These, then, are the honors for those who pass their audits unscathed. But if one of these men, trusting in having once been judged worthy, later proves by his conduct that he is, after all, only human, and turns out corrupt after the judgment, the law must direct that anyone who wishes may indict him, and the trial in court shall proceed in some such manner as this. First, the Guardians of the Laws shall sit as this court; next, those of these honored men still living; and besides these, the court of selected judges. The one bringing the charge shall write out an indictment stating that so-and-so is unworthy of the prize of excellence and of his office; and if the defendant is convicted, let him be stripped of his office, his tomb, and all the other honors given him; but if the prosecutor fails to win a fifth of the votes, let him pay a fine — twelve minas if he is of the highest property class, eight if of the second, six if of the third, two if of the fourth. Rhadamanthys deserves admiration for the way he is said to have judged cases, because he saw plainly that the men of his time held the gods to exist — reasonably enough, since in that age most men were the offspring of gods, and he himself, so the story goes, was one of them. He evidently thought it right to entrust judgment to no human judge, but to the gods, and so his verdicts were simple and swift: he would put each disputed point to the litigants under oath, and the matter was settled quickly and safely. But now, when we say that a portion of mankind does not believe in the gods at all, and others think the gods take no thought for us, while most — and the worst of them — hold the opinion that the gods, in exchange for small offerings and flatteries, let off a great deal of stolen wealth and release men from heavy penalties, Rhadamanthys' method would no longer suit men as they are today in matters of justice. Since men's opinions about the gods have changed, the laws too must change to match. Those who frame laws with any intelligence must, in the assignment of lawsuits, do away with the oaths sworn by the two disputing parties: the one bringing a suit against another shall write out his charges but not swear an oath over them, and the defendant likewise shall write out his denial and hand it to the magistrates unsworn. For it is a dreadful thing, when a city has many lawsuits, to know for certain that nearly half the people involved have perjured themselves — and these same people go on dining together at the common messes without the least embarrassment, and meeting each other in other gatherings and in their own private family circles.
ATHENIAN: Let it be established by law, then, that a judge about to render a verdict must take an oath, and that whoever appoints men to public office for the community — whether by oath or by drawing lots taken from sacred vessels — must always do the same; likewise a judge of choral performances and of music generally, and the officials and umpires of athletic and equestrian contests, and all such offices where, by ordinary human reckoning, false swearing brings the perjurer no profit. But wherever denial and false swearing appear to bring some obvious great advantage, all such cases between mutual accusers shall be judged without oaths. And in general, the presiding officers in a trial must not allow anyone to speak under oath for the sake of persuasiveness, nor to call curses down upon himself and his family, nor to resort to unseemly begging, nor to womanish wailing, but must require that the point of justice be taught and learned throughout with proper restraint; if a litigant does otherwise, the officials, as though such talk lay outside the argument, must bring him back again and again to the matter itself. Between foreigners and foreigners, as is now the practice, let it be permitted to exchange and give oaths to one another if they wish, and to hold by them fully — for they will not grow old in our city, nor, for the most part, will they nest here and rear up other such people to share ownership of the land with us — and let the manner of assigning lawsuits between them be handled the same way for all. Whenever a free man disobeys the city in some matter not deserving of flogging, imprisonment, or death — matters concerning attendance at choral training, processions, or other such public adornments and public services connected with peacetime sacrifices or wartime levies — the first compulsion for all such offenses shall be a remedial penalty; for those who still refuse to comply, distraint of property shall be carried out by whatever officials the city and the law direct to collect it; and for those who resist even the distraint, the pledges taken shall be sold, and the proceeds shall go to the city treasury. If a heavier penalty is called for, the various magistrates shall impose the fitting fine and bring the man before the court, until he consents to do what has been ordered. As for a city that earns its living only from the land and does not engage in trade, it is bound to have deliberated about its own citizens' travel abroad and about the reception of foreigners from elsewhere — what ought to be done. The lawgiver, then, must first advise on these matters, persuading his citizens as far as he is able.
ATHENIAN: It is the nature of mingling between cities to blend all sorts of characters together, as foreigners introduce novelties to one another. This would do the very greatest harm to those who are well governed under sound laws; but for most cities, since they are nowhere near well governed, it makes no difference at all if they mix freely, receiving foreigners themselves and sending their own people flocking off to other cities, whenever anyone — young or old — takes a fancy to travel, wherever and whenever he likes. On the other hand, neither receiving outsiders at all nor ever traveling abroad oneself is simply not workable, and besides, it would look savage and harsh to the rest of mankind, if we used that ugly word people apply to it — 'driving out foreigners' — and behaved in a stubborn, forbidding manner, or seemed to. One must never think it a small matter whether one seems good to others or not; for most people, though they fall considerably short of the reality of virtue, do not fall nearly so far short in judging who among others is bad and who is good — there is something divine and unerring even in wicked men's instinct, so that a great many, even among the very worst, judge quite well, in what they say and think, which men are better and which worse. That is why it is good advice for most cities to set store by their reputation among the many. But the truest and greatest thing is this: being truly good, to pursue the reputation of a good life on that basis and no other — that, at least, for the man who is to be complete. And it would be fitting for the city we are founding in Crete to secure among the rest of mankind the fairest and best reputation possible for virtue; and there is every reasonable hope that, if things go as they should, it will be seen, along with a few others, as one of those well-governed cities and lands that gaze upon the sun and the other gods with an unclouded eye. This, then, is how matters of travel to other lands and places, and of the reception of foreigners, must be handled. First: no one younger than forty shall be permitted to travel abroad anywhere at all, under any circumstances, on his own account; but he may do so on the city's business, as a herald, an envoy, or one of the sacred observers. Journeys made in war, on campaign, do not deserve to be called civic travel abroad at all — they are a different matter.
ATHENIAN: To Delphi, for Apollo, and to Olympia, for Zeus, and to Nemea, and to the Isthmus, we must send delegations to share in the sacrifices and contests held for these gods, sending as many as possible of our finest and best people, who will make the city seem well regarded in these peaceful, sacred gatherings, to balance the reputation our people win in war. When they come home, they shall teach the young that the customs of other peoples concerning government rank second to our own. But there is another kind of observer we ought to send abroad, of the following sort, once the Guardians of the Laws have given leave: if any of our citizens wish, with rather more leisure, to observe how other men live, no law shall stand in their way. For a city with no experience of bad men and good, one that never mixes with others, could never become fully civilized and complete, nor could it hold to its laws through understanding rather than mere habit alone. Among the mass of mankind there are always some men of a divine nature — not many — worth associating with above all else, and they are born no more readily in well-governed cities than elsewhere. The man who lives in a well-governed city ought always to go in search of them, by sea and by land, tracking down whoever remains uncorrupted, so as to confirm those of his own city's customs that are rightly established, and set right whatever has been overlooked. Without this kind of observation and inquiry, a city can never remain complete — nor, indeed, if its observing is done badly. CLEINIAS: How, then, could both be secured? ATHENIAN: In this way. First, let the man we make such an observer be more than fifty years old, and, besides, one of those held in high regard, especially for service in war, if he is to carry the pattern of our Guardians of the Laws to other cities; but once past sixty, let him observe no longer. Having gone abroad to observe for as many of the next ten years as he wishes, and having returned home, let him join the assembly of those who oversee the laws. This body shall be a mixture of younger and older men, meeting each day, of necessity, from before dawn until sunrise — first the priests who have received the prizes of excellence, then the ten senior-most of the Guardians of the Laws always serving; and further, the overseer of all education, both the one currently in office and those who have already been released from that office. None of these shall attend alone, but each shall bring with him a young man, between thirty and forty years old, one who suits his own liking.
ATHENIAN: And let their meetings and discussions about laws always concern their own city, and also anything of special note they learn about such matters elsewhere—and likewise about studies, whatever in the course of this inquiry seems to help make men more reverent once they've learned it, while without it the subject of laws looks murkier and more obscure to them. Whatever of these the older men approve, let the younger ones learn with all diligence; and if any of those invited seems unworthy, let the whole assembly blame the one who invited him. As for the young men who win a good reputation among these, let the rest of the city keep watch over them, looking to them with special attention and observing them closely—honoring them when they do well, but disgracing them more than ordinary people if they turn out worse than the many. Whoever has gone abroad to study the customs of other peoples should, on his return, go straight to this assembly, and if he has found anyone able to report some word about the framing of laws or education or upbringing, or if he himself comes back having thought something out, let him share it with the whole assembly. And if he seems to have come back neither worse nor better, let him at least be commended for his sheer eagerness; but if far better, let him be praised far more, while he lives, and when he dies let the assembled body honor him with fitting honors, as far as it has power to do so. But if he seems to have come back corrupted, let him not associate with anyone, young or old, pretending to wisdom; and if he obeys the magistrates, let him live as a private citizen, but if not, let him die, provided he is convicted in court of meddling in matters of education and law. And if, though deserving to be brought to court, none of the magistrates brings him in, let that be held as a reproach against the magistrates when the prizes of excellence are awarded. So much, then, for the man who travels abroad in this manner and of this character—let him travel. As for the man who comes to visit us, after this we must turn to treating him with courtesy. There are four kinds of foreigners about whom we need to say something. The first, and the one who keeps coming continually, mostly in summer, like migrating birds—most of these, indeed, cross the sea as if flying, for the sake of trade, migrating with the season to other cities—
ATHENIAN: him the officials appointed over such matters must receive at markets, harbors, and public buildings outside but near the city, guarding lest any such foreigner stir up trouble, and dispensing justice to them properly, using only as much of it as is necessary and as little as possible. The second kind is one who truly comes to see with his eyes, and to hear whatever sights are proper to the ears devoted to the Muses. For every such person there should be lodgings prepared near the temples, offering hospitality; and the priests and temple-keepers of these places should look after and care for them, until, having stayed a reasonable time and having seen and heard what they came for, they depart unharmed, neither having done nor suffered wrong. Let the priests be their judges if anyone wrongs one of them, or if one of them wrongs someone else, in matters up to fifty drachmas; but if any greater charge arises for them, their cases must go before the market wardens. A third kind of foreigner we must receive publicly is one who has come from another country on some public business; him only the generals, cavalry commanders, and infantry commanders should receive, and the care of such a person, together with the presiding officials, belongs solely to whoever hosts him as a guest for his stay. The fourth kind—should one ever arrive, though it is rare—but should one ever come, one of our own kind of observer visiting from another country, he should first be no younger than fifty years, and besides this should be seeking to see something admirable among the beauties found in other cities, or to show something of the same kind to another city. Let such a person go, uninvited, wherever he pleases, to the doors of the rich and the wise, being himself such a person; for he may go trusting that he is a fit guest for such a host, to the house of whoever oversees the whole of education, or to the house of one of the victors in virtue's contests, and after spending time with some of these, teaching one thing and learning another, let him depart, a friend honored by friends with gifts and fitting honors. By these laws, then, we must receive all foreign men and women coming from another country, and send off our own people, honoring Zeus the god of hospitality, not driving strangers away with food and sacrifices as the creatures of the Nile do now, nor with harsh proclamations.
ATHENIAN: Let any pledge that someone gives be given explicitly, with the whole transaction set down in writing, in the presence of no fewer than three witnesses for sums under a thousand drachmas, and no fewer than five for sums above a thousand. Let the one who acts as guarantor, or who sells anything on behalf of another, be liable if the seller is acting unjustly or is not creditworthy at all; and let the one who sells on another's behalf be answerable just as the seller himself would be.If anyone wishes to search for stolen goods in another's house, let him do so naked, or wearing only a short tunic without a belt, having first sworn by the customary gods that he truly expects to find them—only then may he search. The householder must open his house, both the sealed and unsealed parts, for the search. If anyone refuses to allow a search to someone wishing to conduct one, let the one refused bring suit, having assessed the value of the goods sought, and if the defendant is convicted, let him pay double the assessed damage. If the master of the house happens to be away, those living in it must allow the unsealed parts to be searched, while the sealed parts the searcher must reseal himself, and set as guard whomever he wishes for five days; but if the owner is away longer, let him bring in the city wardens and search in this way, breaking even the sealed parts, and afterward reseal them again together with the household and the city wardens.There is a time limit for disputed possessions, after which, if someone has held the item, it may no longer be disputed. Land and dwellings here admit of no such dispute; but for anything else that someone possesses, if he is seen using it openly in the city and in the marketplace and at the temples, and no one lays claim to it, while the true claimant says he has been searching for it during this time, and the possessor is clearly not hiding it—if someone has held such a possession openly for a year in this way while the claimant searches, let no one be allowed to lay claim to such property once the year has passed. But if he does not use it in the city or marketplace, but openly in the countryside, and no claimant meets him within five years, once the five years have passed, let the claimant no longer be allowed, for the rest of time, to lay claim to it. If someone uses it within a house in the city, let the time limit be three years; but if he possesses it unseen out in the country, let it be ten years; and if it is in a foreign land, there is no time limit at all on making a claim, whenever the true owner may discover it.
ATHENIAN: If anyone forcibly prevents another from appearing at a trial, whether the man himself or his witnesses, then if the one prevented is a slave, whether his own or another's, the case becomes void and without effect; but if he is a free man, then besides the case being void, the offender is to be held in prison for a year, and lies open to a charge of kidnapping from anyone willing to bring it. If someone forcibly prevents a competitor from taking part in a gymnastic or musical contest or any other contest, let the one who wishes report it to the judges of the games, and let them free the willing competitor to enter the contest; but if they are unable to do so, then if the one who prevented him from competing wins, the prize of victory shall be given to the one who was prevented, and he shall be recorded as victor in whatever temples he wishes, while the one who caused the obstruction shall never be allowed to set up any dedication or inscription for that contest, and shall besides be liable for damages, whether he loses the contest or wins it.If anyone knowingly receives stolen goods, let him undergo the same penalty as the thief; and let the penalty for harboring an exile be death.Let everyone regard the same people as friends and enemies as the city does; and if anyone privately makes peace or war with others apart from the community, let death be his penalty too; and if some part of the city makes peace or war on its own account with others, let the generals bring those responsible for this action before the court, and if convicted, let death be their sentence.Those who serve their country in any capacity must serve without taking gifts, and there must be no excuse, no approved argument that one should accept gifts for good service but not for bad; for it is not easy to discern this and, having discerned it, to hold firm—so it is safest to obey the law and simply take no gifts for one's service. Whoever disobeys, if convicted in court, shall simply be put to death.Regarding contributions of money to the public treasury, let each person's property be assessed for the sake of many needs, and let the tribesmen report the yearly yield in writing to the land wardens, so that with two kinds of levy available, the public treasury may use whichever it wishes, deciding each year whether to draw on a portion of the total assessed value or on the yearly income actually produced, apart from what is paid toward the common meals.
ATHENIAN: The moderate man must give the gods offerings that are moderate in measure. Now the earth and the hearth of one's dwelling are sacred to all the gods together; so let no one consecrate them a second time as sacred to the gods. Gold and silver, in other cities, are a possession that breeds envy, whether held privately or dedicated in temples; ivory, coming from a body that has lost its life, is not a pure offering; iron and bronze are instruments of war. Whatever wooden object anyone wishes, carved from a single piece of wood, let him dedicate, and likewise of stone, for the common temples; and as for woven work, let it be no more than a single woman's work in a single month. White colors would be fitting for the gods, both elsewhere and in woven work; but dyes should not be used except for the ornaments of war. The most godlike gifts are birds and images such as a single painter can complete in a single day; and let all other offerings be fashioned after this same pattern.Now that the parts of the whole city have been distinguished, as many and such as they need to be, and laws about contracts have been stated, as far as possible, concerning nearly all the greatest matters, what remains would be the matter of lawsuits. As for courts, the first kind would be judges chosen by agreement, whom both the defendant and the plaintiff select jointly—these more fittingly bear the name of arbitrators than of judges. The second kind are the villagers and tribesmen, divided into twelfth parts, before whom, if the parties are not settled at the first stage, they must go to contest the matter over a greater penalty; and the defendant, if he loses a second time, must pay a fifth part of the assessed value of the suit that was filed. And if someone wishing to bring a complaint against the judges wants to contest the case a third time, let him bring the suit before the selected judges, and if he loses again, let him pay one and a half times the assessed value. And if the plaintiff, having lost at the first stage, does not let the matter rest but goes on to the second, then if he wins let him receive back a fifth part, but if he loses let him pay the same portion of the suit's value. And if the parties, having disregarded the earlier judgments, come to the third court, the defendant, if he loses, as has been said, shall pay one and a half times the value, and the plaintiff shall pay half the assessed value. As for the allotment and filling of courts, and the appointment of assistants for each office, and the times at which each of these matters must take place, and about the casting and postponement of votes, and all the other necessary matters concerning lawsuits—the assignment of earlier and later cases, the requirements for answers and counter-deposits, and all their kindred matters—we have spoken of these before, but it is good to state what is right twice and even three times.
ATHENIAN: Now for all the small and easy regulations that an older lawgiver has left to be found, it falls to the younger lawgiver to fill them in. For private courts this would give roughly the right measure; but as for public and communal matters, and whatever the officials need in order to administer the duties proper to each office, there exist in many cities, thanks to reasonable men, quite a few decent enactments on these subjects. From these the Guardians of the Law must work out what is fitting for the constitution now being born, reasoning it through, correcting it, testing each provision against experience, until each part seems adequately settled — and only then, setting the final seal on it as unchangeable, use it for the whole of life. As for the rules about silence and respectful speech in the courts, and their opposites, and whatever else departs from what most other cities count as just, good, and honorable — some of this has already been said, and some will be said further on, near the end. Any future judge, in order to be fair in his judgments, must keep his eye on all of this, and must possess a written text of it and learn it. For of all subjects of study, none has more power to make the student better than a correct exposition of the laws — if indeed they have been rightly laid down — or else our divine and wondrous law would bear its name in vain. And indeed, of all the other kinds of discourse — the praises and blames spoken of people in poems, and those spoken in prose, whether written down or argued day after day, out of rivalry, in every other kind of gathering, and sometimes conceded out of sheer emptiness — for all of these the lawgiver's writings would be the clear touchstone. The good judge must hold them within himself like an antidote against all other speeches, and by means of them set both himself and the city straight, providing for the good the preservation and increase of just conduct, and for the bad, so far as possible, a turning away from ignorance, licentiousness, cowardice, and, in short, all injustice — for those whose faults seem curable.
ATHENIAN: But for those whose thread is truly spun to ruin, death is the cure they should be given for souls so disposed — a thing that might justly be repeated many times over — and judges of this kind, and the leaders of judges, would deserve praise from the whole city. Once the year's trials have reached their verdicts, the following must become law for enforcing them. First, the court that rendered the judgment must have the losing party's property, apart from what is necessary for him to keep, handed over in full to the winner, immediately after each vote, by the herald's proclamation, in the judges' hearing. And once the month following the trial-months arrives, if anyone has not freely and willingly settled with the winner, the court that judged the case must, in cooperation with the winner, hand over the loser's property. If they lack the means, and the shortfall is not less than a drachma, that person is not to be permitted to bring suit against anyone else until he has paid the whole debt to the winner in full; others, however, may bring suit against him as normal. And if anyone, after being condemned, forcibly deprives the court of its judgment, those wrongfully deprived must haul him before the Law-Guardians' court; and should he lose such a suit, let him be punished with death, as one who is destroying the whole city and its laws. As for a man born after this, raised, having himself begotten and raised children, having engaged in dealings in due measure, having paid the penalty if he wronged anyone and exacted it from another, and having grown old within the laws in his proper turn — his end would come about naturally. Concerning the dead, whether male or female, the religious observances owed to the gods below the earth and to those here above, whatever is proper to be performed, the Interpreters shall have authority to declare. As for burial grounds, none shall be on arable land, neither a large monument nor a small one; rather, wherever the land has a nature suited only to this purpose — receiving the bodies of the dead in a way least distressing to the living — such places shall be used to the full, and none, living or dead, shall deprive the living among us of whatever land, as mother, is naturally fitted to bear food for human beings.
ATHENIAN: The burial mound is not to be heaped higher than what five men could complete in five days; nor are stone markers to be made larger than what would hold an inscription praising the life of the deceased in no more than four heroic verses. The laying-out of the body, first of all, is not to remain indoors longer than it takes to make clear whether the person is merely in a trance or truly dead — and, allowing for human nature, the right measure would be roughly a burial procession to the tomb on the third day. One must trust the lawgiver on this point, among others, when he says that the soul is altogether different from the body, and that in life itself what makes each of us who we are is nothing but the soul, while the body follows along as a semblance of each of us; and it is well said that when we die, the corpses of the dead are images, while the true self of each of us, truly existing, is called the immortal soul, which departs to render its account before other gods — as our ancestral law declares — a thing that gives confidence to the good and great fear to the bad, and for which no great help can be given once a person has died. For it was while he was alive that all his relations needed to help him, so that living he might live as justly and as reverently as possible, and dying, might be free of retribution for wrongs and errors in the life that follows this one. Given this, one must never ruin one's household with expense, thinking that this mass of flesh being buried is especially one's own; rather, one must think that the son, or brother, or whoever it is one most feels the loss of and wishes to bury, has departed, having completed and fulfilled his own allotted portion, and that what remains is to do well by the present occasion, spending moderate amounts, as though upon a lifeless altar of the powers below. What is moderate the lawgiver may divine without too much impropriety. Let this, then, be the law: for the man of the highest property class, the total expenditure on the burial shall be no more than five minas; for the second class, three minas; for the third, two; and for the fourth, one mina would be a fitting measure of expense. The Guardians of the Law must necessarily attend to many other matters and take care of many things, and not least of these, seeing to it that children, men, and people of every age live under their oversight; and, moreover, at the very end for all of them, some one Guardian of the Law must take charge, whichever one the household of the deceased chooses as overseer, for whom it shall be a matter of honor that everything concerning the deceased is done well and in due measure, and a disgrace if it is not done well.
ATHENIAN: The laying-out of the body and everything else shall proceed according to the customary law governing such matters, but the following points must be left to the political lawgiver to prescribe: that weeping for the dead be ordered or forbidden as not unseemly; that wailing, and the raising of the voice outside the house, be forbidden; that carrying the corpse into public view along the streets be prevented, and that anyone in the procession be forbidden from crying out; and that the procession be outside the city before daybreak. Let these, then, be the customary rules laid down concerning such matters, and let the one who obeys be free of penalty, while the one who disobeys any one of the Guardians of the Law be fined by all of them, the fine being whatever seems right to all in common. All the other matters concerning burials of the dead, or the withholding of burial, concerning parricides, temple-robbers, and all such people, have been stated earlier among the laws, so that our legislation would now be virtually complete. Yet the completion of any and every undertaking lies, roughly speaking, not in the doing of it, nor in its acquisition and establishment, but rather in finding, once and for all, a lasting means of preservation for what has been produced; only then should we consider that everything that needed doing has been done — before that, the whole thing is incomplete. CLEINIAS: Well said, stranger; but tell me still more clearly what this last remark was aimed at. ATHENIAN: Cleinias, much of what came before has been well celebrated in song, and among the things not least well sung are the titles given to the Fates. CLEINIAS: Which ones do you mean? ATHENIAN: That Lachesis is the first, Clotho the second, and Atropos the third, the preserver of what has been spun, likened to the unturning power that the spinners impart by fire — a power that a city and its constitution must supply not only as health and safety for bodies, but also as good order for souls, or rather, as the preservation of the laws. It seems to me that this is still lacking in our laws: how the unchanging power natural to those goddesses is to come to be present in them. CLEINIAS: What you say is no small matter, if indeed it is impossible to find some way for every such possession to come about. ATHENIAN: But it is possible, as now appears altogether clear to me. CLEINIAS: Then let us not give up in any way until we have secured this very thing for the laws we have stated; for it would be ridiculous to labor pointlessly over something and cast it down on no firm foundation. ATHENIAN: Your urging is right, and you will find me of the same mind. CLEINIAS: Well said, then. What, you ask, would be the preservation, and in what manner, for our constitution and our laws?
ATHENIAN: Did we not say that there must be an assembly gathered in our city of the following kind? The ten eldest of the Guardians of the Law, always, together with all those who have received the prizes of excellence, are to assemble together with them; and further, those who traveled abroad in search of anything useful to hear regarding the guardianship of the laws, and who returned home safely, shall, once tested and examined by these same men, be judged worthy to share in the assembly. And besides these, each member is to bring in one young man, not less than thirty years old, first judging for himself that the young man is worthy by nature and upbringing, and so present him to the others; and if the others agree, they shall admit him, but if not, the judgment reached shall remain secret, especially from the one rejected. The assembly is to meet early in the morning, at the time when everyone is most free from other business, private and public. Was something of this sort said in our earlier discussions? CLEINIAS: It was indeed. ATHENIAN: Taking up again, then, the subject of this assembly, I would say the following. I claim that if someone were to set it down as, so to speak, an anchor for the whole city, having everything suited to itself, it would preserve everything we want preserved. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: This, then, would be the moment for us to spare no eagerness in explaining it rightly. CLEINIAS: You have spoken very well; do just as you intend. ATHENIAN: One must, then, Cleinias, consider, for everything, what serves as the fitting savior in each of its works — as in a living creature, soul and head are by nature the greatest such things. CLEINIAS: What do you mean now? ATHENIAN: The excellence of these two surely provides safety for every living creature. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: When intelligence arises in the soul, in addition to its other qualities, and sight and hearing arise in the head, in addition to its other qualities — in short, intelligence blended with the finest senses, becoming a unity, would most justly be called the safety of each. CLEINIAS: So it seems, at any rate. ATHENIAN: It does indeed seem so. But what is the intelligence, blended with the senses, that would be the safety of ships in both storms and calm weather? Is it not that, on a ship, the helmsman together with the sailors, blending their senses with the helmsman's intelligence, preserve both themselves and everything belonging to the ship? CLEINIAS: Of course.
ATHENIAN: We don't need many examples of this kind of thing. Just think what target a general sets for an army, and what target every branch of the medical service aims at, if it's aiming correctly at preservation. Isn't it victory and mastery over the enemy for the one, and the provision of bodily health for the doctors and their assistants? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And could a doctor who doesn't know what we just called health, or a general who doesn't know victory, or any of the others we've gone through who doesn't know his own goal, possibly be said to have any sense about his job? CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: And what about a city? If someone appeared not to know the target a statesman must keep his eye on, could he rightly be called a ruler at all to begin with, let alone be capable of preserving something whose very target he doesn't even know? CLEINIAS: How could he? ATHENIAN: So it seems that now too, if the settling of our territory is going to reach completion, there must be something in it that knows this very thing we're talking about, the target, whatever it turns out to be for our statesman, and knows next how one ought to share in it, and who advises well or badly about it, the laws themselves first, and then the men. If a city is empty of anything like that, it's no wonder if, being mindless and senseless, it does whatever happens to come up in each of its various actions. CLEINIAS: True. ATHENIAN: So now, in which part of the city, or in which of its practices, do we have anything adequately equipped to serve as such a safeguard? Can we say? CLEINIAS: No, stranger, not clearly at least. But if I have to guess, I think this discussion is heading toward the assembly you just said had to meet at night. ATHENIAN: An excellent guess, Cleinias. And as the argument now before us shows, that body must possess virtue entire, and the first thing that virtue requires is not wandering off aiming at many things, but keeping one's eye fixed on a single target and, looking to that, always shooting everything, like arrows, toward it. CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Now we'll understand why it's no wonder that the customary laws of cities wander all over the place, since each city's legislation looks to a different thing. In most cases it's no surprise that for some the standard of justice is how certain people will rule in the city, whether they happen to be better or worse, while for others it's how they'll grow rich, whether or not they happen to be somebody's slaves; and others again are driven by eagerness for a life of freedom. Some legislate with a pair of aims in view, wanting to be free and also masters over other cities at the same time; and the cleverest, as they think themselves, aim at all of these things together and any others like them, without being able to point to any single thing, distinctly prized above the rest, that everything else ought to look toward.
CLEINIAS: Then surely, stranger, what we laid down long ago was correct? We said that all our laws must always look toward one thing, and we agreed, quite rightly I think, that this one thing is virtue. ATHENIAN: Yes. CLEINIAS: And we set down virtue as fourfold. ATHENIAN: Certainly. CLEINIAS: And nous as the leader of all these, the thing toward which the other three, and everything else besides, must look. ATHENIAN: You're following beautifully, Cleinias. Keep following through the rest. We said that the nous of a pilot, of a doctor, and of a general all look toward that one thing they must aim at; and now we're testing the statesman's nous on this very point, and, as though questioning a person, we might say to him: My good sir, where exactly are you looking? What is that one thing which the medical mind can clearly name, while you, who claim to surpass all sensible people, can't say what it is? Or can you two, Megillus and Cleinias, spell it out for me and tell me what you say it is, the way I've distinguished plenty of other things for you? CLEINIAS: No, we can't, stranger. ATHENIAN: And what about the need to be eager to see this thing itself, and see it in the cases where it applies? CLEINIAS: Which cases do you mean? ATHENIAN: For instance, when we said there are four kinds of virtue, clearly each one of them, being one of four, must be called one thing. CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And yet we call all of them together one thing as well. We say courage is virtue, and wisdom is virtue, and the other two as well, as though they weren't really many things but only this one thing, virtue. CLEINIAS: Quite so. ATHENIAN: Now, how these two differ from each other and each got its own name, along with the others, isn't hard to say. But how it is that we call both of them by one name, virtue, and the others too, that's no longer so easy. CLEINIAS: What do you mean? ATHENIAN: What I mean isn't hard to show. Let's divide the questioning and answering between us. CLEINIAS: How do you mean this time? ATHENIAN: Ask me why, when we call both by one name, virtue, we then again call them by two names, courage and wisdom. I'll tell you the reason: it's because the one, courage, has to do with fear, something even wild animals share in, along with the characters of very young children; a soul can become courageous by nature, without any reasoning at all. But a soul that is wise and possesses nous, apart from reasoning, has never come to be, does not exist now, and never will exist in the future, since that's a different sort of thing altogether. CLEINIAS: True.
ATHENIAN: So, as for how these two are different, and are two, you've received that from me in argument. Now give me back, in turn, how they are one and the same. Think of it as though you were the one explaining, and showing how four things are one; and then ask the same of me, once you've shown how they're one, to show in turn how they're four. And after that let's consider whether someone who has adequate knowledge of anything at all that has both a name and a definition ought to know only the name, and be ignorant of the definition, or whether it's shameful for someone who truly amounts to something to be ignorant of all such things concerning the very matters that differ most in greatness and beauty. CLEINIAS: It certainly seems so. ATHENIAN: Is there anything more important for a lawgiver and a guardian of the laws, and for someone who thinks he surpasses everyone in virtue and has carried off the prizes for it, than these very things we're now discussing, courage, moderation, justice, wisdom? CLEINIAS: How could there be? ATHENIAN: So shouldn't the interpreters, the teachers, the lawgivers, the guardians set over everyone else, in dealing with someone who needs to learn and understand, or someone who needs correction and rebuke for wrongdoing, teach him thoroughly what power vice and virtue have and make it perfectly plain, so as to be superior to others, rather than have some poet who comes into the city, or some self-styled educator of the young, appear better than the man who has mastered virtue entire? And then, in such a city, where the guardians are not adequate in word and deed alike, having sufficient knowledge about virtue, is it any wonder that this city, being unguarded, suffers what many cities today suffer? CLEINIAS: No wonder at all, it seems. ATHENIAN: Well then? Must we do what we're now describing, or how? Must we make the guardians more precise than the many in virtue, both in word and deed? Or in what way will our city be made to resemble the head and senses of intelligent people, since it possesses this kind of guardianship within itself? CLEINIAS: How exactly, stranger, and in what way, do we compare it to such a thing when we speak this way? ATHENIAN: Clearly the city itself is like the trunk of the body, while among the guardians, the young ones, those chosen as the most naturally gifted, with sharp perception throughout their whole soul, are stationed as if on the topmost peak, keeping watch all around the whole city,
ATHENIAN: and, as sentries, hand over their perceptions to memory, and report to the elders everything that goes on in the city; while those who are likened to the mind, because they think through many things worthy of note with distinctive excellence, the old men, are to deliberate, and, using the young as their assistants along with joint counsel, are together to preserve the whole city in this way, working as one. Is this how we should describe it, or in some other way ought it to be set up? Should we have everyone equal, without distinguishing certain ones as raised and educated with greater precision? CLEINIAS: But, my good sir, that's impossible. ATHENIAN: Then we must proceed to some more precise education than what came before. CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: And might it turn out that the education we've just now more or less touched on is the very one we need? CLEINIAS: Absolutely. ATHENIAN: Didn't we say that the finest craftsman and guardian in any field must not only be able to look toward the many, but must press on to know the one, and, once he knows it, arrange everything with reference to that, keeping it all in view together? CLEINIAS: Correctly said. ATHENIAN: Could there be a more precise examination and view of anything at all than the ability to look from the many and dissimilar toward a single form? CLEINIAS: Perhaps. ATHENIAN: Not perhaps, it truly is so, my good man; there is no clearer method than this for any human being. CLEINIAS: Trusting you, stranger, I agree, and let's proceed on this basis in our discussion. ATHENIAN: Then it seems we must compel the guardians of our divine constitution to see with precision, first of all, what it is that remains the same running through all four, the thing we say is one within courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom, and which is rightly called by the single name of virtue. This, my friends, if we're willing, we must now grip tightly and not let go, until we've said adequately what it is we must look toward, whether as one, or as a whole, or both, or however its nature really is. Or, if this escapes us, do we imagine we'll ever be adequately equipped concerning virtue, when we won't be able to say whether it is many, or four, or one? Certainly not, if we're persuaded by our own counsel, we'll have to devise some other way for this to come to exist among us in the city. But if it seems best to drop the matter altogether, we must look to that too. CLEINIAS: By the god of hospitality, stranger, such a thing must certainly not be dropped, you seem to us to be speaking most correctly. But how could one manage to bring this about?
ATHENIAN: Let's not yet say how we might manage it; let's first make sure, by agreement among ourselves, whether it must be done at all or not. CLEINIAS: But surely it must, if it's possible. ATHENIAN: Well then, do we think the same about the beautiful and the good? Must our guardians know only that each of these is many, or also how and in what way each is one? CLEINIAS: It seems more or less necessary that they think through how it is one as well. ATHENIAN: And what if they can conceive it but are unable to demonstrate it in argument? CLEINIAS: How could that be? You're describing the condition of a slave. ATHENIAN: And what about this, does the same account hold for all serious matters, that those who are truly to be guardians of the laws must truly know the truth about them, and be capable both of explaining it adequately in speech and of following it in their actions, judging what is done rightly and what is not in accordance with nature? CLEINIAS: Of course. ATHENIAN: And isn't one of the finest of these matters what concerns the gods, which we worked through so earnestly, namely that they exist, and how great is the power they evidently hold; knowing this to the extent a human being is able to know it, and forgiving most people in the city for merely following the reputation of the laws, while not permitting this for those who are to share in the guardianship, unless someone has thoroughly worked to gain every possible conviction there is concerning the gods? And that the refusal of such trust should mean that the guardians of the laws never choose as one of their own a man who is not divine and has not labored diligently over these matters, nor let him be judged fit for virtue either? CLEINIAS: It's only just, as you say, that someone lazy or incapable regarding such things should be kept far from what is noble. ATHENIAN: Do we know, then, that there are two things that lead to conviction about the gods, of all we went through earlier? CLEINIAS: What are they? ATHENIAN: One is what we said about the soul, that it is the eldest and most divine of all things whose motion, once it has taken on generation, has furnished it with ever-flowing being. The other concerns the orderly movement of the stars and everything else over which nous, having arranged the whole universe, holds mastery.
ATHENIAN: Whoever looks at these things properly, and not in a shallow or amateurish way, could never grow up so godless as to feel anything but the opposite of what most people expect. Most people think that those who take up such studies—astronomy and the other sciences bound up with it of necessity—become godless, because they've seen how things happen by necessity rather than by the purposeful working of a mind bent on good ends. CLEINIAS: Well, how does it actually stand? ATHENIAN: Exactly the opposite, as I said, of how it stood when people thought of these bodies as lifeless. Even then people were struck with wonder at them, and those who studied them closely already suspected what is now firmly established—that bodies without soul could never make use of such precise and marvelous calculations unless they possessed mind. Indeed some in that very age dared to risk saying just this, that it was mind that had ordered everything in the heavens. But those same people, going wrong about the nature of soul—thinking it younger than body when it is in fact older—overturned practically everything, so to speak, and ruined their own case far more than anything else. Because what lay right before their eyes—all the bodies moving through the heavens—appeared to them to be crammed with stones and earth and a mass of other soulless matter, which they made responsible for the causes of the whole universe. That's what produced, in that period, a great deal of atheism and hostility toward such inquiries, and it's what brought on the poets' mockery, comparing philosophers to useless dogs howling pointlessly, along with other foolish things they said. But now, as I said, everything stands the opposite way. CLEINIAS: How so? ATHENIAN: No mortal man can ever become a secure and steady worshiper of the gods unless he grasps these two truths now being stated: that soul is the oldest of all things that share in generation, and immortal, and rules over all bodies; and beyond that—as has been said many times now—he must grasp the mind that has been said to reside among the stars governing all things that exist, along with the necessary studies that come before this, and having seen how these connect with music, put them to use in harmony with the practices and customs of moral life, and be able to give a rational account of everything that admits of one.
ATHENIAN: Whoever isn't capable of acquiring these things, along with the ordinary civic virtues, could scarcely ever become a ruler adequate to the whole city—he'd only ever be fit to serve other rulers. So now, Cleinias and Megillus, we need to consider whether, in addition to all the laws we've gone through, we should add this one as well: that the nocturnal council of the officials shall stand as a legal safeguard for the city's preservation, having shared in the full education we've described. Or how shall we proceed? CLEINIAS: My good man, how could we not add it, if we're at all able to manage it, even partway? ATHENIAN: Then let's all strive together toward this. As for my part, I would gladly join you as a partner in the effort—and I may perhaps find others to join me too—because of my long experience and considerable reflection on such matters. CLEINIAS: Well, stranger, above everything we must go the way that the god is more or less leading us. But what the right method would be for us to follow—that's what we should discuss and investigate now. ATHENIAN: It's no longer possible, Megillus and Cleinias, to legislate about such matters before the council itself has been formed—only once it exists should it become authoritative over what it must itself legislate. But what actually shapes such people would come about through instruction joined with a great deal of shared association, if it's carried out correctly. CLEINIAS: How so? What should we say this means? ATHENIAN: First of all, presumably, a list would have to be drawn up of those suited by nature for this guardianship, in age, in capacity for learning, in character, and in habits. After that come the things that must be learned, which are neither easy to discover nor easy to learn as another's pupil once they've been discovered. Beyond this, the times and the order in which each subject should be taken up—it would be pointless to set these down in writing, since not even the learners themselves could see that they were learning at the right moment, until each of them had gained genuine knowledge of the subject within his own soul. So, put this way, to call all this 'unspeakable' would not be quite right, yet it's 'unspoken' in the sense that nothing said in advance would make clear what's actually meant. CLEINIAS: Given that this is how things stand, stranger, what then should we do?
ATHENIAN: What we're saying, my friends, seems to rest on shared and even ground between us—and if we're truly willing to gamble everything on the constitution as a whole, we must do as the saying goes, throw either triple sixes or triple ones. I'll take that risk together with you, by stating and explaining what I've concluded about the education and upbringing we've just been discussing again. The risk, mind you, is no small one, nor comparable to any other. This much, Cleinias, I urge you to take to heart: it will be you who either wins the greatest glory by properly establishing this city of the Magnesians, or whatever name the god gives it—or else you will never escape being thought the bravest man among those who come after. And if this divine council of ours truly comes into being, my dear companions, the city must be handed over to it; none of today's lawgivers, one might say, would dispute that. And what we touched on in speech a little earlier, as if in a dream, sketching some rough image of a shared mind and head, will really come to pass, practically wide awake, if only the men are chosen with precision, trained as they should be, and once trained, settle in the acropolis of the land and are made into guardians the likes of which we have never before seen in our lives, guardians of the sort needed for the preservation of virtue. MEGILLUS: My dear Cleinias, from everything that's just been said, either we must give up founding the city, or we must not let this stranger go, but by every entreaty and every device make him a partner in the city's founding. CLEINIAS: Very true, Megillus, and I will do just that—and you must help me. MEGILLUS: I will help.
I went down to Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon son of Ariston, to pray to the goddess, and also because I wanted to see how they would put on the festival, since this was its first time. The procession of the local people struck me as fine, but no less impressive was the one the Thracians put on. We said our prayers, watched the show, and were heading back to the city, when Polemarchus son of Cephalus caught sight of us
from a distance as we were setting off for home, and told his slave to run and tell us to wait for him. The boy caught hold of my cloak from behind and said, "Polemarchus wants you to wait." I turned around and asked where he was. "There," he said, "coming up behind — just wait." "All right, we'll wait," said Glaucon. And a little later Polemarchus
arrived, along with Adeimantus, Glaucon's brother, and Niceratus son of Nicias, and a few others, apparently coming from the procession. Polemarchus said, "Socrates, it looks to me like you two are setting off back to the city." "Your guess isn't far wrong," I said. "Well," he said, "do you see how many of us there are?" "Of course." "Then either prove stronger than the lot of us, or stay
right here." "Isn't there still one option left," I said, "that we persuade you it's better to let us go?" "Could you really persuade people who won't even listen?" he said. "Not a chance," said Glaucon. "Well, plan on us not listening, then." And Adeimantus said, "Don't you even know there's going to be a torch relay this evening, on horseback, for the goddess?"
"On horseback?" I said. "That's new. You mean they'll pass torches to each other, racing on horses? Is that what you mean?" "Just that," said Polemarchus. "And besides, they're holding an all-night festival, well worth seeing. We'll get up after dinner and watch the night celebration, and we'll spend time there with a lot of the young men and talk with them. So stay, and don't argue." And
Glaucon said, "It looks like we'd better stay." "Well, if you think so," I said, "that's what we should do." So we went to Polemarchus's house, and there we found Lysias and Euthydemus, Polemarchus's brothers, and also Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, and Charmantides of Paeania, and Cleitophon son of Aristonymus. Also inside was Polemarchus's father,
Cephalus. He struck me as quite an old man now — it had been a long time since I'd seen him. He was sitting on a cushioned chair, wearing a garland, since he happened to have just finished making a sacrifice in the courtyard. We sat down beside him, since there were chairs arranged there in a circle. As soon as he saw me, Cephalus greeted me warmly and said, "Socrates, you don't come down to visit us
in Piraeus often enough. You really ought to. If it were still easy for me to make the trip to the city, there'd be no need for you to come here — we'd come to you. But as it is, you need to come here more often. I want you to know that for me, just as the other pleasures of the body wither away, my desire and pleasure in conversation
grow all the stronger. So don't do otherwise — spend time with these young men, and come here to us regularly, as to friends, indeed as to family." "And you know, Cephalus," I said, "I do enjoy talking with the very old. It seems to me we ought to learn from them, as from people who've gone ahead of us on a road that
we too will likely have to travel, what sort of road it is — rough and hard, or smooth and easy going. And in particular I'd be glad to hear from you what it seems like to you, now that you've arrived at that time of life which the poets name "old age's threshold" — whether you find it a hard stretch of life, or how you'd describe it." "I'll tell you, Socrates, by Zeus,
exactly how it seems to me. A number of us who are about the same age often get together, keeping up the old saying. Now most of us, when we meet, lament — longing for the pleasures of youth, recalling sex, and drinking parties, and feasts, and all the other things that go along with that sort of life, and taking it hard, as if they'd been deprived of something great,
as though they'd lived well then and are barely living now. Some of them also complain about how their families disrespect their old age, and on that basis they sing old age's praises as the cause of all their troubles. But it seems to me, Socrates, that these men aren't blaming the real cause. Were old age truly to blame, then I myself would have suffered these very same things because of it,
and so would everyone else who's reached this time of life. But as it happens I've met others who don't feel this way at all — and in particular I was once present when someone asked the poet Sophocles, "Sophocles, how are you doing when it comes to sex? Can you still have relations with a woman?" And he said, "Quiet, man — I was only too glad to escape it, like escaping from some raving,
savage master." I thought that was well said at the time, and I think so no less now. For in old age there comes a great peace and freedom from things like that: once the desires slacken and let up their pull, exactly what Sophocles said comes to pass — one is rid of a great many masters, and mad ones at that. But as for these complaints, and the ones about
how families treat old people, there's one real explanation, and it isn't old age, Socrates — it's a person's character. If people are orderly and easy to get along with, then even old age is only moderately burdensome; if not, then for such a person both old age and youth turn out hard." I admired what he'd said, and wanting to draw him out further, I
said, "Cephalus, I think when you say this most people don't accept it — they think it's not your character that makes old age easy for you to bear, but the fact that you have a great deal of property; for the rich, they say, have many comforts." "That's true," he said, "they don't accept it. And they have a point, though not as much of one as they think — there's truth in Themistocles' reply,
when the man from Seriphus insulted him, saying he owed his fame not to himself but to his city, and Themistocles answered that he himself would never have become famous if he'd been from Seriphus, nor would the other man have, even if he were an Athenian. The same reasoning applies to those who aren't rich and bear old age badly: a decent man wouldn't find old age very easy to bear
together with poverty, and a man who isn't decent wouldn't become easy to live with even if he grew rich." "Now tell me, Cephalus," I said, "of the wealth you possess, did you mostly inherit it, or did you add to it yourself?" "Add to it, Socrates? I've turned out to be a money-maker somewhere between my grandfather and my father. My grandfather, who shared my name,
inherited about as much property as I now own, and multiplied it many times over; but my father Lysanias made it even smaller than it is now. As for me, I'm content if I leave these boys here not less than I inherited, but a little more than I received." "The reason I asked," I said, "is that you don't seem to me to be terribly attached to money — and that's usually how it goes with people who haven't
earned their own money; those who have made it themselves are twice as attached to it as everyone else. Just as poets are fond of their own poems, and fathers of their children, so those who've made money take it seriously as something of their own making, beyond even its ordinary usefulness to others. That makes them hard to be around, since they have nothing good to say about anything except wealth."
"That's true," he said. "It certainly is," I said. "But tell me one more thing: what's the greatest benefit you think you've gotten from possessing such wealth?" "Something," he said, "that I probably couldn't persuade many people of. Let me tell you, Socrates — when a man comes near to thinking he's going to die, fear and worry come over him about things
that never troubled him before. The stories told about the underworld — that a person who's done wrong here must pay the penalty there — stories he used to laugh off, now twist his soul with the worry that they might be true. And whether it's from the weakness of old age, or because, being closer now to those things, he somehow sees them more clearly — in any case he becomes full of suspicion and fear,
and starts reckoning up and examining whether he's wronged anyone. And the man who finds many wrongs of his own in his life often wakes from sleep in terror, like a child, and lives in dread; but the man who's conscious of no wrongdoing in himself always has a sweet hope beside him, a good nurse for his old age — as Pindar puts it. He put it beautifully, Socrates,
when he said that whoever lives out his life justly and in reverence — 'sweet hope attends his heart, nursing it, fostering it in old age, hope which most of all steers the ever-shifting mind of mortals.' That's remarkably well put. And it's for this reason above all that I count the possession of wealth valuable — not for every man, but for the decent and orderly one. For
not having to cheat or lie to anyone even unwillingly, and not having to go off to that other place in fear because one owes some sacrifice to a god or money to a person — wealth contributes a great deal toward that. It has many other uses too, but weighing one thing against another, I would say that this, Socrates, is where wealth proves most useful
to a man of sense." "Beautifully put, Cephalus," I said. "But this very thing, justice — shall we simply say it is just this: telling the truth, and giving back whatever one has taken from someone? Or are these very acts sometimes done justly and sometimes unjustly? Take an example like this: everyone would agree that if a man took weapons from a friend
who was sane, and then the friend, gone mad, demanded them back, he shouldn't give them back, and the one who gave them back wouldn't be acting justly — nor should he be willing to tell the whole truth to someone in that state." "You're right," he said. "So this isn't the definition of justice — telling the truth and giving back what one has taken." "It certainly is, Socrates," Polemarchus broke in, "if we're to trust
Simonides at all." "Well then," said Cephalus, "I hand the argument over to you. It's time for me to see to the sacred rites." "Then," said Polemarchus, "am I not the heir to what's yours?" "Certainly," he said, laughing, and off he went to the sacrifices. "Tell me, then," I said, "you, the heir of the argument — what do you say
"Do you think Simonides is right about justice?" "Yes," he said, "that it is just to give back to each what is owed—in saying that, he seems to me to speak well." "Well," I said, "it isn't easy to disbelieve Simonides—he's a wise and inspired man—but what exactly he means, Polemarchus, you perhaps know, though I don't. Clearly he doesn't mean
what we just said—that one should give back to anyone whatever he has deposited with you, even when he asks for it back unreasonably. And yet what was deposited is surely something owed—isn't it?" "Yes." "But it must not be given back at all, when the one asking for it back is not in his right mind?" "True," he said. "Then Simonides must mean something other than that when he says that giving back what is owed is just."
"Something else indeed, by Zeus," he said. "He means that friends owe it to friends to do them some good, never any harm." "I follow," I said—"that a man who gives back gold that was deposited with him is not giving back what is owed, if the giving and the receiving turn out harmful, and giver and receiver happen to be friends—isn't that what you say Simonides means?"
"Certainly." "Well then—should one give enemies whatever happens to be owed them?" "By all means," he said, "what is owed them—and what is owed, I think, from an enemy to an enemy is exactly what is fitting: some harm." "So it seems," I said, "that Simonides was speaking in riddles, poet-fashion, about what justice is. For what he had in mind, apparently, was
that this was justice—to give each what is fitting for him—and this he called 'what is owed.'" "What else do you think he meant?" he said. "Then, by Zeus," I said, "suppose someone asked him: Simonides, the art that gives to what, and what that is owed and fitting, is called medicine—what do you think he would answer us?" "Clearly," he said, "the art that gives to bodies drugs, food, and
drink." "And the art that gives to what, and what owed and fitting, is called cookery?" "The one that gives seasonings to dishes." "Good. Then the art that gives to what, and what, would be called justice?" "If one must follow, Socrates, what was said before, it is the art that gives benefits to friends and harms to enemies." "So he calls doing good to friends
and harm to enemies justice?" "I think so." "Then who is most capable of doing good to friends who are sick, and harm to enemies, with regard to disease and health?" "A doctor." "And to those sailing, with regard to the danger of the sea?" "A pilot." "And the just man—in what activity and for what task is he most capable of benefiting friends and harming enemies?" "In waging war and
in alliance, it seems to me." "Very well—but to those who are not sick, my dear Polemarchus, a doctor is useless." "True." "And to those not sailing, a pilot is useless." "Yes." "Is the just man then useless to those not at war?" "That doesn't seem right to me at all." "So justice is useful in peacetime too?" "Useful." "So is farming—isn't it?" "Yes." "For getting a crop?" "Yes." "And so too
shoemaking?" "Yes." "For getting shoes, you'd say." "Certainly." "Well then—for what use or acquisition, in peacetime, would you say justice is useful?" "For contracts, Socrates." "By contracts do you mean partnerships, or something else?" "Partnerships, indeed." "So is the just man a good and useful partner for placing checkers, or is the checkers-player?"
"The checkers-player." "But when it comes to setting bricks and stones in place, does the just man make a better, more useful partner than the builder?" "Not at all." "Then in what sort of joint enterprise does the just man outdo the builder or the harpist as a partner, the way the harpist outdoes the just man where striking notes is concerned?" "For dealing with money, it seems to me." "Except perhaps, Polemarchus, for the actual use of money, when one needs to use money
in common to buy or sell a horse—then, I think, the horseman is better." "Right?" "So it seems." "And when it's a ship, the shipbuilder or the pilot?" "So it seems." "So when is it that money or gold needs to be used in common, and the just man is more useful than the others?" "When it needs to be deposited and kept safe, Socrates." "You mean, then, when there's no need to use it at all, but
just to have it lying there?" "Exactly." "So when money is useless, that's when justice is useful for it?" "So it seems." "And when a pruning-hook needs guarding, justice is useful both in common and privately; but when it needs to be used, the vine-dresser's skill is what's needed?" "So it seems." "And you'll say that a shield and a lyre too, when they need guarding and no use at all, justice is useful for them; but when they need to be used, it's the soldier's skill
and the musician's?" "Necessarily." "And so about everything else, justice is useless when a thing is in use, but useful when it's not in use?" "So it seems." "Then justice, my friend, could hardly be anything very serious, if it turns out to be useful only for useless things. Let's look at this, though. Isn't the man most skilled at striking a blow in a fight—whether boxing or
any other—also the one best able to guard against it?" "Certainly." "And isn't the one clever at guarding against a disease also cleverest at inflicting it undetected?" "So it seems to me." "And surely the same man makes a good guard of an army who is also able to steal the enemy's plans and other doings?" "Certainly." "So whatever a man is a clever guard of, he is also a clever thief of." "So it seems." "So if the just
man is clever at guarding money, he is also clever at stealing it." "That, at least, is what the argument shows," he said. "So the just man has turned out, it seems, to be a kind of thief—and you're in danger of having learned this from Homer. For he too is fond of Odysseus's grandfather on his mother's side, Autolycus, and says of him that he surpassed all men in thievery and false oaths. So justice, it seems,
according to you and Homer and Simonides alike, is a kind of thievery—for the benefit of friends, though, and to the harm of enemies. Isn't that what you were saying?" "No, by Zeus," he said, "I no longer know what I was saying. But this much still seems right to me: that justice benefits friends and harms enemies." "By friends do you mean
those who seem good to a person, or those who really are, even if they don't seem so—and enemies the same way?" "It's likely," he said, "that one loves those one takes to be good and hates those one takes to be bad." "But don't people make mistakes about this, so that many seem good to them who are not, and many the opposite?" "They do make mistakes." "So for these people the good are enemies,
and the bad are friends?" "Certainly." "But all the same it's just, in that case, for them to benefit the bad and harm the good?" "So it seems." "But surely the good are just, and the sort not to do injustice?" "True." "Then by your account it's just to treat badly those who do nothing unjust." "Not at all, Socrates," he said, "the argument seems to be a bad one." "Then it's the unjust,"
I said, "that it's just to harm, and the just that it's just to benefit?" "That looks better than the other." "So it will turn out for many, Polemarchus, all those who have misjudged people, that it is just to harm their friends—for they are bad to them—and to benefit their enemies—for they are good; and so we'll end up asserting the exact contrary of what we claimed Simonides meant." "Yes indeed," he said, "that's how it turns out. Let's change our position, though—we seem
to have set down friend and enemy wrongly." "How did we set them down, Polemarchus?" "That the one who seems good is a friend." "And now how should we change it?" I said. "That the one who both seems good and is good is a friend; and the one who seems good but is not, seems but is not a friend. And the same holds for the enemy."
"So on this account, it seems, the good man will be a friend, and the bad man an enemy." "Yes." "So you'd have us add to our account of the just—beyond our first statement, that a just man does well by his friend and ill by his enemy—now to say further, this way: that justice means doing good to a friend who is good,
and to harm an enemy who is bad?" "Yes indeed," he said, "that seems to me to be well said, put that way." "So it is the part of a just man," I said, "to harm any human being whatsoever?" "Certainly," he said, "the bad and the hostile ought to be harmed." "And when horses are harmed, do they become better or worse?" "Worse." "In respect of the excellence of dogs, or
of horses?" "Of horses." "And when dogs are harmed, don't they become worse in respect of the excellence of dogs, not of horses?" "Necessarily." "And men, my friend—shall we not say the same, that when harmed they become worse in respect of human excellence?" "Certainly." "But isn't justice human excellence?" "That too is necessary." "So men who are harmed
must, my friend, become more unjust." "So it seems." "Well then, can musicians by their music make men unmusical?" "Impossible." "Or horsemen by horsemanship make men unhorsemanlike?" "No." "Then can just men by justice make men unjust? Or in general can the good by excellence make men bad?" "That's impossible." "For it's not the function of heat, I think, to cool, but of its opposite." "Yes." "Nor of dryness
to moisten, but of its opposite." "Certainly." "Nor of the good to harm, but of its opposite." "So it appears." "And the just man is good?" "Certainly." "So it is not the function of the just man, Polemarchus, to harm anyone, friend or anyone else, but of his opposite, the unjust man." "You seem to me to be speaking the whole truth, Socrates," he said. "So if someone says that giving each man what is owed him is
justice, and understands by this that harm is owed to enemies from the just man, and benefit to friends, the one who said that was not wise. For he was not speaking the truth—since it has appeared nowhere true that it is just to harm anyone at all." "I agree," he said. "Then we shall do battle together, you and I," I said, "if anyone
says that Simonides said this, or Bias, or Pittacus, or any other of the wise and blessed men." "I for one," he said, "am ready to join in the battle." "But do you know," I said, "whose saying I think this is—that it is just to benefit friends and harm enemies?" "Whose?" he said. "I think it belongs to Periander,
or Perdiccas, or Xerxes, or Ismenias of Thebes, or whatever other rich man fancied himself very powerful." "Very true," he said. "Well then," I said, "since it has appeared that neither this nor justice itself is what we thought, what else might one say it is?" And Thrasymachus, who had many times in the course of our discussion tried to break in and take over the argument, then
He was stopped by the people sitting near him, who wanted to hear the argument out. But when we had finished and I had said this, he could no longer keep quiet, but gathering himself up like a wild animal, he came at us as if he meant to tear us apart. Polemarchus and I were terrified and scattered. Thrasymachus burst out into the middle of us and said: "Socrates, what is this nonsense that's been possessing you two all this time? And why do you keep bowing and scraping to each other like fools?"
"If you really want to know what justice is, then don't just ask questions, and don't preen yourself on refuting whatever anyone says, once you've grasped that it's easier to ask than to answer — no, answer yourself, and tell me what you say justice is. And don't you dare tell me it's the obligatory, or the beneficial, or
the profitable, or the advantageous, or the expedient — say clearly and precisely what you mean, because I won't put up with that kind of drivel from you." When I heard this I was thunderstruck, and looking at him I was afraid, and I think if I hadn't caught sight of him before he saw me, I would have been struck dumb. But as it was,
when he began to get savage over the argument, I had already looked at him first, so I was able to answer him, and I said, trembling a little: "Thrasymachus, don't be hard on us. If Glaucon and I are making some mistake in examining the argument, you can be sure we're making it unwillingly. Don't imagine that if we were searching for gold we would ever willingly defer to each other
in the search and ruin our chance of finding it — yet when we're searching for justice, a thing worth more than any amount of gold, you think we'd give in to each other so foolishly and not do everything we could to bring it to light? Think again, my friend. It's not that we don't want to — we simply can't. So it's much more fitting that we should be pitied by clever men like you than treated harshly." And when he heard this he burst into a great scornful laugh
and said: "By Heracles, there it is — that's Socrates' usual irony! I knew it, and I told these people beforehand, that you'd refuse to answer, and would play the innocent and do anything rather than answer, if someone asked you something." "That's because you're clever, Thrasymachus," I said. "You knew perfectly well that if you asked someone
how much twelve is, and in asking you told him in advance — 'now don't you tell me, my good man, that twelve is six doubled, or four taken three times, or two taken six times, or three taken four times — I won't put up with that kind of drivel from you' — it must have been obvious to you that no one could answer a question put that way. Suppose he'd said to you: 'Thrasymachus,
what do you mean? Am I not to give any of the answers you named? Not even if that happens to be the true one, my good sir, but I have to say something other than the truth? Or what do you mean?' What would you have said to him in reply?" "Well," he said, "as if that case were anything like this one!" "There's nothing to stop it being so," I said. "Even if it isn't alike, but it appears so
to the person asked, do you think he'll answer any the less with what appears true to him, whether we forbid it or not?" "Is that what you're going to do too, then?" he said. "Are you going to give one of the answers I ruled out?" "I wouldn't be surprised," I said, "if that's what seemed right to me on reflection." "Well then," he said, "suppose I show you another answer about justice, beside all these, and a better one — what
do you think you deserve?" "What else," I said, "than what's fitting for someone who doesn't know — to learn from someone who does know? That's what I think I deserve." "You're a delight," he said. "But besides learning, you must also pay money." "Certainly, once I have some," I said. "But you do have it," said Glaucon. "For the sake of the money then, Thrasymachus, speak —
we'll all contribute for Socrates." "Oh, I'm sure," he said, "so that Socrates can do his usual trick — not answer himself, but latch onto someone else's answer and refute it." "But how," I said, "my excellent fellow, could anyone answer, when in the first place he doesn't know and doesn't claim to know, and then, even if he does have some opinion about it, he's forbidden to say anything
of what he thinks by a man who's no fool? It's much more fitting that you should be the one to speak — for you claim to know and to have something to say. So don't hold out, but do me the favor of answering, and don't begrudge teaching Glaucon here and the rest of us." When I said this, Glaucon and the others begged him not to hold out. And
Thrasymachus was clearly eager to speak, so as to win their admiration, since he thought he had a magnificent answer; but he pretended to insist that I should be the one to answer. In the end he gave in, and then said: "So this is Socrates' wisdom — he himself refuses to teach, but goes around learning from others and doesn't even thank them for it." "That I learn
from others, Thrasymachus, is true enough," I said, "but that I don't pay them thanks — there you're lying. I pay as much as I'm able. And all I'm able to pay is praise, since I have no money. But how eagerly I do this, when someone seems to me to speak well, you'll know soon enough, as soon as you answer — for I think you're going to speak well." "Listen then," he said. "I
say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger. Well, why don't you praise that?" "Ah, but you won't let me — not till I understand it," I said. "For now I don't yet know. You say the advantage of the stronger is justice. What on earth do you mean by that, Thrasymachus? You surely don't mean something like this: if Polydamas
the pancratiast outmatches us in strength, and beef is advantageous for his body, then this same food is also advantageous — and just — for us who are weaker than he is?" "You're disgusting, Socrates," he said, "you take my argument in whatever way will let you do it the most damage." "Not at all, my good man," I said. "Just tell me more clearly what you mean." "Don't you know," he said,
"that some cities are ruled by tyranny, others by democracy, others by aristocracy?" "Of course." "And in each city, isn't it the ruling power that holds control?" "Certainly." "And each government makes its laws with a view to its own advantage — a democracy makes democratic laws, a tyranny tyrannical ones, and so on with the rest — and having made them, they declare this to be just for their subjects,
namely what is to their own advantage, and they punish anyone who steps outside it as a lawbreaker and a wrongdoer. This, then, my good man, is what I say is the same in all cities: justice is the advantage of the established government. And that government holds power, so that anyone who reasons correctly concludes that justice is everywhere the same thing: the advantage of the stronger." "Now," I said, "I've understood
what you mean. Whether it's true or not, I'll try to find out. So you too, Thrasymachus, have answered that the advantageous is just — although you forbade me to give that very answer — except that you add to it 'of the stronger.'" "A small addition, perhaps," he said. "It's not yet clear whether it's small — but it's clear that we must examine whether what you say is true. Since I too agree
that justice is something advantageous, but you add and say it's specifically the advantage of the stronger, and I don't know that part, we must look into it." "Look into it, then," he said. "So I shall," I said. "Now tell me: don't you also say that it's just to obey the rulers?" "I do." "And are the rulers in each city infallible, or are they the sort who can
also make mistakes?" "Surely," he said, "they're the sort who can make mistakes too." "So when they set about making laws, they make some correctly and some not correctly?" "I suppose so." "And 'correctly' means making laws that are to their own advantage, and 'not correctly' means ones that are not to their advantage? Or how do you mean it?" "That's how I mean it." "And whatever they lay down must be done by their subjects, and this is what's just?"
"Of course." "Then according to your own argument, it's just not only to do what's to the advantage of the stronger, but also the opposite — what's not to their advantage." "What are you saying?" he said. "Just what you're saying, I think — but let's look more closely. Haven't we agreed that the rulers, in commanding their subjects to do certain things, sometimes make mistakes about what's best for themselves, and yet that whatever the rulers command
is just for their subjects to do? Haven't we agreed on that?" "I think so," he said. "Then consider," I said, "that you've also agreed that doing what's disadvantageous to the rulers and the stronger is just, whenever the rulers unintentionally command what's bad for themselves — while you say it's just for the subjects to do what they were commanded. Doesn't it necessarily follow then, most wise Thrasymachus, that
the very opposite results — that it's just to do the opposite of what you say? For surely what's disadvantageous to the stronger is being commanded to the weaker to do." "Yes, by Zeus, Socrates," said Polemarchus, "that's absolutely clear." "If you're going to testify for him," said Clitophon, breaking in. "What need is there of a witness?" he said. "Thrasymachus himself admits that the rulers sometimes command what's bad for themselves,
and yet that it's just for the subjects to do it." "That's because Thrasymachus laid it down, Polemarchus, that doing what's ordered by the rulers is just." "And he also laid it down, Clitophon, that the advantage of the stronger is just. Having laid down both of these, he then went on to agree that the stronger sometimes command the weaker and their subjects to do things disadvantageous to themselves. And from these admissions
the advantage of the stronger is no more just than the disadvantageous." "But," said Clitophon, "he meant by the advantage of the stronger whatever the stronger man believes to be advantageous to himself — that's what the weaker must do, and that's what he was defining justice as." "But that isn't how it was said," said Polemarchus. "It makes no difference, Polemarchus," I said,
"if that's how Thrasymachus puts it now, let's take it that way from him. So tell me, Thrasymachus: was this what you meant to say justice was — what seems advantageous to the stronger to be to the stronger's advantage, whether it actually is or not? Shall we say that's your meaning?" "Not in the least," he said. "Do you think I call a man 'stronger' when he's making a mistake, at the very moment he's making it?" "I did think," I said, "that this was what you meant, when
you agreed that rulers are not infallible, but can also make mistakes." "That's because you're a sophist in argument, Socrates," he said. "For instance — do you call a doctor a 'doctor' the moment he makes a mistake about his patients, in respect of that very mistake? Or a mathematician, when he errs in a calculation, at the moment he errs, by that same error? No — I think we say it in that manner of speaking,
The doctor made a mistake, and the accountant made a mistake, and the schoolteacher made a mistake — but each of them, I think, insofar as he is what we call him, never makes a mistake. So on the strict account, since you insist on being strict, no craftsman ever makes a mistake. It's when his knowledge fails him that the one who errs errs, and at that point he is no craftsman.
So no craftsman, no wise man, no ruler makes a mistake at the moment he is ruling — though of course anyone would say the doctor made a mistake, or the ruler made a mistake. That's the kind of loose talk you should take my earlier answer to have been. But the most precise statement is this: the ruler, insofar as he is a ruler, does not make mistakes, and since he makes no mistakes, he sets down what is best for himself — and that is what the ruled party must do. So what
I said from the start still stands as just: doing what is to the advantage of the stronger. — All right, I said, Thrasymachus — do you think I'm being a pettifogger? — I certainly do, he said. — You think I'm asking these questions on purpose, out of malice, to trip you up in the argument? — I know it very well, he said. — And it will get you nowhere. You couldn't slip a foul move past me,
and even if it slipped past you couldn't force it through by argument. — I wouldn't even try, my dear fellow, I said. But so that nothing like that happens to us again, define clearly which sense you mean when you speak of the ruler and the stronger — the loose, everyday sense, or the strict sense you meant just now, whose advantage, since he is the stronger, it will be just for the weaker to serve. — I mean the ruler in the strictest sense of the word, he said,
the one who really and precisely rules. Go on then, play your foul tricks against that if you can — I'm giving you nothing — though you won't be able to. — Do you think, I said, I'm mad enough to try shaving a lion, playing tricks on Thrasymachus? — Well, you just tried, he said, for all the good it did you. — Enough of that sort of thing, I said. But tell me — the doctor, in the strict sense, the one you were just talking about,
is he a moneymaker, or someone who treats the sick? Tell me about the one who is really a doctor. — A healer of the sick, he said. — And what about the ship's captain? Is the true captain a ruler of sailors, or a sailor himself? — A ruler of sailors. — The fact that he sails on the ship doesn't count for anything, I take it, nor should he be called a sailor on that account; he isn't called captain because he sails but because of
his skill and his authority over the sailors. — True, he said. — Now each of these has some advantage proper to it? — Certainly. — And isn't it the nature of the skill itself, I said, to seek out and provide what is of advantage to each thing? — Yes, that is its nature, he said. — And does each skill have any other interest besides being as complete as possible? — What do you
mean by that? he asked. — Look at it this way, I said: if you asked me whether it's enough for a body to be a body, or whether it needs something more, I'd say: certainly it needs more. That's exactly why the art of medicine has been developed — because the body is deficient and it isn't enough for it to be just as it is. So the art was devised to provide what's advantageous to the body. Would
that be a correct way of putting it, do you think, or not? — Correct, he said. — Well then — is medicine itself deficient, or does any other skill need some added excellence — the way eyes need sight and ears need hearing, so that some further skill is required for them, one that will consider and supply what's advantageous to those very things — is there some deficiency built into
the skill itself, so that each skill needs another skill to look after its interest, and that one needs yet another in turn, and so on without end? Or does a skill look after its own interest by itself? Or does it need nothing at all, neither itself nor anything else, to look after the deficiency proper to it — since no deficiency or fault is present in any skill at all,
nor is it fitting for a skill to seek the advantage of anything but that for which it is the skill of, while the skill itself, so long as it remains exactly and wholly what it is, is faultless and sound? Consider this in that strict sense of the words — is it so, or otherwise? — It appears to be so, he said. — Then medicine, I said, does not look to its own advantage but to the body's. — Yes, he said.
— Nor does horsemanship look to its own advantage but to that of horses; no other skill looks to its own interest either — it has no need to — but to that of the thing it is the skill of. — So it appears, he said. — But surely, Thrasymachus, the skills rule over and have power over the very thing they are skills of. — He conceded this point too, though very grudgingly. — Then no science whatsoever looks to the advantage of the stronger, or gives orders for it, but rather to the advantage of the weaker,
the one under its rule. — He agreed to this as well in the end, though he tried to fight me on it along the way. Once he had agreed — well then, I said, isn't it also true that no doctor, insofar as he is a doctor, looks to what's advantageous to the doctor, or gives orders for it, but rather to what's advantageous to the patient? For it's been agreed that the strict doctor is a ruler of bodies, not a moneymaker. Hasn't that been agreed? — He agreed.
— And isn't the true ship's captain likewise a ruler of sailors, not a sailor himself? — That's been agreed. — Then such a captain and ruler will not look to and prescribe what's to his own advantage as captain, but what's to the advantage of the sailor, the one under his command. — He agreed, though grudgingly. — Then, I said, Thrasymachus, isn't it true that no one in any position of authority, insofar as he is in authority,
looks to his own advantage or gives orders for it, but rather to the advantage of the one he rules and for whom he practices his craft — keeping that person's interest and benefit always in view, and saying whatever he says and doing whatever he does with that in mind? Well, once we had reached this point in the argument, and it was plain to everyone that his account of justice had turned into its very opposite, Thrasymachus, instead
of answering, said: Tell me, Socrates, do you have a nurse? — What do you mean by that? I said. Shouldn't you be answering rather than asking such things? — Because, he said, she lets you run around with your nose dripping and doesn't wipe it for you, needy as you are — you who can't even tell her sheep from her shepherd. — What exactly do you mean by that? I said. — I mean that you think shepherds and cattlemen consider the good of
the sheep or the cattle, and fatten and tend them looking to something other than the good of their masters and their own good; and further, that you imagine rulers in cities — real rulers, that is — think about their subjects any differently than one would think about sheep, or that they have anything else in view
day and night besides where their own profit is going to come from. You're so far off about justice and injustice, about what's just and unjust, that you don't even realize that justice, the just, is really someone else's good — the advantage of the one who is stronger and rules — while it's a harm to the one who obeys and serves; and injustice is
the opposite: it rules over the truly simple-minded and just, and those who are ruled do what's advantageous to the ruler, being the stronger, and make him happy by serving him, while they themselves get nothing of the kind. You have to look at it this way, Socrates, you utter innocent: the just man everywhere comes off worse than the unjust. Take first their private dealings with one another: wherever such a man goes into partnership with
one of that sort, you'll never find, when the partnership is dissolved, that the just man has come out ahead of the unjust — he always comes out behind. Then in their dealings with the city: when there are taxes to be paid, the just man pays more on the same property, the unjust less; and when there are handouts, the one gets nothing, the other makes a large profit. And likewise whenever each of them holds
some office: the just man, even if he suffers no other penalty, finds his own affairs in worse shape from neglect, while gaining nothing from the public funds because he's just, and on top of that he becomes hateful to his relatives and acquaintances when he refuses to do them favors against justice — while the unjust man has all the opposite advantages. I mean, of course,
the man I was just describing, the one with the power to grab the lion's share. Consider him, if you want to judge how much more it profits a man privately to be unjust than just. And you'll learn it most easily of all if you turn to the most complete injustice, which makes the wrongdoer supremely happy and those who are wronged and would never do wrong themselves supremely wretched. This is tyranny, which takes what belongs to others
not in small amounts, by stealth or by force, but wholesale — sacred and profane, private and public alike. When someone commits injustice in some one part of this and isn't caught, he's punished and utterly disgraced — such partial wrongdoers, when caught at this sort of crime, are called temple-robbers, kidnappers, housebreakers, swindlers, thieves. But when a man goes beyond seizing
citizens' property to enslaving and subjugating the citizens themselves, instead of these shameful names he's called happy and blessed, not only by his fellow citizens but by everyone else who hears that he has committed injustice in its entirety. For it isn't the doing of injustice but the suffering of it that people fear, and that's why those who denounce injustice denounce it. That's how it is, Socrates: injustice, when it's done thoroughly enough, is stronger,
freer, and more masterful than justice — and, as I said from the start, the just is really what serves the advantage of the stronger, while the unjust is what is profitable and advantageous to oneself. Having said this, Thrasymachus intended to leave, like a bathhouse attendant who had just poured a great flood of words over our ears all at once. But the people present wouldn't
let him go — they forced him to stay and give an account of what he'd said. And I myself begged him too, and said: My dear Thrasymachus, do you mean to hurl an argument like that at us and then leave, before you've properly taught us — or learned yourself — whether things are as you say or not? Do you think you're attempting some small matter, to define the whole conduct of a life, the way each of us
could live it to live most profitably? — Do I think it's otherwise? said Thrasymachus. — You seem, I said, either to care nothing at all for us, or to have no concern for whether we'll live worse or better lives in our ignorance of what you claim to know. Come, my good man, be willing to show us too — it won't be a bad investment for you, doing a good turn to as many of us as there are here. For my part, I tell you plainly,
I'm not convinced, and I don't believe that injustice is more profitable than justice, even if one lets it go unchecked and doesn't hinder it from doing what it wants. No, my good man — grant that a man is unjust, and capable of acting unjustly either by escaping notice or by fighting it out openly — still he doesn't convince me that this is more profitable than justice. And perhaps others among us feel the same way, not I alone.
So convince us properly, my good man, that we're wrong to rank justice above injustice. "And what would it take to persuade you?" he said. "If what I said just now didn't persuade you, what more can I do for you? Am I supposed to take the argument and stuff it into your soul?" "God, no," I said, "don't do that. But first, stick to what you say, and if you shift your ground, do it openly and don't try to deceive us."
"Because right now, Thrasymachus—let's look back at what came before—you see that when you first defined the true doctor, you didn't think it necessary later to be equally careful about the true shepherd. Instead you think he fattens his sheep, insofar as he's a shepherd, not with an eye to what's best for the sheep, but the way a dinner guest
who's about to feast looks toward the good meal, or the way a businessman looks toward selling them—not as a shepherd at all. But the shepherd's craft surely cares about nothing except providing what's best for that over which it's set—since as for its own excellence, that's been sufficiently provided for, as long as it lacks nothing needed to be shepherding—so I thought just now
we were bound to agree that every kind of rule, insofar as it is rule, looks to what's best for nothing but that which is ruled and cared for, whether in public or private rule. But do you think that the rulers in our cities, the true rulers, rule willingly? "God, no," he said, "I know it for a fact." "Well, what about it, Thrasymachus?"
"Don't you notice that with the other offices, no one is willing to rule for free, but they demand pay, on the assumption that the benefit from ruling will come not to themselves but to those they rule? Now tell me this: don't we always say that each of the crafts is distinct from the others precisely because each has a distinct capacity? And, my good man, don't answer against your own judgment, so we can actually get somewhere." "Yes," he said,
"each is distinct in that way." "And doesn't each of them provide us with some benefit peculiar to itself, not a common one—medicine health, say, and navigation safety at sea, and so on with the others?" "Certainly." "And doesn't wage-earning provide pay? For that is its own particular power. Or do you call medicine and navigation the same thing? Or if you want to distinguish precisely, as
you proposed, would you call it medicine any more, just because someone who navigates well happens to become healthy from the benefit of sailing at sea?" "Certainly not," he said. "Nor, I imagine, would you call it wage-earning if someone stays healthy while earning wages." "Certainly not." "Well then? Do you call medicine wage-earning, if someone earns wages while healing?" He said no. "So we've agreed that the benefit of each craft
is peculiar to it?" "Let it be so," he said. "So whatever common benefit all craftsmen get in common, clearly they get it in common by making use of some further thing which is the same for all." "So it seems," he said. "And we say that craftsmen benefit from earning wages by making additional use of the wage-earning craft." He agreed reluctantly. "So this benefit—the receiving of pay—doesn't come to each
from his own craft, but if we're to look at it precisely, medicine produces health, while wage-earning produces pay, and building produces a house, while wage-earning, which accompanies it, produces pay, and so with all the others: each performs its own work and benefits that over which it is set. But if pay isn't attached to it, does the craftsman get any benefit
from his craft?" "It doesn't appear so," he said. "So he provides no benefit either, when he works for free?" "I think not." "So this much is now clear, Thrasymachus: that no craft or rule provides what's beneficial to itself, but, as we've been saying all along, it provides and prescribes what's beneficial to the one ruled, looking to the advantage of that weaker party, not to that of the stronger. That's
why, my dear Thrasymachus, I said just now that no one is willing to rule of his own accord and take on other people's troubles to straighten them out, but they ask for pay—because the man who is going to practice his craft well never does or prescribes what's best for himself, when he prescribes according to the craft, but what's best for the one ruled. That's why, it seems, pay must be provided for those who are going to be willing to rule,
either money or honor, or a penalty if they refuse to rule." "What do you mean by this, Socrates?" said Glaucon. "I recognize the first two kinds of pay, but I don't understand what penalty you mean, or how you count it as a kind of pay." "Then you don't understand the pay of the best men," I said, "the one for the sake of which the most decent men rule, when they're willing to rule at all. Don't you know
that being ambitious for honor or money is called disgraceful, and is disgraceful?" "I do," he said. "That's why good men are unwilling to rule either for money or for honor—they don't want to be openly called hired hands for taking pay from ruling, nor thieves for secretly taking it from their office. Nor again do they rule for honor's sake, since they're not
ambitious for honor. So compulsion and the threat of a penalty must be attached, if they're to be willing to rule at all—which is presumably why it's considered shameful to seek office willingly instead of waiting to be compelled. And the greatest of these penalties is being ruled by someone worse than oneself, if one isn't willing to rule oneself. It's fear of this, I think, that makes decent men rule when they do rule, and then they go to office not as if approaching
something good or something they'll enjoy, but as something necessary, and because they have no one better than or even equal to themselves to hand it over to. For if a city of good men ever came to exist, it's likely there'd be as much competition to avoid ruling as there now is to get it, and it would become clear there that a true ruler by nature does not aim at his own advantage but at
that of the one ruled—so that everyone who understood this would choose to be benefited by someone else rather than take on the trouble of benefiting someone else himself. So on this point, at any rate, I in no way agree with Thrasymachus, that justice is the advantage of the stronger. But we'll look into that again later. What Thrasymachus is saying now seems to me a far bigger matter—that the life of the unjust man
is better than that of the just man. Which way do you choose, Glaucon," I said, "and which do you think is spoken more truly?" "I think the life of the just man is more profitable." "Did you hear," I said, "all the good things Thrasymachus just now listed for the unjust man?" "I heard," he said, "but I'm not convinced." "Do you want us to try to convince him, then, if we can find some way,
that he's not telling the truth?" "Of course I want that," he said. "Well then," I said, "if we set speech against speech and list off all the good things justice has on its side, and he does the same again, and we answer again, we'll have to count up and measure how many goods each side names in each speech, and then we'll need some judges to decide between us. But if instead we examine the question
by coming to agreement with each other as we just were doing, we ourselves will be both judges and advocates at once." "Quite so," he said. "Whichever way pleases you, then," I said. "That way," he said. "Come then, Thrasymachus," I said, "answer us from the beginning. You say that complete injustice is more profitable than complete justice?" "I certainly do say so," he said, "and I've told you why."
"Well, tell me this about them—one of the pair you name virtue, and the other vice?" "Of course." "So you call justice virtue and injustice vice?" "That's likely, my sweet fellow," he said, "seeing as I also say that injustice is profitable and justice is not." "Then what do you say?" "The opposite," he said. "Is justice vice, then?"
"No, but a very noble simplemindedness." "So you call injustice ill-mindedness?" "No, good judgment," he said. "And do you really think the unjust are wise and good, Thrasymachus?" "Those who can practice injustice completely," he said, "and who can bring whole cities and nations under their power. Perhaps you think I mean people who cut purses. That kind of thing is profitable too,"
he said, "as long as it goes undetected—but it's not worth mentioning next to what I was just talking about." "I understand well enough what you mean by that," I said, "but this is what surprised me—that you place injustice in the category of virtue and wisdom, and justice in the opposite category." "Well, that's exactly how I place them." "Now that," I said, "is a much firmer position, my friend,
and it's no longer easy to know what to say. For if you had claimed that injustice is profitable, while still admitting, as some others do, that it's a vice or a shameful thing, we could have said something in reply, arguing from conventional views. But as it is, you clearly will say that it's fine and strong, and you'll attach to it all the other qualities we were attaching to justice, since
you've had the nerve to place it in the category of virtue and wisdom." "You prophesy very truly," he said. "Well, even so," I said, "I mustn't shrink from pursuing the argument through to the end, as long as I take you to be saying what you actually think. For you seem to me, Thrasymachus, to be genuinely not joking right now, but stating your real views about the truth." "What difference does it make to you," he said, "whether
it's my real view or not—why don't you just refute the argument?" "None at all," I said. "But try to answer me this as well, in addition: do you think the just man would want to have more than another just man?" "Not at all," he said, "otherwise he wouldn't be as refined and simple as he is now." "And what about a just action?" "Not that either," he said. "And what of the unjust man—
would he claim the right to have more than a just man, and think it just to do so, or would he not think so?" "He would think so," he said, "and would claim the right, but he wouldn't be able to get it." "But that's not what I'm asking," I said, "but whether the just man does not claim the right to have more than a just man, or want to, but does claim the right to have more than an unjust man." "That is indeed the case," he said. "And what about the unjust man?"
"Does he claim the right to have more than a just man and a just action?" "Of course," he said, "since he claims the right to have more than everyone." "So the unjust man will seek to outdo both an unjust man and an unjust action, and will strive to get the most for himself out of everything?" "That's so." "Let's put it this way, then," I said: "the just man does not seek to outdo his like, but only his unlike, while the
unjust man seeks to outdo both like and unlike?" "You've put that excellently," he said. "And is the unjust man wise and good, while the just man is neither?" "That too is well said," he said. "So the unjust man, it seems, resembles the wise and the good, while the just man does not resemble them?" "Of course he must," he said, "being the kind of man he is, and
—to resemble such people, while the other does not resemble them? —Well put. —Then each of them is such as those he resembles? —Of course, why not? he said. —Very well, Thrasymachus. You say one man is musical, and another unmusical? —I do. —Which is wise, and which foolish? —The musical man, surely, is wise, and the unmusical man foolish. —And whatever is wise is good, and whatever is foolish is bad? —Yes. —And what
—about the doctor, the same? —The same. —Do you think, then, my good man, that a musician tuning a lyre would want to outdo another musician in tightening and loosening the strings, or claim to have the advantage over him? —Not I. —What about over the unmusical man? —Necessarily, he said. —And what about the doctor? In matters of food or drink, would he want to outdo another doctor, either the man or the practice involved?
—Certainly not. —But over a non-doctor? —Yes. —Consider this, then, in the case of every kind of knowledge and ignorance: does it seem to you that any knowledgeable person would want to choose more, in action or speech, than another knowledgeable person, rather than the same as someone like himself with respect to the same action? —Well, perhaps, he said, that must be so. —And what of the person without knowledge? Would he not
—try to get the better both of the knowledgeable and of the unknowledgeable alike? —Perhaps. —And the knowledgeable person is wise? —I agree. —And the wise person is good? —I agree. —Then the good and wise person will not want to get the better of his like, but only of his unlike, his opposite. —So it seems, he said. —Whereas the bad and ignorant person will want to get the better of both his like and his opposite. —So it appears. —Well then, Thrasymachus,
I said, doesn't the unjust man, on our account, get the better of both his unlike and his like? Or isn't that what you were saying? —I was, he said. —And the just man will not get the better of his like, but only of his unlike? —Yes. —Then it seems, I said, that the just man is like the wise and good man, and the unjust man is like the bad and ignorant one. —So it appears. —But surely we agreed that whatever
each man resembles, that is what each man is. —We did agree to that. —Then the just man has turned out for us to be good and wise, and the unjust man ignorant and bad. Now Thrasymachus agreed to all of this—not as easily as I now report it, but dragged along and reluctant, sweating a remarkable amount, since it was also summer. It was then that I saw
—something I had never seen before—Thrasymachus blushing. So then, since we had agreed that justice is virtue and wisdom, and injustice is vice and ignorance, well, I said, let that stand as settled for us. But we also said that injustice was strong. Or don't you remember, Thrasymachus? —I remember, he said. But I'm not satisfied even with what you're saying now, and
I have things to say about them. If I were to speak, I know well you'd say I was making a speech. So either let me say as much as I want, or, if you'd rather ask questions, go on asking; and I'll just say 'very well' to you, the way one does to old women telling their tales, and nod and shake my head. —Not that, I said, against your own opinion. —Well, so as to please you,
since you won't let me speak. And yet what else do you want? —Nothing, by Zeus, I said, but if you're going to do this, do it, and I'll ask the questions. —Ask away, then. —Well, this is what I'm asking, the very thing I asked just now, so that we may go on and examine the argument in order: what sort of thing justice turns out to be in relation to injustice. For it was said, I believe, that injustice is more capable and stronger than justice; but now,
if justice is indeed wisdom and virtue, I said, it will easily be shown, I think, to be stronger than injustice as well, since injustice is ignorance—no one could still fail to see that. But I don't want to look at it so simply, Thrasymachus; rather I want to examine it this way. Would you say that a city can be unjust, and try to enslave other cities unjustly, and has enslaved them, and holds many
under its own power, enslaved? —Of course, he said. —And the best city will do this most of all, and most completely, being the most unjust. —I understand, I said, that this was your point. But here is what I want to consider about it: will the city that becomes stronger than another city have this power without justice, or must it necessarily have it together with justice? —Well, he said, if it's as you were just saying—that
justice is wisdom—then with justice; but if it's as I was saying, then with injustice. —I quite admire you, Thrasymachus, I said, for not merely nodding and shaking your head, but answering very well indeed. —That's because I'm doing you a favor, he said. —And doing well by it; but please do me one more favor and tell me: do you think that a city, or an army, or bandits, or thieves, or
any other group, all of whom set out together on some unjust venture, would be able to accomplish anything if they acted unjustly toward one another? —No indeed, he said. —And what if they didn't act unjustly toward one another—would they not do better? —Certainly. —For injustice, Thrasymachus, produces factions and hatreds and quarrels among people, while justice produces harmony and friendship, doesn't it? —Let it be so, he said,
so that I won't disagree with you. —Well done, my good man. Now tell me this: if it is the function of injustice to produce hatred wherever it is present, then when it arises among free men and slaves alike, won't it make them hate one another and form factions and be unable to act together in common? —Certainly. —And what if it arises in just two people?
Won't they be at odds and hate each other and become enemies both to one another and to just people? —They will, he said. —And if, my remarkable friend, injustice arises in a single person, will it lose its power, or will it keep it just the same? —Let it keep it just the same, he said. —Then it appears to have this sort of power: whatever it arises in, whether a city, a family, an army,
or anything else whatsoever, it first makes that thing unable to act in concert with itself, on account of faction and disagreement, and moreover makes it an enemy to itself and to everything opposed to it, and to the just. Isn't that so? —Certainly. —And I think that when it is present in a single individual, it will produce these very same effects that it is naturally suited to produce: first it will make him unable to act, since he is at odds with himself and not of one mind
with himself, and next an enemy both to himself and to the just. Isn't that so? —Yes. —And the gods too, my friend, are just? —Let it be so, he said. —Then the unjust man will be an enemy to the gods as well, Thrasymachus, and the just man a friend. —Feast on your argument, he said, without fear; I won't oppose you, so as not to make enemies of these people here. —Come then, I said,
fill out the rest of the feast for me by answering just as you have now. For it appears that the just are wiser and better and more capable of action, while the unjust are not even able to act together with one another—indeed, when we say that certain unjust men have at some time vigorously accomplished something together in common, what we say is not entirely true; for they would not have kept their hands off
one another if they were utterly unjust; rather it is clear that some justice was present in them, which kept them at least from also wronging one another along with those they were jointly attacking—and it was through this that they accomplished what they did accomplish, while they set out on their unjust deeds being only half-corrupted by injustice, since those who are utterly wicked and completely unjust are also completely incapable of action. So I understand that this is how matters stand,
not as you first proposed it. Now whether the just also live better than the unjust and are happier—which is the further question we set out to examine—we must examine. From what we have said, they do appear to, at least as it seems to me; but all the same we must examine it still more closely. For our argument is not about just any chance matter, but about the way in which one ought to
live. —Well, examine it then, he said. —I am examining it, I said. Now tell me: does it seem to you that a horse has a function? —It does to me. —Would you then define the function of a horse, or of anything else, as that which one can do only with that thing, or best with it? —I don't understand, he said. —Well, look at it this way: is there anything else with which you could see, other than your eyes? —No indeed. —What about this: could you hear
with anything other than your ears? —No, none at all. —Then don't we rightly say that these are the functions of these organs? —Certainly. —Well now: could you cut off a vine shoot with a dagger, or a chisel, or many other things? —Of course. —But with none of them, I think, as well as with a pruning-knife made for that very purpose. —True. —Then shall we not set this down as its function? —We shall indeed. —Now then
I think you'll understand better what I was just asking, namely, whether the function of each thing is not that which it alone can perform, or which it performs better than anything else. —Well, he said, I do understand, and it seems to me that this is indeed the function of each thing. —Very well, I said. And does it also seem to you that each thing to which some function is assigned also has a virtue? Let's go back to
the same examples again. Do eyes, we say, have a function? —They do. —Then do eyes also have a virtue? —A virtue too. —What about ears—did they have a function? —Yes. —And then a virtue as well? —A virtue too. —And what about all the other things? Isn't it the same? —The same. —Now hold on: could eyes ever perform their function well if they lacked their own proper virtue,
but had vice instead of virtue? —How could they? he said; you must mean blindness instead of sight. —Whatever their virtue actually is, I said—for I'm not yet asking that, but whether the things that perform functions will perform their own function well by their proper virtue, and badly by vice. —What you say is true, he said. —Then won't ears too, deprived of their own
virtue, perform their function badly? —Certainly. —Shall we then put all the other cases under the same account? —It seems so to me. —Come then, next consider this. Does the soul have a function that you could not perform with anything else that exists, something like the following: caring for things, ruling, deliberating, and all such things—is there anything else besides the soul
to which we could rightly attribute these and say they belong to it alone? —To nothing else. —And what about living—shall we not say that is a function of the soul? —Most certainly, he said. —And do we also say the soul has some virtue? —We do. —Then could the soul ever perform its functions well, Thrasymachus, if deprived of its own proper virtue, or is that impossible? —Impossible. —It is necessary, then, that a bad soul rule and care for things badly,
while a good soul does all these things well. —Necessarily. —And didn't we agree that the virtue of the soul is justice, and its vice injustice? —We did agree to that. —Then a just soul — a just man — will live well, while the unjust man lives badly. —So it appears, he said, according to your argument. —But surely the man whose life goes well is blessed and happy, and the
— and not the opposite. How could it be otherwise? So the just man is happy, and the unjust man wretched. — Let that stand, he said. — But surely it doesn't pay to be wretched, but to be happy. — How could it not? — Then never, my blessed Thrasymachus, is injustice more profitable than justice. — Let this, he said, Socrates, be your feast at the Bendideia. — Thanks to you, I said, Thrasymachus,
since you turned gentle with me and stopped being harsh. And yet I haven't feasted well — my own fault, not yours. I'm like those greedy sorts who snatch a taste of whatever dish is carried past before they've properly enjoyed the one before it: that's what I seem to have done. Before finding what we set out at first to look for — what justice actually is — I let go of that question and rushed off to examine
whether it is vice and ignorance, or wisdom and virtue; and then, when an argument came up afterward claiming that injustice pays better than justice, I couldn't hold myself back from moving on to that from the other, so that the upshot of the whole discussion, for me, is that I know nothing. Because as long as I don't know what justice is, I'm hardly going to know whether it turns out to be a virtue
or not, and whether the one who has it is unhappy — or happy.
When I had said all this, I thought I was done with the argument. But it turned out, apparently, to be only a prelude. For Glaucon, who is always the boldest man alive in everything, would not accept Thrasymachus's surrender, but said —Socrates, do you want to seem to have persuaded us, or to persuade us truly, that in every way it is better to be just
than unjust? —Truly, I said, is what I would choose, if it were up to me. —Well then, he said, you are not doing what you want. Tell me: does there seem to you to be a kind of good that we would choose to have not because we desire its consequences, but because we welcome it for its own sake — like enjoyment, and all the pleasures that are harmless and lead to nothing in later
time beyond the enjoyment of having them? —Yes, I said, there does seem to me to be something of that kind. —And what about this? Is there a kind we love both for its own sake and for what comes from it — like understanding, and sight, and being healthy? Things of that sort, I suppose, we welcome on both counts. —Yes, I said. —And do you see a third form of good, he said,
which includes exercise, and being treated when sick, and the practice of medicine, and money-making in general? These we would call burdensome, though they benefit us; and we would not choose to have them for their own sake, but for the sake of the wages and the other things that come from them. —Yes, I said, there is this third kind too. But what of it? —In
which of these, he said, do you place justice? —In the finest one, I believe, I said: the kind that must be loved both for itself and for what comes from it by anyone who is going to be blessed. —That is not what most people think, he said. They put it in the burdensome kind, the kind to be practiced for the sake of wages and the reputation that opinion brings, but to be avoided in itself as
something hard. —I know that is the common view, I said, and Thrasymachus has long been disparaging it on those grounds and praising injustice. But I, it seems, am a slow learner. —Come then, he said, hear me out too, and see whether you still think the same. Thrasymachus, it seems to me, was charmed by you like a snake, sooner than he should have been; but for my part the
proof about each of the two has not yet been given to my satisfaction. I want to hear what each of them is, and what power each has just by itself when it is in the soul — leaving aside the wages and what comes from them. So this is what I will do, if you agree: I will revive Thrasymachus's argument. First I will state what people say justice is and where it came from; second,
that all who practice it practice it unwillingly, as something necessary but not good; and third, that they are reasonable to do so — for the life of the unjust man is far better than that of the just, so they say. Not that it seems so to me, Socrates. But I am at a loss, my ears ringing from listening to Thrasymachus and countless others; and the argument on behalf
of justice, that it is better than injustice, I have never yet heard from anyone in the way I want — and what I want is to hear it praised just by itself. From you above all, I think, I might learn that. So I will speak at full stretch in praise of the unjust life, and in speaking I will show you the way I want to hear you in turn censure injustice and praise justice. See whether what I propose suits you. —Nothing could suit me more,
I said. What subject could a man of sense enjoy speaking and hearing about more often? —Excellently said, he replied. Then hear what I said I would speak of first: what justice is and where it came from. People say that doing injustice is by nature good and suffering it bad, but that the bad in suffering it outweighs the good in
doing it. So when men wrong one another and are wronged in turn and get a taste of both, those who lack the power to escape the one and seize the other decide it pays to make a compact with each other neither to do wrong nor to suffer it. From there, they say, men began to make laws and covenants among themselves, and to call what the law commands lawful and just. And this, they say, is the origin and
essence of justice: it lies midway between the best thing — doing wrong without paying the penalty — and the worst — being wronged without power of revenge. Justice, being in the middle between these two, is cherished not as a good but as something honored out of weakness in doing wrong; since anyone with the power to do it, a real man, would never make a compact with anybody neither to
wrong nor be wronged — he would be mad to. This then, Socrates, is the nature of justice and this is its kind, and these are the origins from which it grew, according to the argument. That even those who practice it do so unwillingly, from lack of power to do wrong, we would perceive most clearly if we did the following in thought: give each of them license to do whatever he wishes — the just man
and the unjust alike — then follow along and watch where desire leads each. We would catch the just man red-handed going the same way as the unjust, driven by the urge to have more, which every nature naturally pursues as good, though by law it is forced aside toward honoring equality. The license I mean would be most complete if they had the power
they say once came to the ancestor of Gyges the Lydian. He was a shepherd, they say, serving the man who then ruled Lydia. A great storm came, and an earthquake, and the ground split open and a chasm appeared at the place where he was pasturing his flock. Seeing it and marveling, he went down, and among the other wonders the story tells of he saw a bronze horse, hollow,
with window-like openings; stooping to look through them, he saw a corpse inside, larger, it seemed, than human size, wearing nothing else but a golden ring on its hand. He took the ring off and climbed out. When the customary gathering of the shepherds came round, at which they reported monthly to the king about the flocks, he came too, wearing the ring. As he sat with the others,
he happened to twist the bezel of the ring toward himself, into the inside of his hand; and when this happened he became invisible to those sitting beside him, and they talked of him as though he had gone. He marveled at this, and feeling for the ring again he twisted the bezel outward, and on twisting it became visible. Noticing this, he tested the ring to see whether it had this power, and
so it turned out for him: twisting the bezel inward, he became invisible; outward, visible. Once he had seen this, he immediately arranged to be one of the messengers sent to the king; arriving, he seduced the king's wife, and with her help set upon the king, killed him, and so seized the throne. Now if there were two such rings, and the just man put on one and the unjust
man the other, no one, it would seem, would prove so adamant as to stand fast in justice and bring himself to keep his hands off what belongs to others, when he could take whatever he wished from the marketplace without fear, go into houses and lie with anyone he chose, kill or release from bonds whomever he wished, and do everything else among
men like a god. Acting so, he would do nothing different from the other man; both would go the same way. And surely one would call this strong evidence that no one is just willingly but only under compulsion, justice not being a good for the individual — since wherever a man thinks he will be able to do wrong, he does wrong. For every man believes that injustice pays him far better
personally than justice — and he believes truly, as the proponent of this kind of argument will say. For if a man got hold of such license and never once chose to do wrong or touch what belongs to others, he would be thought most wretched by those who noticed, and most foolish — though to each other's faces they would sing his praises, deceiving one another out of fear of being wronged. So much, then,
for that. As for the actual judgment on the lives of those we are speaking of: if we set apart the most just man and the most unjust, we will be able to judge rightly; if not, not. What then is the separation? This: let us take nothing away from the unjust man's injustice nor from the just man's justice, but set each down as complete in his own way of life.
First, then, let the unjust man act like clever craftsmen. A first-rate pilot or doctor distinguishes what is impossible in his art from what is possible; the latter he attempts, the former he leaves alone; and if he does slip somewhere, he is able to set it right. So too the unjust man, going about his injustices correctly, must escape notice, if he is to be thoroughly unjust. The man who gets caught
must be considered a bungler; for the height of injustice is to seem just without being so. So we must grant the completely unjust man the most complete injustice, taking nothing away, but allowing him, while doing the greatest wrongs, to have secured for himself the greatest reputation for justice; and if he does slip somewhere, to be able to set it right — capable of speaking persuasively if any of his wrongdoings comes to light, and of using force
where force is needed, thanks to his courage and strength and his supply of friends and wealth. Having set up this man so, let us in the argument station the just man beside him: a simple and noble man who, in Aeschylus's phrase, wants not to seem but to be good. We must strip away the seeming. For if he is going to seem just, there will be honors and gifts for him because he seems
so; and then it would be unclear whether he is such for justice's sake or for the sake of the gifts and honors. He must be stripped bare of everything except justice, and made the exact opposite of the previous man: doing no wrong, let him have the greatest reputation for injustice, so that he may be tested to the core for justice by not softening under ill repute and its consequences. Let him go on unchangeable until death, seeming
unjust all his life while being just, so that both men, having reached the extreme — the one of justice, the other of injustice — may be judged as to which of the two is the happier. —My word, I said, dear Glaucon, how vigorously you scour each of the two men clean for the judgment, like a statue. —As best I can, he said. And with the two being such, it is no longer difficult, I think, to go through
in the argument what sort of life awaits each. So it must be said — and if it is said rather crudely, do not suppose it is I who speak, Socrates, but those who praise injustice above justice. They will say this: that the just man so disposed will be whipped, racked, chained, have his eyes burned out, and at the end, after suffering every evil, will be impaled, and will learn that one should want not to be just but to seem so. And the
— so it turns out that Aeschylus's line was far more correctly said of the unjust man. For they will say that the unjust man, since he pursues a business that holds close to the truth and does not live for appearances, really wants not to seem unjust but to be so, "reaping a deep furrow along his mind, from which good counsels spring" — first ruling in the city because he is thought to be just, then marrying from wherever
he wishes, giving his children in marriage to whomever he wishes, entering into contracts and partnerships with whomever he pleases, and besides all this profiting because he has no scruples about doing wrong. So then, entering contests both private and public, he comes out ahead and gets the better of his enemies; and getting the better of them, he grows rich, does good to his friends, harms his enemies, and offers sacrifices and dedications to the gods in ample and
magnificent style, and serves the gods, and the men he wishes to favor, far better than the just man does — so that he is likely, in all reasonable probability, to be dearer to the gods than the just man is. That is how they say things stand, Socrates: that both from the gods and from men a better life is provided for the unjust than for the just. When Glaucon had said this,
I for my part had it in mind to say something in reply, when his brother Adeimantus said: Surely you don't think, Socrates, that the argument has been adequately stated? Why, what more is there? I said. The very point that most needed to be said, he replied, has not been said. Well then, said I, as the saying goes, let brother stand by brother; so you too, if
he has left anything out, come to his aid. And yet what he has already said is enough to throw me to the ground and make me unable to come to the defense of justice. And he said: Nonsense — listen further still. For we must also go through the arguments opposed to his — those that praise justice and censure injustice — so that what I take Glaucon to want may become clearer. Fathers, I think,
say to their sons, and everyone who cares for anyone, in urging them to be just, that they must be just — but they praise not justice itself but the good reputation that comes from it, so that the one who is thought to be just may gain from that reputation offices and marriages and everything else Glaucon just went through, all coming to the man because he is well regarded for being just. But these people take the matter of reputation still further.
For by adding in the good reputation one gets from the gods, they have no end of good things to say, which they claim the gods give to the pious — as the noble Hesiod and Homer say, the one saying that for the just the gods cause the oaks to bear acorns at their crown and bees in their middle, and "the fleecy sheep," he says, "are weighed down with wool," and many other good things of that
sort besides. And the other poet says much the same: that because of some blameless king, one who fears the gods and upholds justice, "the black earth bears wheat and barley, the trees are laden with fruit, the flocks bring forth steadily, and the sea yields fish." Musaeus and his son give the just still headier goods than these from the gods: they lead them in their account down to Hades,
lay them down, arrange a symposium of the pious, and have them spend all remaining time crowned with garlands, reclining and drunk — regarding an everlasting drunkenness as the finest reward for virtue. Others stretch the rewards from the gods out even further than this: they say that the pious and true-to-his-oath man leaves behind children's children and a line of descendants after him. This and other such things they say in praise of justice; but the unholy
and unjust they bury in mud in Hades, and force to carry water in a sieve, and even while they are still alive they bring them into ill repute — the very punishments Glaucon went through as belonging to the just man who is thought unjust, these people apply to the unjust, and have nothing else to say. Such, then, is the praise on one side and the blame on the other. Besides this, consider, Socrates,
another kind of talk about justice and injustice, spoken both in private and by the poets. For everyone with one voice sings that self-control and justice are fine things, but hard and laborious, while licentiousness and injustice are pleasant and easy to acquire, and shameful only by convention and law; and that unjust deeds are, in the main, more profitable than just ones, as most
people say, and they are quite willing to call wicked men happy and to honor them, publicly and privately, if they are rich or otherwise powerful, while they dishonor and look down on those who are in any way weak or poor, even while admitting that these are better men than the others. But of all these opinions, the strangest are those told about the gods and about virtue — that the gods themselves
have allotted misfortune and a bad life to many good men, and the opposite fate to their opposites. And begging priests and diviners go to the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a power, procured from the gods by sacrifices and incantations, such that if any wrong has been done by the man himself or by his ancestors, it can be healed with pleasures and festivities; and if a man wishes to harm some enemy,
he can, at small expense, injure just and unjust alike by means of certain spells and bindings, since they persuade the gods, so they say, to serve them. And for all these claims they call the poets to witness, some concerning the ease of vice, offering the line: "Wickedness can be had easily and in abundance; smooth is the road, and it dwells very close by"; whereas in front of virtue "the gods have placed sweat,"
and a road that is long and rough and steep. And others, to prove that men can lead the gods astray, call Homer to witness, since he too said this: "even the gods themselves can be swayed," and men turn them aside from their anger with sacrifices and gentle prayers, with libation and burnt offering, when they entreat them after having transgressed and sinned. And they produce a whole din of books by Musaeus
and Orpheus, offspring, they say, of the Moon and the Muses, according to which they perform their rites — persuading not only individuals but whole cities that there are indeed absolutions and purifications from wrongdoing, by means of sacrifices and pleasurable games, available both to the living and to the dead as well, rites which they call "initiations," which release us from evils in the world beyond, while terrible things await those who have not sacrificed. All these things,
my dear Socrates, said so often and in such quantity about virtue and vice, and the honor in which men and gods hold them — what do we suppose they do to the souls of the young who hear them, those who are naturally gifted and able to fly, so to speak, over all that is said and draw from it a conclusion as to what sort of person one should be and by what path one should travel to make the best of one's life? Such a young man might well say to himself,
in all likelihood, following Pindar's words: "Shall I scale the wall of justice on high, or of crooked deceit, and fence myself round with that, and so live out my life?" For what people say is that if I am just but not also thought to be, there is, they claim, no benefit in it, only manifest toil and loss; whereas if I am unjust but have secured for myself a reputation for justice, a marvelous life is promised. Since, then, mere seeming,
as the wise men make clear to me, "overpowers even the truth" and is the master of happiness, I must turn wholly to that: I must draw a façade and outward shape of virtue all around myself, like a stage-painting, and trail behind me the fox of the very wise Archilochus, cunning and full of tricks. But, someone says, it is not easy to always escape notice while being wicked. No, we will reply, nothing else that is great
is easy either. But still, if we are to be happy, this is the path we must take, since that is where the trail of the argument leads. To escape notice, we will form secret societies and factions; and there are teachers of persuasion who impart the skill needed for popular assemblies and law courts; and with these we will partly persuade, partly compel, so that we may get the better of others and not pay the penalty. But surely, one might say, it is impossible to escape the notice of the gods, or to compel them.
Well then — if the gods do not exist, or take no care at all for human affairs, why should we care about escaping notice? And if they do exist and do care, we know of them and have heard of them from no other source than the laws and the poets who have traced their genealogies; and these very same sources tell us that the gods can be swayed and turned aside by sacrifices, gentle prayers, and dedications.
To these two claims, either both must be believed or neither. And if indeed we are to believe them, then the thing to do is to act unjustly and offer sacrifice from the proceeds of our wrongdoing. For if we are just, we will only escape punishment at the hands of the gods, while forgoing what injustice would have gained us; but being unjust, we will gain those profits, and then, by transgressing and sinning and begging their forgiveness, we will persuade them and come off unpunished. "But surely," someone will say, "we will pay the penalty in Hades for whatever wrongs we commit here,"
either we ourselves or our children's children. But, my friend, he will say, reasoning it out, the initiations again have great power, and so do the gods of release, as the greatest cities say, and the children of the gods, who became poets and prophets of the gods, declare that these things are so. On what possible ground, then, would we still choose justice over the greatest injustice, when if we acquire it along with a counterfeit show of respectability,
we shall fare according to our wishes both with gods and with men, in life and in death, as the argument held by the many and by the eminent alike declares? Given all that has been said, Socrates, what device is there by which a man who has some power — of soul, of wealth, of body, or of birth — would be willing to honor justice, rather than laugh when he hears it praised? Indeed, if there is anyone who can show that what we have said is false,
and who has come to know well enough that justice is the best thing, he surely has much sympathy and no anger toward the unjust; for he knows that no one, apart from someone of divine nature who is disgusted by wrongdoing, or one who has gained knowledge and so abstains from it, is willingly just — that all the rest condemn injustice
only out of cowardice, or old age, or some other weakness, being unable to commit it themselves. That this is so is plain: for the first of such men to come into power is the first to act unjustly, to whatever extent he is able. And the sole cause of all this is nothing other than that from which this whole argument set out, both this fellow's and mine, to say to you, Socrates: that of all of you, whoever claim to be
praisers of justice — beginning from the heroes of old whose sayings have survived, down to the men of today — not one of them has ever censured injustice or commended justice except in terms of the reputations, honors, and gifts that come from them; but what each of these two things itself does, by its own power, dwelling within the soul of the one who has it, unnoticed by gods and men alike, no one has ever
gone through adequately in argument, whether in poetry or in private conversation — the claim that injustice is the greatest of all evils a soul can hold within itself, and justice the greatest good. For if this had been said from the start by all of you, and you had persuaded us of it from our youth, we would not now be guarding against one another to keep from doing wrong, but each man would be his own best guardian, fearing that in doing wrong
—lives with the greatest evil of all. This, Socrates, is roughly what Thrasymachus and others might say about justice and injustice, and perhaps even more than this, putting the case crudely, as it seems to me. But I—since I have no need to hide anything from you—am eager to hear the opposite from you, and so I state the case as forcefully as I can. So don't just
don't merely demonstrate in argument that justice outranks injustice; show what each of them does, in itself, to the one who has it, that makes the one bad and the other good. And take away the reputations, as Glaucon insisted. For if you don't strip away the true reputations from each side and attach the false ones instead, we will say that you are praising not justice but the appearance of it, and not blaming injustice
but its appearance, and that you are really urging a man to be unjust while escaping notice, and agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is really someone else's good—the advantage of the stronger—while injustice is advantageous and profitable to oneself, but disadvantageous to the weaker. Since, then, you agreed that justice belongs among the greatest goods—those worth having both for their consequences and, far more, for their own sake—
like seeing, hearing, understanding, and health too, and all the other goods that are productive by their own nature and not merely by reputation—praise justice for just this: for what it does, in itself, to benefit the one who has it, and how injustice, in itself, harms him. Leave rewards and reputations for others to praise. I would accept it from others if they praised justice and blamed injustice in that way, extolling and abusing their
reputations and rewards. But from you I would not accept it, unless you yourself bid me to, because you have spent your whole life examining nothing else but this very question. So don't just show us in argument that justice is better than injustice, but also what each of them does, in itself, to the one who has it—whether it escapes the notice of gods and men or not—
that makes the one good and the other bad. When I heard this, I had always admired the nature of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but I was especially delighted just then, and I said: Not badly at all did that admirer of Glaucon begin his elegy about you, sons of that man, when you distinguished yourselves in the battle at Megara, saying—
'Sons of Ariston, godlike offspring of a famous man'—this seems well put to me, friends. For you really have suffered something godlike, if you are not persuaded that injustice is better than justice, being so capable of speaking on its behalf. You seem to me truly unpersuaded—I judge this from the rest of your character, since going by the arguments themselves I would have distrusted you—but the more I trust you, the more
at a loss I am about what to do. For I don't know how to come to justice's defense—I think myself incapable, and my evidence is that the arguments by which I thought I had shown Thrasymachus that justice is better than injustice you did not accept from me—yet I also don't know how not to defend it, for I fear it would be impious to stand by while justice is being slandered and fail to defend her, so long as I still have breath and the power to speak. So it is best
to help her in whatever way I can. Glaucon and the others begged me to come to justice's defense in every way and not to let the argument drop, but to investigate thoroughly what each of the two really is, and where the truth lies about their respective benefit. So I said what seemed right to me: that the inquiry we are undertaking is no trivial matter but requires sharp eyes, as it appears to me. Since, then,
we are not clever, I said, it seems to me we should conduct the inquiry the way one might if, when people with none-too-sharp eyesight were told to read small letters from a distance, someone then noticed that the same letters exist somewhere else, larger, and in a larger space—it would seem a stroke of luck, I think, to read those larger ones first and then examine the smaller ones, to see if they really are
the same. Certainly, said Adeimantus—but what do you see of that sort, Socrates, in our inquiry about justice? I'll tell you, I said. We say that justice can belong to one man, and also, presumably, to a whole city? Certainly, he said. Isn't a city larger than one man? Larger, he said. Then perhaps justice would be found in greater
quantity in the larger thing, and easier to discern. So if you're willing, let's first inquire what sort of thing it is in cities; then let's examine it the same way in the individual, looking for the resemblance of the larger in the form of the smaller. You seem to me, he said, to be speaking well. Then, I said, if we were to watch in argument a city coming into being, would we not also see its justice
coming into being, and its injustice? Perhaps we would, he said. And once it has come into being, is there hope of seeing more easily what we're looking for? Much more. Do you think, then, we should attempt to carry this through? I think it's no small task; so consider it well. It's been considered, said Adeimantus; don't do otherwise. A city comes into being, then, I said, as I understand it, because each of us is not
self-sufficient but is in need of many things. Or do you think there's some other origin for founding a city? None, he said. So then, one man takes on another for one need, another for another need, and since we need many things, we gather many partners and helpers into a single dwelling place, and to this community we give the name city. Isn't that right? Certainly. And each one shares with another,
if he shares anything, or receives a share, believing this is better for himself? Certainly. Come then, I said, let us build a city from the beginning in speech; and it seems our need will build it. How could it not? But surely the first and greatest of our needs is the provision of food, for the sake of existing and living. Absolutely. Second
is housing, and third is clothing and such things. That's so. Come then, I said, how will the city suffice for so great a provision? Won't there be one farmer, one builder, and some other weaver? Or shall we add a cobbler too, or someone else to tend the body's needs? Certainly. So the most basic city would consist
of four or five men. So it appears. What then? Should each one of these put his own work at the service of all in common—for instance, should the farmer, being one man, provide food for four, spending four times the time and labor on the provision of food and share it with the others, or should he neglect that and make only a quarter of that food for himself alone in a quarter of the time,
and spend the other three parts—one on providing his house, one on his cloak, one on his shoes—not sharing trouble with others, but doing his own business himself, by himself? And Adeimantus said: But perhaps, Socrates, the first way is easier than the second. There's nothing strange in that, I said. For I too, now that you've said it, realize
that, first of all, each of us is born not quite like every other, but differing in nature, one suited to one task, another to another. Or don't you think so? I do. Well then—would a single person do better working at many crafts, or when he practices just one? When, he said, a single person practices just one. And surely this too is clear, I think: if one
misses the right moment for some piece of work, it is ruined. Clearly. For the thing to be done, I think, is not willing to wait upon the leisure of the one doing it; rather the doer must attend closely to the thing being done, and not treat it as a secondary matter. Necessarily so. From this it follows that more things are produced, and better and more easily, when each person does one thing, according to his nature, and at the right time, being free from other tasks. Absolutely
so. Then we need more citizens than four, Adeimantus, for the provisions we were speaking of. For the farmer, it seems, will not make his own plow, if it's to be a good one, nor his own hoe, nor the other tools needed for farming. Nor will the builder; and he too needs many things. Likewise the weaver and the cobbler;
isn't that so? True. Carpenters, then, and smiths, and many craftsmen of that sort, becoming partners in our little city, will make it a sizable community. Certainly. But it still wouldn't be very large even if we added to them oxherds and shepherds and other herdsmen, so that the farmers might have oxen for plowing, and the builders
might use draft animals along with the farmers for hauling loads, and the weavers and cobblers might have hides and wool. Nor would it be a small city, he said, once it has all of this. But surely, I said, to found the city itself in such a place that it will need no imports is pretty much impossible. Impossible indeed. It will need still other people besides,
who will bring it what it needs from another city. It will. And surely if the agent goes empty-handed, carrying none of what those from whom he is to get what his own people need actually want, he will come back empty-handed. Isn't that so? So it seems to me. Then our people at home must not only produce enough for themselves, but also the sort of goods, and the quantity, that those others need. They must indeed.
So our city needs more farmers and other craftsmen. More indeed. And of course also other agents, to import and export each kind of goods. These are merchants, are they not? Yes. Then we shall need merchants too. Certainly. And if the trade is carried on by sea, we shall need still more people, and skilled ones,
for the work connected with the sea. Many indeed. But what about this: within the city itself, how will they share with each other whatever each produces? It was for the sake of just this that we formed a community and founded a city. Clearly, he said, by buying and selling. Then a marketplace, and currency as a token for exchange, will arise from this. Certainly. Suppose then
that a farmer brings to the market something he has produced, or some other craftsman does, but does not arrive at the same time as those who want to trade for his goods—will he sit idle in the marketplace, neglecting his own craft? Not at all, he said; there are people who, seeing this, appoint themselves to this service—in well-run cities, generally
those who are weakest in body and useless for any other work. They must stay right there in the marketplace, exchanging goods for money with those who want to sell something, and money for goods with those who want to buy something. This need, then, I said, creates for our city the class of retail traders. Or don't we call retailers
those stationed in the marketplace serving buying and selling, and the wandering merchants who travel to other cities? — Certainly. — There are also, I think, still other servants who, while their minds are not quite worth associating with, have bodily strength sufficient for labor. These, selling the use of their strength
and calling this price a wage, are called, I think, wage-earners. Isn't that so? — Certainly. — So wage-earners too are, it seems, part of the city's full complement. — So it seems to me. — Well then, Adeimantus, has our city by now grown to completion? — Perhaps. — Where in it, then, would justice and injustice be found? And together with what, once it had come into being,
of the things we've examined? — For my part, he said, I don't see, Socrates, unless it's somewhere in these people's very need of one another. — But perhaps, I said, you're right; we must look into it and not shrink from the task. Let's first consider what manner of life those so provided for will lead. Won't they simply produce grain and wine and clothes and shoes, and
build houses, and in summer for the most part work stripped and barefoot, but in winter adequately clothed and shod? They'll feed themselves by preparing barley-meal from barley and flour from wheat, baking some, kneading the rest, setting out fine loaves and cakes on some reed or on clean leaves, and reclining on beds strewn with yew
and myrtle, they'll feast, they and their children, drinking their wine, crowned with garlands, singing hymns to the gods, enjoying one another's company pleasantly, not having children beyond their means, guarding against poverty or war. And Glaucon broke in: You're feasting these men, it seems, without any relish. — True, I said. I forgot that they'll have relish too — salt,
obviously, and olives and cheese, and they'll boil onions and greens too, the sort of boiled dishes people have in the country. And we'll set desserts before them too — figs and chickpeas and beans — and by the fire they'll roast acorns and myrtle-berries, sipping their wine in moderation. And living this way, in peace and in health, they'll grow old and hand on a similar life
to their children in turn. And he said: But if you were founding a city of pigs, Socrates, what else would you fatten them on than this? — Well, how should it be, then, Glaucon? — As is customary, he said. Those who aren't going to suffer hardship should recline on couches, I imagine, and dine from tables, and have the same relishes and desserts that people have nowadays. — Fine, I
said, I understand. It's not merely how a city comes to be that we're examining, it seems, but a luxurious city as well. Perhaps there's nothing wrong with that either; by examining a city of that kind too we might well see how justice and injustice take root in cities. Now the true city, the one we've gone through, seems to me to be a healthy one, so to speak; but if you'd rather, let's look at
a feverish city too — nothing prevents it. For some people, it seems, this won't be enough, nor this way of life, but couches will have to be added, and tables and other furniture, and relishes too, and perfumes and incense and courtesans and pastries, and each of these in every variety. And indeed the things we mentioned at first — houses, clothes,
and shoes — must no longer be treated as the only necessities, but painting and embroidery must be set going, and gold and ivory and everything of that sort acquired. Isn't that so? — Yes, he said. — Then we must also make the city bigger; for that healthy city is no longer sufficient, but must now be filled out with bulk and multitude — things no longer there for necessity's sake in cities, such as
all the hunters, and all the imitators — many concerned with shapes and colors, many with music: poets and their attendants, rhapsodes, actors, chorus-dancers, contractors, craftsmen of goods of every sort, including those connected with women's adornment. And indeed we'll need more servants too — don't you think we'll need tutors, wet-nurses, nurses, hairdressers,
barbers, and again cooks and caterers? And we'll need swineherds besides — this we had no need of in the earlier city, since none of it was needed there, but in this one we'll need this too. And we'll need very many other livestock as well, if people are going to eat them. Isn't that so? — Of course. — And won't we be in need of doctors much more, living this way, than
before? — Much more. — And the territory, too, which was then sufficient to feed the people of that time, will now be too small though it was sufficient then. Or how shall we put it? — Just so, he said. — Then we'll have to cut off a piece of our neighbors' territory, if we're to have enough land to pasture and to plow, and they in turn a piece of ours, if they too let themselves go after unlimited acquisition of wealth,
overstepping the boundary of what is necessary? — Quite necessarily, Socrates, he said. — Then after that we'll go to war, Glaucon — or how will it be? — Just so, he said. — And let's not yet say, I said, whether war does harm or good, but only this much: that we have in turn found the origin of war, arising from those very things that cause the most evils for cities, both privately and
publicly, whenever they occur. — Quite so. — Then, my friend, the city needs to be still bigger, not by a small amount but by a whole army, which will go out and fight to the death for the whole of our property, and for all we were just now speaking of, against those attacking. — What? he said; aren't the citizens themselves sufficient? — No, not if you, and all of us
agreed rightly when we were shaping the city. We agreed, I think, if you remember, that it is impossible for one person to practice many crafts well. — True, he said. — Well then, I said, doesn't the struggle of war seem to be a matter of skill? — Very much so, he said. — Does it need more care, then, than shoemaking or farming? — Not at all. — But we forbade the shoemaker from trying at the same time to be a farmer,
or a weaver, or a builder, but only a shoemaker, so that the work of shoemaking might come out well for us, and to each of the others likewise we assigned one thing, the one for which each was naturally suited and at which each was meant to spend his life free of the other tasks, working at it and not letting the right occasions slip by, so as to finish it well. But as for the matters of war —
aren't these of the greatest importance to have carried out well? Or is it so easy a thing that a farmer, while farming, will also be a soldier, and a shoemaker, while shoemaking, and anyone else practicing any other craft whatever, while no one could become an adequate player at checkers or dice unless he practiced that very thing from childhood, treating it merely as a sideline? And a man who picks up a shield or some other weapon or instrument of war will, on that same day,
be a competent contestant in hoplite fighting or any other kind of combat in war — while none of the other instruments, if merely picked up, will make anyone a craftsman or an athlete, nor be of use to one who has gained neither the knowledge proper to each nor sufficient practice in it? — The tools would be worth a great deal, he said, if that were so. — Then, I said, the greater the guardians' task is,
the more it would require, more than anything else, the greatest amount of leisure, and in turn the greatest skill and diligence. — I think so myself, he said. — Doesn't it also, then, need a nature suited to this very pursuit? — Of course. — Then it would be our task, it seems, if we're capable of it, to select which natures, and of what kind, are suited for the guarding of
the city. — Ours indeed. — By Zeus, I said, it's no trivial matter, then, that we've taken on. Still, we mustn't play the coward, as far as our ability allows. — No indeed, he said. — Do you think, then, I said, that the nature of a well-bred puppy differs at all, for guarding, from that of a well-born young man? — What do you mean? — For instance, each of the two must be keen in perception, and quick
to pursue whatever it perceives, and strong too, if it must overtake something and fight it out. — Yes, it needs all of these, he said. — And spirited too, indeed, if it's to fight well. — Of course. — But will something that isn't spirited be willing to be courageous — horse or dog or any other creature at all? Or haven't you noticed how invincible and unconquerable spirit is, in whose presence a soul,
faced with anything at all, is utterly fearless and unyielding? — I have noticed. — Then what the body of the guardian must be like is clear. — Yes. — And indeed the qualities of his soul too — that he must be spirited. — That too. — Then how, Glaucon, I said, will they avoid being savage toward one another and toward the rest of the citizens, being natures of this kind? — By Zeus, he
said, not easily. But surely they must be gentle toward their own people and harsh toward enemies; otherwise they won't wait for others to destroy them, but will be the first to do it themselves. — True, he said. — What then, I said, shall we do? Where shall we find a character that is at once gentle and great-spirited? For a gentle nature is somehow the opposite of a spirited one. — So it appears.
But surely, whichever of the two he's deprived of, he could never become a good guardian; and these requirements look impossible, and so it turns out that a good guardian is impossible to produce. — It looks that way, he said. And I, at a loss, and reflecting on what had gone before, said: We're right to be at a loss, my friend, for we've fallen short of the image we set before ourselves. — What do you mean? — We haven't noticed that there are natures
of a kind we didn't think existed, having these opposite qualities. — Where, then? — One could see it in other animals too, but not least in the very one we compared to the guardian. You know, I imagine, of well-bred dogs, that this is their natural character: toward those they know and are familiar with, to be as gentle as can be, but toward strangers, the opposite.
I do know that. — This, then, I said, is possible, and it isn't against nature that we're seeking our guardian to be of this kind. — It doesn't seem so. — Then does it still seem to you that the one who's going to be fit for guarding needs something more — besides being spirited, to also be, by nature, a lover of learning? — How do you mean? he said; I don't understand. — This too, I said, you'll observe in dogs, which
is worth admiring in the creature. — What is it? — That when it sees someone it doesn't know, it gets angry, even though it has suffered no harm from him beforehand; but when it sees someone familiar, it greets him warmly, even if it has never received any good from him. Or haven't you wondered at that before now? — Not really, he said; I hadn't paid attention to it until now; but that it does this is clear. — Well, this affection of its does look like a refined thing
of that nature, and truly philosophic. —In what way? —In this, I said: that it distinguishes a friendly face from a hostile one by nothing other than having learned the one and being ignorant of the other. And how could a creature be anything but a lover of learning, when it defines what is its own and what is alien by understanding and ignorance? —There is no way, he said, that it could not be. —And surely, I said,
the love of learning and the love of wisdom are the same thing? —The same, he said. —Then may we confidently lay it down for a human being too: if he is to be gentle toward his own people and those he knows, he must be, by his nature, a lover of learning and of wisdom? —Let us lay it down, he said. —Philosophic, then, and spirited and swift and strong by nature will be our man who is to be a fine and good guardian of the city. —Absolutely so,
he said. —This, then, is how he would start out. But how are these men to be reared and educated? And does examining this help us at all toward seeing what all our examining is for — how justice and injustice arise in a city? We do not want to leave out what matters, or drag through more than we need. —And Glaucon's brother said: For my part, I fully
expect this inquiry to help toward that. —By Zeus, then, my dear Adeimantus, I said, we must not drop it, even if it turns out rather long. —No indeed. —Come then, like men telling stories in a story, and at our leisure, let us educate these men in speech. —Yes, we must. —What, then, is the education? Or is it hard to find a better one than that
discovered over long ages? There is, I take it, gymnastic training for the body, and for the soul, music. —There is. —Shall we not begin educating in music before gymnastic? —Of course. —And under music, I said, do you include stories, or not? —I do. —And of stories there are two kinds, one true, the other false? —Yes. —And we must educate in both,
but first in the false ones? —I do not understand, he said, what you mean. —Don't you see, I said, that the first thing we give children is fables? And a fable, taken as a whole, is false, though there is truth in it too. And we use fables with children before we use gymnastic exercises. —That is so. —That is what I meant by saying music must be taken up before gymnastic. —Rightly, he said.
—Then you know that the beginning of any work is the most important part, especially for anything young and tender? For it is then above all that it is molded, and takes on whatever stamp anyone wishes to impress on it. —Exactly so. —Shall we then carelessly allow our children to hear just any fables, fashioned by just anybody, and to take into their souls opinions for the
most part contrary to those we will think they ought to hold when they are grown? —We shall not allow it in any way whatever. —First, then, it seems, we must supervise the makers of fables: whatever fine fable they make, we must approve, and whatever is not, reject. And the approved ones we will persuade the nurses and mothers to tell the children, and to mold their souls with fables far
more than their bodies with their hands. Most of the ones they tell now must be thrown out. —Which ones? he said. —In the greater fables, I said, we shall see the lesser too. For the greater and the lesser must bear the same stamp and have the same power. Don't you think so? —I do, he said; but I don't even see which ones you call the greater.
—The ones, I said, that Hesiod and Homer told us, and the other poets. For they, surely, composed false fables and told them to mankind, and tell them still. —Which fables, he said, and what is it in them that you object to? —The fault, I said, that ought first and foremost to be found, especially if the falsehood is not well told. —What is that?
—When someone in his account misrepresents the nature of gods and heroes — what they are like — as a painter does whose picture bears no resemblance to what he wanted to portray. —Yes, he said, it is right to find fault with such things. But how do we mean this, and what sort of cases? —First, I said, the greatest falsehood, and about the greatest matters, was not well
told by the man who said that Uranus did what Hesiod says he did, and how Cronus in turn took vengeance on him. As for the deeds of Cronus and what he suffered at his son's hands — even if they were true, I would not think they should be told so casually to the young and thoughtless, but best of all kept silent; and if there were some necessity to tell them, then as secrets,
for as few as possible to hear, after sacrificing not a pig but some great victim hard to procure, so that as few as possible would get to hear them. —Yes indeed, he said, these stories are troublesome. —And they are not to be told, Adeimantus, I said, in our city. Nor is a young listener to be told that in committing the most extreme wrongs he would be doing nothing surprising, nor in punishing an offending father
by any means whatever — that he would only be doing what the first and greatest of the gods have done. —No, by Zeus, he said; to me too such things seem unfit to be said. —Nor at all, I said, that gods make war on gods and plot against them and fight — for it is not even true — at least if those who are going to guard our city must consider it most shameful
to fall out with one another lightly. Far be it from us to tell them tales and embroideries of battles of giants, and all the many and various feuds of gods and heroes with their own kin and household. Rather, if we are somehow to persuade them that no citizen has ever quarreled with another and that to do so is unholy, that is the kind of thing that must be told to children from the start, by old men and old women, and as they grow older too,
and the poets must be compelled to compose along these lines. But Hera bound by her son, and Hephaestus hurled from heaven by his father for trying to defend his mother from a beating, and all the battles of gods that Homer has composed — these must not be admitted into the city, whether composed with hidden meanings or without them. For the young are not able to judge what is a hidden meaning and what is not; whatever
opinions they take in at that age tend to become hard to wash out and immovable. For these reasons, surely, we should treat it as supremely important that the first things they hear be fables told as beautifully as possible with a view to virtue. —That makes sense, he said. But if someone should ask us further what these things are, and which the fables are, what would we say? —And I said:
Adeimantus, you and I are not poets at present but founders of a city. Founders should know the patterns within which the poets must tell their tales — patterns which the poets may not transgress in their compositions — but they need not compose fables themselves. —Right, he said. But this very thing, the patterns for speech about the gods — what would they be? —Something like this,
I said: as the god actually is, so he must always be represented, whether someone portrays him in epic verse or in songs or in tragedy. —Yes, that is required. —Now the god is truly good, and must be spoken of as such? —Certainly. —But surely nothing good is harmful, is it? —Not in my view. —Then does what is not harmful do
harm? —In no way. —Does what does no harm do any evil? —Not that either. —And what does no evil could not be the cause of any evil? —How could it? —Well then: is the good beneficial? —Yes. —The cause, then, of faring well? —Yes. —Then the good is not the cause of everything: it is the cause of things that are in good state, but of evils it is not the cause. —Entirely so, he said.
—Then neither, I said, could the god, since he is good, be the cause of everything, as most people say. Of few things among men is he the cause, of many he is not; for our goods are far fewer than our evils. Of the goods we must count no other cause than him; but for the evils we must look for other causes — anything but the god. —What you say, he said, seems to me
perfectly true. —Then, I said, we must not accept from Homer or any other poet this error about the gods, foolishly committed when he says that two jars stand on Zeus's floor, full of dooms — one of good ones, the other of wretched — and that the man to whom Zeus gives a mixture of both meets sometimes with evil,
sometimes with good; but the man to whom he gives not the mixed but the unmixed second kind, him fierce famine drives over the bright earth. Nor that Zeus is dispenser to us of good and evil alike. And the violation of the oaths and truces which Pandarus committed — if anyone says it came about through Athena and Zeus, we will not approve; nor the strife and contest of the gods
through Themis and Zeus; nor again must the young be allowed to hear, as Aeschylus says, that god plants guilt in mortals when he wills to ruin a house utterly. If anyone composes a work containing these iambic lines — on the sufferings of Niobe, or the house of Pelops, or the Trojan matter, or anything of the kind — either he must not
be allowed to say these are the deeds of a god; or, if of a god, he must find out for them roughly the account we are now seeking, and say that the god did what was just and good, and the sufferers were benefited by their punishment. But that those who paid the penalty were wretched, and that the one who did it was a god — that the poet must not be allowed to say. If, however, they should say that the wicked were wretched because they needed
punishment, and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by the god, that may be allowed. But to claim that a god, being good, becomes the cause of evils to anyone — this must be fought in every way: no one is to say such things in his own city, if it is to be well governed, nor anyone to hear them, whether younger or older, whether the tale is told in verse or without verse; because such things, if said, would be neither holy
to say, nor advantageous to us, nor consistent with themselves. —I vote with you for this law, he said, and it pleases me. —This, then, I said, would be one of the laws and patterns concerning the gods, within which speakers must speak and poets compose: that the god causes not everything, but the good things alone.
—And it is quite sufficient, he said. —Then what about this second one? Do you think the god is a sorcerer, apt to appear insidiously now in one form, now in another — at one time actually becoming different and changing his own shape into many forms, at another deceiving us and making us think such things about him? Or is he simple, and of all beings least likely to depart from
—step outside its own form? I can't say, offhand. But what about this: isn't it necessary, if anything departs from its own form, that it be changed either by itself or by something else? Necessary. And things that are in the best condition are least altered and moved by something else—a body, say, by food and drink and exertion, and every plant by
sunlight and winds and that sort of thing—isn't it the healthiest and strongest that is least altered? Of course. And a soul—wouldn't the most courageous and most intelligent soul be least disturbed and altered by any outside affection? Yes. And surely all composite things too—furniture, buildings, clothes—by the same reasoning, the ones well
made and in good condition are least altered by time and other affections. That's so. So everything that is in fine condition, whether by nature or by craft or by both, admits the least change from anything else. So it seems. But god, at least, and what belongs to god, is in every way in the best condition. Of course. On this score, then, god would least of all take on many shapes.
Least of all indeed. But might god change and alter himself? Clearly, he said, if he is altered at all. Then does he change himself for the better and more beautiful, or for the worse and more shameful than himself? Necessarily for the worse, he said, if he is altered at all—for surely we won't say god is lacking in beauty or in virtue.
Quite right, I said, what you say. And given that, do you think anyone, god or man, would willingly make himself worse in any way at all? Impossible, he said. Then it is impossible, I said, even for a god to want to alter himself; rather, it seems, being the most beautiful and best possible, each of them remains forever simply in his own form. That, he said, seems to me
entirely necessary. Then, I said, no poet is to recite to us that— 'gods in the guise of strangers from far countries, assuming every shape, go roaming through the cities'— nor let anyone tell lies about Proteus and Thetis, nor bring Hera on stage, in tragedies or any other poems, transformed, as though she were a priestess gathering alms for the life-giving children of Inachus, the Argive river; and let them not tell us many other such falsehoods. Nor
again, led on by these poets, should mothers frighten their children with wicked stories, saying that certain gods go about at night disguised as all sorts of strangers, so that they may avoid both blaspheming the gods and making their children more cowardly at the same time. Let them not, he said. But is it, I asked, that the gods themselves are of such a nature as not to change, yet make
us think they appear in every sort of shape, deceiving us and playing tricks? Perhaps, he said. What then, I asked—would a god consent to deceive, either in speech or in act, by putting forward a phantom? I don't know, he said. Are you unaware, I said, that the lie in the true sense—if such a phrase is allowed—is a thing all gods and all men detest? What do you mean? he said.
I mean this, I said: that no one is willingly willing to lie about the most authoritative part of himself and concerning the most important things, but everyone fears above all to possess falsehood there. I still don't understand, he said. You think I mean something grand, I said; but I mean that to be deceived and to be ignorant about the things that are, and
there to have and hold falsehood—that is what everyone would least of all accept, and that is what everyone hates most, when it is there. Very much so, he said. Well then, this—what I was just now saying—would most correctly be called the true lie: the ignorance in the soul of the one who has been deceived. For the falsehood in words is a kind of imitation of that
affection in the soul, an image that comes into being afterward, not an entirely unmixed lie. Isn't that so? Quite so. Then the lie that truly is a lie is hated not only by gods but also by men. So it seems to me. But what about the lie in words—when and for whom is it useful, so as not to deserve hatred? Is it not useful against enemies,
and among those called friends, whenever, through madness or some folly, they attempt to do something bad—then, to turn them away from it, it becomes useful, like a drug? And in those stories we were just discussing, since we don't know the truth about ancient times, don't we make the falsehood useful by making it resemble the truth as much as possible? Yes, he said, that is very much so.
In which of these ways, then, is falsehood useful to god? Would he lie by making a likeness of ancient things through ignorance of them? That would be absurd, he said. So there is no lying poet in god. It doesn't seem so to me. But would he lie out of fear of enemies? Far from it. Or on account of the folly or madness of his own people? But no one who is foolish or
mad is dear to the gods. Then there is no reason for which a god would lie. There is not. Then the divine and the godly are in every way free of falsehood. Entirely so, he said. So god is altogether simple and truthful, in deed and in word alike; he neither changes himself nor deceives others, whether by apparitions or by words or by the sending of signs, whether
waking or in dreams. It appears that way to me too, he said, as you speak. So you grant, I said, this as our second pattern for how one must speak and compose about the gods—that they are not sorcerers who transform themselves, nor do they lead us astray with falsehoods, in word or in deed? I agree. Then, though we praise Homer in many things, we will not praise this—the
sending of the dream to Agamemnon by Zeus—nor Aeschylus, when he has Thetis say that Apollo, singing at her wedding, celebrated her good fortune as a mother—'freedom from disease and a long life,' and, having recounted all my fortunes as beloved of the gods, sang out a paean, cheering my heart. And I thought the divine mouth of Phoebus was free of falsehood, brimming with the art of prophecy; but he, the very one singing,
the very one present at the feast, the very one who said these things, is himself the one who killed my son—whenever anyone says such things about the gods, we will be angry and refuse them a chorus, nor will we allow the teachers to use them in the education of the young, if our guardians are to become god-fearing and godlike, so far as that is possible for a human being. Entirely so, he said,
I too agree to these patterns, and would use them as laws.
—Well, said I, that's more or less the sort of thing that should and shouldn't be said about the gods, it seems, told to children from the very start—children who are going to honor the gods and their parents, and not treat their friendship for one another lightly. Yes, he said, and I think that's rightly said to us. But what about this—if they're going to be brave? Shouldn't we also tell them the sort of stories that will make them
least afraid of death? Or do you think anyone could ever become brave while harboring this terror inside him? By Zeus, he said, I don't. And what about this—do you think a man who believes there really are terrible things in Hades will be fearless in the face of death, and choose death over defeat and slavery in battle? Not at all. So it seems, then,
that we must oversee those who undertake to tell these myths, and require them not simply to run down the underworld like that, but rather to praise it—since what they'd be saying would be neither true nor useful to men who must become warriors. Yes, we must, he said. So we'll strike out, said I, starting from this very line, all such things as—'I would sooner work the soil as another man's hireling'
and slave to another, a man with no portion, who has little to live on himself, than be king over all the dead who have perished,' and this—'and their house should appear terrible to mortals and immortals alike, dank, decaying, things which even the gods themselves abhor,' and this—'ah, so there really is, even in the house of Hades, a soul and a phantom, but no wits at all within it,' and this—'to him alone was understanding given, while the others',
'flit about as shadows,' and—'and the soul, flying from his limbs, went down to Hades, mourning its fate, leaving behind manhood and youth,' and this—'and the soul went beneath the earth like smoke, gibbering,' and—'as when bats in the depths of some awesome cave flutter about gibbering, when one of them falls from the cluster on the rock, and they cling to one another'—so did they go, gibbering together. All these
and all such passages we shall ask of Homer and the rest of the poets: that they take no offense at our deleting them—not because they aren't poetic and pleasant for the many to hear, but because the more poetic they are, the less they should be heard by children and men who must be free and who fear slavery more than death. Absolutely, he said. And then there are also all the names attached to these things, all the fearsome
and terrifying names, that must be thrown out too—Cocytus and Styx, and 'those below,' and 'the wasted dead,' and all the other names of that type that make everyone who hears them, as the poets suppose, shudder. And perhaps that's fine for some other purpose, but as for us, we're afraid on behalf of our guardians that from that kind of shuddering they'll become more feverish and softer than they ought to be. And we're right, he said, to be afraid.
So they must be taken away? Yes. And the opposite kind of thing must be said and composed instead? Clearly so. And we'll also remove the lamentations and wailings of famous men? Necessarily so, he said, if the earlier things must go too. Consider, then, said I, whether we'll be right to remove them or not. We say, don't we, that the decent man will not think it terrible
for another decent man, who is also his companion, to have died. We do say that. So he wouldn't grieve for him as though he had suffered something dreadful. No, he wouldn't. But surely we also say that such a man is, more than anyone else, self-sufficient for living well, and least of all others in need of someone else. True, he said. So it's least of all terrible for him to be deprived of a son or a brother or money
or anything else of that kind. Least of all, indeed. So he'll also grieve the least, and bear it as gently as possible, whenever some such misfortune befalls him. Very much so. So we'd be right to remove the lamentations of famous men, and assign them to women—and not even to serious women at that—and to the cowardly among men, so that those we say we're raising to guard
the land will be disgusted at doing anything like what these people do. Rightly so, he said. So again we'll ask Homer and the other poets not to portray Achilles, the son of a goddess, as—'lying now on his side, now again on his back, now on his face, then standing up straight and wandering distraught along the shore of the barren sea,' nor 'taking in both hands the sooty dust and pouring it down over his head,' nor weeping and
wailing in all the many ways that poet made him do, nor Priam, close kin to the gods, as pleading and—'rolling in the dung, calling out each man by name.' And still much more than these we'll ask them not, in any case, to portray the gods as lamenting and saying—'woe is me, wretched, woe is me who bore the best of men to such sorrow'; and if they must portray gods at all, let them at least not dare to have the greatest of the gods misrepresent himself so badly as to
say—'ah me, that a man dear to me is chased around the city before my eyes, and my heart grieves,' and—'alas for me, that it is fated that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, be slain by Patroclus, son of Menoetius.' For if, dear Adeimantus, our young men took such things seriously and didn't laugh at them as unworthy of being said, hardly would any of them, being merely a man, think it
beneath himself and rebuke himself, if some such feeling or act came over him, but instead, without any shame or self-restraint, he would sing many laments and dirges over the smallest of misfortunes. What you say is very true, he said. But that's not how it should be, as our argument just now showed—and we must be persuaded by it, until someone persuades us with a finer one. No, indeed it shouldn't be that way. But
surely they mustn't be overly fond of laughter either. For pretty much whenever someone gives way to violent laughter, that sort of state tends to provoke a violent reaction in turn. So it seems to me, he said. So then, if someone portrays men of worth as overcome by laughter, that's not to be accepted—and still less if it's gods. Much less, he said. So we won't accept from Homer things like this about the gods—'unquenchable
'and unquenchable laughter seized the blessed gods as they watched Hephaestus puffing through the halls'—that's not to be accepted, by your reasoning. If you want to call it mine, he said—well, in any case, it's not to be accepted. But surely truth, too, must be highly valued. For if we were right just now in saying that falsehood is truly useless to the gods, but useful to men in the manner of a drug, it's clear
that such a thing should be given to physicians, but ordinary people shouldn't touch it. Clearly so, he said. So it belongs to the rulers of the city, if to anyone, to use falsehood, whether against enemies or citizens, for the benefit of the city, but no one else should touch such a thing—rather, for a private citizen to lie to rulers of this kind we'll say is the same sort of error, and even worse, than for a sick man
not to tell the truth to his doctor, or an athlete not to tell his trainer, about the state of his own body, or for someone not to tell a helmsman the true facts about the ship and the sailors—how things stand with himself or one of his fellow sailors. Very true, he said. So if he catches anyone else lying in the city—among those who are craftsmen, whether a seer or
a healer of ills or a builder of ships—he will penalize him as one who brings in a pursuit as subversive and fatal to a city as it would be to a ship. Yes, he said, provided the deeds actually follow from the words. What then—won't our young men also need moderation? Of course. And for the majority, isn't the greatest part of moderation this: to be obedient to their rulers, and themselves to rule over their own
pleasures in drink and sex and food? It seems so to me. So we'll say, I think, that things like this are well said—the sort of thing Diomedes says in Homer—'Friend, sit in silence and obey my word,' and what follows on from that, the—'the Achaeans went on, breathing fury, in silent fear of their commanders,' and all the other things of that kind. Well said. But what about things like—'heavy with wine, dog-eyed, with the courage of a deer,'
and what follows on from that, and all the other insolent things anyone has said, in speech or poetry, spoken by ordinary men against their rulers—are those well said? Not well said. No, for I don't think such things are fitting for young people to hear, at least not for the sake of moderation—though if they provide some other kind of pleasure, that's no surprise. Or how does it seem to you? Just as you say, he said. And what about this—portraying the wisest of men as saying that the
finest thing of all, in his view, is when—'the tables stand full beside them, laden with bread and meat, and the wine-pourer draws wine from the mixing-bowl and carries it round and pours it into the cups'—does that seem to you a fitting thing for a young man to hear for the sake of self-control? Or this—'to die of hunger is the most pitiable fate to meet'? Or Zeus, while all the other gods and men slept, lying awake alone plotting his schemes, and then, forgetting all of it
easily on account of his desire for sex, and being so struck at the sight of Hera that he doesn't even want to go into the bedroom, but wants to lie with her right there on the ground, saying he's seized by such desire as he never felt even when they first came together as lovers in secret from their parents—nor the binding of Ares and Aphrodite by Hephaestus, for similar reasons. No,
by Zeus, he said, that doesn't seem fitting to me. But if there are any instances of endurance in the face of everything, spoken and done by famous men, those we should see and hear, such as—'he struck his breast and rebuked his heart with these words: endure, my heart; you have endured worse than this before.' Absolutely, he said. Nor, on the other hand,
must we allow our men to be takers of bribes or lovers of money. Not at all. Nor should they be made to sing that—'gifts persuade the gods, gifts persuade revered kings'; nor should we praise Phoenix, Achilles' tutor, as speaking reasonably when he advised him to defend the Achaeans if he received gifts, but not to give up his wrath without them. Nor will we think it worthy of Achilles himself, nor agree that he was so fond of money as
to accept gifts from Agamemnon, and then again to release the corpse only for a ransom, and otherwise be unwilling to. It's not right, he said, to praise such things. And I hesitate, said I, on account of Homer, to say that it isn't even pious to say such things of Achilles, or to believe others who say them, and again how he spoke to Apollo—'you have harmed me, far-shooter, most destructive of all
gods; truly I would take revenge on you, if only I had the power'; and how he was disobedient toward the river, though it was a god, and was ready to fight it; and again, how he said that his sacred hair, consecrated to the other river, Spercheius, he would 'give to the hero Patroclus to carry with him'—Patroclus being a corpse—and that he actually did this, we shouldn't believe; nor again the dragging of Hector around the tomb
of Patroclus, and the slaughter of the captives upon the pyre—all of this together we will say was not truly told, nor will we allow our people to be persuaded that Achilles, born of a goddess and fathered by Peleus—a man of the utmost moderation, third in descent from Zeus—and raised by the wisest Chiron, was so full of turmoil as to have within himself two opposing afflictions—ignoble stinginess together with greed for money
"—and again, arrogance toward gods and men." "You're right," he said. "So then," I said, "let's not believe this either, and not allow it to be said, that Theseus son of Poseidon and Pirithous son of Zeus set out on such terrible acts of rape, nor that any other child of a god, any hero, would dare to do the dreadful, impious things now falsely told of them—rather let us compel the poets"
"either to say these are not the deeds of such men, or that these men are not children of gods—not to say both—and not to try to persuade our young people that gods beget evil, and that heroes stand no higher than ordinary humans. That, as we said before, is neither pious nor true; for we showed that it's impossible for evil to come from gods." "Of course."
"And moreover it's harmful to those who hear it. Everyone will forgive himself for being bad once persuaded that such things are done, and were done, by—'those close kin to the gods, near neighbors of Zeus, whose ancestral altar to Zeus stands on Ida's peak, high in the air'—and 'in whom the blood of the gods has not yet run dry.' For these reasons such stories must be stopped, lest they breed in our young people a great readiness"
"toward wickedness." "Quite so," he said. "Well then," I said, "what kind of discourse is still left for us to settle, as to what may and may not be told? We've said how gods should be spoken of, and how divine spirits, heroes, and the dead in Hades should be spoken of." "Quite so." "Then what's left would be about human beings?" "Clearly."
"But that, my friend, we can't arrange right now." "How so?" "Because I think we'll have to say that poets and storytellers speak badly about the most important things concerning human beings—saying that many unjust people are happy and many just people wretched, that injustice pays if it goes undetected, and that justice is someone else's good but one's own loss; and"
"we'll forbid them to say such things, and instead order them to sing and tell stories that say the opposite. Don't you think so?" "I know very well we must," he said. "So if you agree that I'm right to say this, shall I say you've agreed to what we've been looking for all along?" "You've understood correctly," he said. "So we'll agree that such things must be said about human beings only once we've discovered what justice is, and how it is by nature"
"advantageous to the one who has it, whether or not he seems to be just." "Very true," he said. "So much, then, for the content of stories. Their manner—how they should be told—must, I think, be examined next, and then everything about what should be said and how it should be said will be fully considered." And Adeimantus said, "I don't understand what you mean by that." "Well," I said, "you must—"
"perhaps you'll understand it better this way. Isn't everything said by storytellers or poets a narrative about things past, present, or future?" "What else could it be?" he said. "And don't they accomplish this either by simple narration, or by narration through imitation, or by a combination of both?" "That too," he said, "I still need to understand more clearly." "I seem to be a ridiculous"
"teacher, and an unclear one. So, like people who can't express things as a whole, let me take a part and try to show you through it what I mean. Tell me: you know the opening of the Iliad, where the poet says that Chryses begs Agamemnon to release his daughter, and Agamemnon grows angry, and Chryses, since he doesn't get his way, prays against the"
"Achaeans to the god?" "I do." "Then you know that up to these lines—'and he begged all the Achaeans, but above all the two sons of Atreus, marshals of the people'—the poet himself is speaking, and doesn't even try to turn our thought elsewhere, as though someone other than himself were speaking. But after this he speaks as if he himself were Chryses, and tries"
"to make us think, as much as possible, that it's not Homer speaking but the priest, an old man. And he's composed nearly all the rest of his narrative this way too, both about events at Troy and about events in Ithaca and throughout the Odyssey." "Quite so," he said. "So it's narration both when he delivers the speeches each time and when he gives"
"what comes between the speeches?" "Of course." "But when he delivers a speech as though he were someone else, won't we say that then he makes himself as much as possible like the person he has told us in advance is going to speak?" "We'll say that; of course." "And to make oneself like someone else, in voice or in bearing, is to imitate the one whom one"
"makes oneself like?" "Of course." "In cases like this, then, it seems, this poet and the others compose their narrative through imitation." "Quite so." "But if the poet nowhere concealed himself, his whole poem and narrative would have come about without imitation. And so you won't say again that you don't understand, let me tell you how this would come about"—
"I'll explain. If Homer, after saying that Chryses came bringing ransom for his daughter and as a suppliant to the Achaeans, especially to the kings, had gone on speaking not as if he had become Chryses but still as Homer, you know it wouldn't be imitation but simple narration. It would go something like this—I'll put it without meter, since I'm no poet—"
"the priest came and prayed that the gods would grant them, after taking Troy, to return home safely themselves, and that they would release his daughter, accepting the ransom and showing reverence for the god. When he had said this, the others were respectful and agreed, but Agamemnon grew savage, ordering him now to leave and never to come again, lest the scepter and the god's"
"garlands fail to protect him; and he said that before his daughter was released, she would grow old in Argos with him; and he ordered him to go away and not provoke him, so that he might get home safely. The old man, hearing this, was afraid and went away in silence, and having withdrawn from the camp he prayed at length to Apollo, invoking the god's titles, reminding him and asking in return, if ever"
"he had given any pleasing gift, whether in the building of temples or in sacrifices at his shrines—for the sake of which he now prayed that the Achaeans pay for his tears with the god's arrows. So, my friend," I said, "that's how simple narration comes about without imitation." "I understand," he said. "Then understand too," I said, "that the opposite of this comes about when someone, cutting out the poet's words between the"
"speeches, leaves only the exchanges." "That too I understand," he said, "that this is what happens in tragedies." "You've grasped it exactly right," I said, "and I think I've now made clear to you what I couldn't before—that of poetry and storytelling, one kind is entirely through imitation, as you say, namely tragedy and comedy, and another is through the narration of the"
"poet himself—you'd find this especially, I think, in dithyrambs—and yet another is through both, in epic poetry and in many other places as well, if you follow me." "But I do understand," he said, "what you meant to say before." "And recall what came before that, that we said what should be said has already been stated, but how it should be said still needs to be examined." "Yes, I remember." "Well,"
"this, then, was just what I was saying: that we need to agree on whether we'll let the poets make their narratives for us by imitation, or partly by imitation and partly not—and in that case, which kind is which—or not imitate at all." "I suspect," he said, "you're considering whether we should admit tragedy and comedy into our city, or not." "Perhaps," I said, "and perhaps even more than"
"that; for I myself don't yet know—we must go wherever the argument, like a wind, carries us." "That's well said," he replied. "Then consider this, Adeimantus: should our guardians be imitators or not? Or does this too follow from what we said before, that each person can practice one occupation well, but not many; and that"
"if he tries to do so, dabbling in many things, he'll fail at all of them, so as never to become distinguished in any?" "Of course." "Doesn't the same argument apply to imitation—that the same person can't imitate many things well, as he could one?" "No, indeed." "So he'll hardly be able both to practice some worthwhile occupation and at the same time imitate many things and be a good imitator, since not even"
"two forms of imitation that seem closely related to each other can be practiced well at once by the same people—for instance, writing comedy and tragedy. Or didn't you just call those two things imitations?" "I did—and you're right that the same people can't do both." "Nor can the same people be both rhapsodes and actors." "True." "Nor indeed are the same actors used for comedy and for tragedy—yet all these"
"are forms of imitation, aren't they?" "Forms of imitation." "And it seems to me, Adeimantus, that human nature is chopped up into even smaller pieces than these, so that a person is incapable of imitating many things well, or of doing the very things themselves of which the imitations are copies." "Very true," he said. "So if we're to preserve our first principle, that our guardians, freed from all other crafts, should"
"be exact craftsmen of the city's freedom, and practice nothing else that doesn't tend toward this, then they shouldn't do or imitate anything else. And if they do imitate, they should imitate from childhood what's fitting for them—people who are courageous, self-controlled, pious, free, and all such things—but they shouldn't do, or be skilled at imitating, anything unfree, nor any other"
"shameful thing, so that from the imitation they don't come to partake of the reality itself. Or haven't you noticed that imitations, if practiced continuously from youth on, settle into habits and become second nature, in body, in voice, and in mind?" "Very much so," he said. "Then we won't allow those we say we care for, and who must become good men, to imitate a woman—being men—whether young or older,"
"whether reviling her husband, or quarreling with the gods and boasting, thinking herself happy, or caught up in misfortunes, griefs, and lamentations; and still less a woman who is sick, or in love, or in labor—we'll keep well clear of all that." "Absolutely," he said. "Nor slaves, male or female, doing what slaves do."
"Not that either." "Nor, it seems, bad men—cowards, and people doing the opposite of what we just described, abusing and mocking one another and using foul language, drunk or even sober, or committing all the other offenses that such people commit in word and deed against themselves and others. And I don't think they should even be trained to make themselves like madmen in"
—not in words, and not in deeds either. One must know about madmen and wicked men and women, but one must not do or imitate any of that. — Very true, he said. — And what about this? — I went on — should they imitate men working bronze, or plying some other craft, or rowing triremes, or giving the stroke to rowers, or anything else connected with such things? — How could they, he said, when they're not even permitted to pay attention to any of that?
— Will none of these be allowed to them? What about this? Horses neighing, bulls bellowing, rivers roaring, the sea crashing, thunder, and all such things — will they imitate these? — No, he said, they've been forbidden even to be mad or to make themselves like madmen. — Then, I said, if I understand what you mean, there is a certain kind of style and narration in which the man who is truly good and fine would narrate
whenever he had to say something, and another kind, unlike this one, which the man of the opposite nature and upbringing would always cling to and use in his narration. — What are these kinds? he said. — It seems to me — I said — that the moderate man, when he comes in his narration to some speech or action of a good man,
will be willing to report it as if he himself were that man, and won't be ashamed of such imitation — imitating the good man above all when he acts steadily and sensibly, less and more reluctantly when he's thrown off balance by sickness or love or drunkenness or some other misfortune. But whenever he comes to someone unworthy of himself, he won't be willing to model himself in earnest on the
inferior man — except briefly, when the man does something good — but will be ashamed, partly because he's unpracticed at imitating such people, and partly because he recoils from molding and fitting himself into the patterns of worse men, holding them in contempt in his mind, except as a game. — That's likely, he said. — So he'll use the kind of narration we went through a little earlier concerning Homer's
verses, and his style will partake of both — imitation and plain narration — but the imitative part will be a small portion within a large discourse. Or am I talking nonsense? — Not at all, he said, that's bound to be the pattern for such a speaker. — Then — I said — the man who is not like this, the more inferior he is, the more he will narrate everything
and think nothing beneath him, so that he'll undertake to imitate everything in earnest and before large crowds — the things we just mentioned, thunder and the noise of winds and hailstorms, axles and pulleys, the sounds of trumpets and flutes and pipes and every instrument, and even the cries of dogs, sheep, and birds. And so this man's
whole style will consist of imitation in voice and gesture, with only a small portion of plain narration. — That too is bound to be so, he said. — These, then — I said — are the two kinds of style I meant. — Yes, there are, he said. — Now one of them has small variations, and if one gives the diction a fitting harmony and rhythm, it comes close to being the same
speech throughout for one who speaks correctly, and in one harmony too — since the variations are small — and likewise in a rhythm that's fairly similar? — Quite so, he said, that's exactly how it is. — And what about the form of the other one? Doesn't it need the opposite — all the harmonies and all the rhythms, if it's to be spoken appropriately — since it has variations of every shape? — Very much
so. — Now do all the poets and all who say anything hit upon one or the other of these two patterns of style, or on some mixture blended from both? — They must, he said. — Then what shall we do? — I said. Shall we admit into the city all these poets, or one of the unmixed kinds, or the blended one? — If my view — he said — prevails,
the unmixed imitator of the decent man. — But surely, Adeimantus, the blended kind is pleasant too — and far the most pleasant to children and their tutors is the opposite of the one you choose, and to the great mass of people. — Yes, it is the most pleasant. — But perhaps — I said — you'd say it doesn't fit our constitution, because with us no man is double or manifold, since
each one does one thing. — No, it doesn't fit. — And isn't that the reason why in this city alone we'll find the shoemaker being a shoemaker and not a pilot in addition to his shoemaking, and the farmer being a farmer and not a judge in addition to his farming, and the soldier a soldier and not a moneymaker in addition to soldiering, and so with everyone? — True, he said. — So a man, it seems,
capable through skill of becoming all things and imitating everything — if such a man should arrive in our city, wanting to display himself and his poems, we would bow down to him as someone sacred and marvelous and delightful, but we would tell him that there is no such man among us in the city, nor is it lawful for one to arise, and we would send him off to another city, pouring myrrh over his
head and crowning him with wool, but we ourselves would employ the more austere and less pleasant poet and teller of tales, for the sake of usefulness — one who would imitate for us the style of the decent man and say what he says within those patterns which we laid down as law at the start, when we undertook to educate our soldiers. — Yes indeed — he said — that is what we would do, if it were up to us. — Well then, my friend,
I said, it seems that the part of music concerning speeches and stories has been thoroughly finished for us — for both what must be said and how it must be said have been stated. — I think so too, he said. — Then after this — I said — what remains is the manner of song and melodies? — Clearly so. — Now wouldn't everyone already be able to find what we must say about them,
what they should be, if we're to be consistent with what's been said before? And Glaucon laughed and said, Well then, Socrates, I'm afraid I'm outside the whole discussion — I'm not really able at the moment to guess what sorts of things we ought to say, though I do have a suspicion. — Surely — I said — at least this much you're well able to say, that melody is composed of three things,
words, harmony, and rhythm. — Yes, he said, that much. — Now insofar as it consists of words, surely it's no different from unsung speech in needing to be spoken in the same patterns we just laid down, and in the same way? — True, he said. — And indeed the harmony and rhythm must follow the words. — Of course. — But we said that laments
and wailing have no place among the words. — No, indeed. — Then which harmonies are mournful? Tell me, you're the musician. — Mixolydian, he said, and tense-Lydian, and certain others like these. — Then these — I said — must be removed? They're useless even for women who should be decent, let alone for men. — Quite so. — And moreover drunkenness is most unfitting for guardians, and softness, and
idleness. — Of course. — Then which harmonies are soft and suited to drinking parties? — Ionian, he said, and some Lydian ones too, called 'relaxed.' — Will you make any use of these, my friend, for warlike men? — None at all, he said. But it seems you have Dorian and Phrygian left. — I don't know the harmonies — I said — but leave that harmony which
would fittingly imitate the sounds and accents of a brave man engaged in warlike action and in every violent undertaking, and who, when he fails and meets wounds or death or falls into some other misfortune, in all these circumstances stands his ground steadfastly and endures, warding off fortune; and another harmony, in turn, for one engaged in peaceful and non-violent, but voluntary action, either
persuading someone of something and making a request — either praying to a god or teaching and admonishing a man — or, conversely, submitting himself to another who is making a request of him, or teaching him, or trying to change his mind, and acting accordingly on his judgment, and not being arrogant about it, but acting in all these matters with self-control and moderation, and being content with the outcomes. Leave these two harmonies — the violent, the voluntary,
the harmonies of the unfortunate, the fortunate, the self-controlled, the brave — the ones that will best imitate their sounds. — Well, he said, you're not asking me to leave any others than the ones I was just talking about myself. — Then — I said — we won't need many-stringed or all-harmonic instruments in our songs and melodies. — It doesn't seem so to me, he said. — So we won't support craftsmen who make triangular harps and pektides and all instruments that are many-stringed and many-harmonied.
— We don't seem to, he said. — Well then, will you admit flute-makers or flute-players into the city? Or isn't the flute the most many-stringed of all, and aren't the all-harmonic instruments themselves just an imitation of the flute? — Clearly so, he said. — So the lyre and the kithara are left for you — I said — and these are useful in the city; and again in the countryside, for the herdsmen, there would be some kind of pipe. — At least — he said —
that's what our argument indicates. — We're doing nothing new, my friend — I said — in judging Apollo and Apollo's instruments ahead of Marsyas and his instruments. — By Zeus, he said, it doesn't seem so to me. — And by the dog, I said, without noticing it we've been purging again the very city we just called luxurious. — Yes, and sensibly so, on our part, he
said. — Come then — I said — let's purge what remains too. Following on the harmonies for us would be the matter of rhythms — not to pursue elaborate ones or every sort of metrical foot, but to see what the rhythms of an orderly and brave life are; and having seen these, to compel the foot and the melody to follow the words of such a man, rather than the words to follow the foot
and the melody. As for what these rhythms might be, it's your job, just as with the harmonies, to state them. — But by Zeus, he said, I can't say. That there are some three kinds from which the metrical feet are woven together, just as there are four in pitches, from which come all the harmonies, I could say if I'd studied it; but which are imitations of which kind of life, I cannot say. But
these matters — I said — we'll deliberate on together with Damon too, as to which feet are fitting for illiberality and insolence, or madness, or other vice, and which rhythms must be left for their opposites. And I believe I've heard him — though not clearly — naming a certain 'enoplian,' a composite one, and a dactyl, and a heroic one too, arranging it, I don't know how, and setting it equal above and below, resolving
into short and long; and, I think, he named an iamb, and another, a trochee, attaching to them lengths and shortnesses. And with some of these, I think, he criticized and praised the movements of the foot itself no less than the rhythms themselves — or perhaps some combination of both, I can't say — but these matters, as I said, let them be deferred to Damon; for to distinguish them properly
—That's no small subject. Or do you think otherwise?—No, by Zeus, I don't. —But can you at least distinguish this much: that good form and bad form follow good rhythm and bad rhythm?—Of course. —And that good rhythm and bad rhythm follow good style, resembling it, and the opposite follows the opposite style—and likewise good and bad harmony,
since rhythm and harmony follow speech, as we just said, rather than speech following them. —Yes, he said, that at least must follow speech. —And what of the manner of speech, I said, and speech itself? Don't they follow the character of the soul?—Of course. —And everything else follows the speech?—Yes. —So fine speech, fine harmony,
good form, and good rhythm follow a good character—not the silliness we affectionately call "simplicity" when we really mean foolishness, but the mind that is truly and beautifully ordered in character. —Absolutely, he said. —Then must young people pursue these qualities everywhere, if they're to do their own proper work?—They must indeed. —And painting, surely, is full of them, and every craft of that kind,
and weaving is full of them, and embroidery, and architecture, and likewise the making of all other furnishings, and further the nature of bodies and of all other growing things. For in all of these there is good form or bad form. And bad form, bad rhythm, and bad harmony are kin to bad speech and bad character, while their opposites are kin to and images of the opposite—
a sound and good character. —Absolutely, he said. —So must we oversee only the poets and compel them to embody the image of good character in their poems, or else not compose among us—or must we oversee the other craftsmen as well, and prevent them from expressing this evil character—licentious, slavish, and misshapen—whether in images of living things
or in buildings or in any other work of craft, and if someone isn't capable of that, must we not allow him to practice his craft among us? This is so that our guardians won't be raised among images of vice, as if in a bad pasture, cropping and grazing daily little by little from many such things, until without noticing it they gather one great evil into their own souls—but instead
we must search out those craftsmen whose natural gifts let them track down the nature of the beautiful and graceful, so that our young people, living as if in a healthy place, may draw benefit from everything, and wherever, from the beautiful works around them, something strikes their sight or hearing, it will be like a breeze bringing health from wholesome regions, and lead them from childhood, without their realizing it, into likeness,
friendship, and harmony with beautiful speech. —Yes, he said, that would be by far the finest way for them to be raised. —Then is this, Glaucon, I said, why upbringing in music and poetry is most sovereign—because rhythm and harmony sink most deeply into the inner part of the soul and take hold of it most powerfully, bringing gracefulness with them, and making a person graceful if he's raised rightly,
and if not, the opposite? And also because someone raised as he should be there will perceive most keenly whatever is deficient or badly made or badly grown, and rightly displeased by it he will praise the beautiful things, and welcoming them into his soul with joy, will be nourished by them and become beautiful and good, while he will rightly blame the shameful things
and hate them even while still young, before he's able to grasp the reason for it—and when reason does come, he who has been so raised will welcome it, recognizing it as something akin to himself, more than anyone else? —That, at least, is how it seems to me, he said—that this is why upbringing in music and poetry matters. —Just as with letters, I said, we were satisfied then that we knew the letters, when their few forms
did not escape us wherever they occur, and we didn't disregard them whether in something small or something large, thinking we needn't notice them, but were eager everywhere to recognize them, on the grounds that we wouldn't be literate until we could do that—true. —And likewise images of letters, if they appeared reflected somewhere in water or in mirrors, we wouldn't recognize until we knew the letters themselves, but this belongs to the same
skill and practice? —Absolutely. —Then, by the gods, is what I'm saying true—that in just the same way we won't be musical, neither we ourselves nor those we say must be educated as our guardians, until we recognize the forms of moderation, courage, generosity, magnanimity, and all their kin, and their opposites in turn, wherever they occur, and perceive them
present in whatever they're present in, both the things themselves and their images, disregarding them neither in small things nor in large, but believing this belongs to the same skill and practice? —It's altogether necessary, he said. —Then, I said, whenever it happens that beautiful character in the soul coincides with a form that corresponds and harmonizes with it, sharing the same pattern, wouldn't that
be the finest sight for anyone able to see it? —By far. —And surely the most beautiful is also the most lovable? —Of course. —And the musical person would love, above all, those most closely of this kind; but if there's discord, he wouldn't love it. —He wouldn't, he said, if there's any deficiency in the soul—though if it's in the body, he might tolerate it enough
to be willing to embrace it anyway. —I take your point, I said; you have such favorites now, or once did, and I concede it. But tell me this: is there any partnership between moderation and excessive pleasure?—How could there be, he said, when excessive pleasure unbalances the mind no less than pain? —Or with virtue generally? —Not at all. —What about with insolence and licentiousness? —Most of all with those. —Can you name any pleasure
greater or more intense than that of sex? —I can't, he said, nor any madder. —Whereas correct love is by nature to love, in a moderate and cultivated way, what is orderly and beautiful? —Quite so, he said. —Then nothing mad, nothing akin to licentiousness, should be brought near correct love? —It shouldn't. —So this pleasure shouldn't be brought near it, nor should lover and beloved share in it,
if they love and are loved rightly? —No, by Zeus, Socrates, he said, it shouldn't be brought near. —Then it seems you'll legislate, in the city we're founding, that a lover may kiss, spend time with, and touch his beloved as a father would a son, for the sake of beautiful things, if he persuades him, but otherwise must associate with anyone he's serious about in such a way that it never seems they
go further than this—otherwise he'll be liable to reproach for lack of culture and taste. —So it shall be, he said. —Then, I said, does it seem to you too that our discussion of music and poetry has reached its end? —It has ended, he said, where it should end—for surely discussions of music and poetry ought to end in matters of the love of the beautiful. —I agree, he said. —After music and poetry, our young men must be nourished by gymnastic training.—Certainly.
They must indeed be trained carefully in this too, throughout life from childhood. Now I think the matter stands as follows—consider it yourself too. It doesn't seem to me that a good body, by its own virtue, makes the soul good, but rather the opposite—a good soul, by its own virtue, makes the body as good as it can be. What do you think?
—I think the same, he said. —Then if, having adequately cared for the mind, we were to hand over to it the detailed care of the body, while we ourselves merely sketch out the general outlines so as not to speak at length, would we be doing right? —Certainly. —We already said they must abstain from drunkenness; for anyone would be more excused than a guardian for getting drunk and losing all sense of his own whereabouts. —It would be absurd, he
said, for a guardian to need a guardian. —And what about food? These men are athletes in the greatest contest, aren't they?—Yes. —So would the regimen of these ordinary athletes suit them?—Perhaps. —But, I said, that's a rather sleepy regimen and precarious for health. Don't you see that they sleep their whole life away,
and if they depart even slightly from their prescribed diet, these athletes fall gravely and severely ill?—I see that. —A more refined kind of training is needed, I said, for warrior-athletes, who must be like watchdogs, sleepless, seeing and hearing as keenly as possible, and enduring many changes of water and other food and of
heat and cold during campaigns without becoming unsteady in health. —So it seems to me. —Then would the best gymnastic be a kind of sister to the simple music we went through a little earlier?—How do you mean?—A simple and decent gymnastic, especially the kind suited to war. —How so?—One could learn such things even from Homer, I said. You know
that on campaign, at the heroes' feasts, he doesn't feast them on fish, even though they're by the sea at the Hellespont, nor on boiled meats, but only roasted, which would be most convenient for soldiers—for it's easier, so to speak, everywhere to use fire itself than to carry pots around. —Quite so. —Nor, I think, does Homer ever
mention seasonings. Or is this something even other athletes know—that anyone meaning to keep his body in good condition must abstain from all such things? —And rightly, he said, they know it and abstain. —Then, my friend, you clearly don't approve of a Syracusan table and Sicilian variety of relishes, if you think this is correct. —I don't think I do. —So you also disapprove of a Corinthian girl as a fond companion
for men meaning to keep their bodies in good condition? —Absolutely. —And also of the reputed delicacies of Attic pastries? —Necessarily. —For I think if we compared this whole kind of diet and regimen to melody and song composed in the all-harmonic mode and in every rhythm, the comparison would be apt. —Of course. —And there, variety bred licentiousness, while here
it breeds disease, whereas simplicity in music breeds moderation in souls, and in gymnastic breeds health in bodies? —Very true, he said. —And when licentiousness and disease multiply in a city, don't law courts and clinics spring up everywhere, and don't law and medicine give themselves airs, when even many free citizens take them very seriously? —Of course they must.
—But of bad and shameful education in a city, could you find any greater proof than needing top-notch doctors and judges—not only among the base and manual laborers, but also among those who pride themselves on having been raised as free men? Or doesn't it seem shameful, and a great sign of lack of education, to have to use justice imported from others, as masters and judges, because
—to be forced to use justice for lack of anyone of his own to fall back on. Of all things, he said, the most shameful. And does it seem to you, I said, still more shameful than this, when a man not only wears out most of his life defending and prosecuting suits in the courts, but even, from sheer lack of taste, is persuaded to pride himself on this very thing—on being clever at wrongdoing and skilled
at twisting through every dodge and worming his way out of every trap, bending and writhing so as to avoid paying the penalty—and all this for the sake of small and worthless stakes, not knowing how much finer and better it is to arrange one's life so as never to need a drowsy juror at all? No, he said, that is even more shameful than the other. And needing medicine, I said—not for wounds or
the seasonal illnesses that strike us, but because of idleness and the kind of regimen we described, filling ourselves up like stagnant pools with humors and gases, and forcing the clever sons of Asclepius to invent names like 'flatulence' and 'catarrh' for our ailments—doesn't that seem shameful? Very much so, he said. Truly these are strange, newfangled names for diseases. Such names, I said, as I believe did not exist in the time of Asclepius. And I infer
this from the fact that at Troy his sons, when Eurypylus was wounded, did not find fault with the woman who gave him Pramnian wine to drink with barley sprinkled generously on top and grated cheese—things thought to cause phlegm—nor did they reproach Patroclus, who was treating him. And yet, he said, that is a strange drink for a man in his condition. Not if you consider, I said, that this modern medicine's coddling treatment of illness
was not used by the sons of Asclepius, so they say, before Herodicus came along. Herodicus was a trainer who became sickly, and by mixing gymnastic training with medicine wore out first and foremost himself, and afterward many others. In what way? he asked. By making his own death, I said, a long one. For keeping pace with his fatal disease, he was, I think, unable to cure
himself, so he lived his whole life doctoring himself, neglecting everything else, tormented whenever he strayed at all from his accustomed regimen, and by this cleverness, dying hard, he dragged himself into old age. A fine reward indeed, he said, for his art. Just what you'd expect, I said, from a man who does not know that Asclepius did not fail, from ignorance or inexperience, to reveal this kind of medicine to his descendants,
but because he knew that in every well-ordered city each person has some task assigned to him in the community which he must perform, and no one has the leisure to spend his whole life being sick and doctored. This we notice, absurdly enough, in the case of craftsmen, but fail to notice in the case of the rich and those who are thought to be happy. How so? he asked. A carpenter, I said, when he is sick, expects the doctor to give him a drug
to drink and vomit up the disease, or to be purged from below, or treated with cautery or the knife, and so be rid of it; but if someone prescribes a long regimen for him, wrapping bandages round his head and all that goes with it, he quickly says he has no leisure to be sick, and that such a life—paying attention to illness and neglecting the work before him—is not worthwhile. And after that, bidding farewell to
that kind of doctor, he goes back to his usual way of life, and either recovers his health and lives on doing his own work, or, if his body cannot bear up, dies and is rid of his troubles. And it does seem, he said, fitting for a man like that to use medicine this way. Is it, I said, because he has some work to do, and if he cannot do it, life is not worth living to him? Clearly so, he said. But
the rich man, as we say, has no such work set before him that makes life unlivable if he is forced to give it up. So it is said, at least. Haven't you heard, I said, how Phocylides puts it—that once a man already has a livelihood, he ought to practice virtue? I think, he said, even before that. Let us not, I said, quarrel with him about this, but let us teach ourselves whether this is something the rich man must practice,
and life is unlivable for one who does not practice it, or whether excessive care of the body is an obstacle to carpentry and the other crafts by distracting the attention, while Phocylides' advice creates no such obstacle. Yes, by Zeus, he said. Indeed of all things this excessive attention to the body, beyond ordinary gymnastic training, is the greatest hindrance—for it is troublesome in managing a household, on campaign, and in
holding stable public offices in the city. But the greatest point is this: that it makes any kind of learning, reflection, or private study difficult, always suspecting headaches and dizziness and blaming philosophy for causing them, so that wherever this kind of virtue is practiced and tested, it is everywhere an obstacle—for it always makes one think one is ill and never stop fretting about the body. Likely enough, he said. So shall we say that Asclepius,
knowing this, revealed the art of medicine for those whose bodies were healthy by nature and by regimen but who had some isolated ailment in them—for these and this condition he established the art, driving out their diseases with drugs and surgery, and prescribing their usual regimen so as not to harm their civic duties; but that for bodies diseased through and through he did not attempt, by regimens gradually draining and pouring in,
to give a man a long and miserable life, and let him beget offspring likely to be just as sickly, but rather thought that one who could not live out his natural span should not be treated, since this would benefit neither himself nor the city? You are describing, he said, a political Asclepius. Clearly so, I said—and his
children too, because he was such a man. Don't you see how at Troy they showed themselves good in war, and practiced medicine in the way I describe? Don't you remember that for Menelaus, wounded by Pandarus—'they sucked out the blood and sprinkled soothing drugs on it'—but as to what he should eat or drink afterward, they prescribed nothing more
than they did for Eurypylus, believing the drugs sufficient to heal men who were healthy and disciplined in their regimen before being wounded, even if they happened at that moment to drink a mixed potion; but for a man diseased by nature and undisciplined, they thought it worthwhile neither for himself nor for others that he should live, and that the art should not exist for such people, nor should they be treated, not even if they were richer than Midas.
Quite clever, he said, you make the sons of Asclepius out to be. It is fitting, I said—and yet, disobeying us in this, the tragedians and Pindar say that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, but was persuaded by gold to heal a rich man already at the point of death, for which he was struck by lightning. We, however, in keeping with what has already been said, will not believe both of these claims about him, but will say: if a god was his father, he was
not greedy for gain; and if he was greedy for gain, then no god was his father. Quite right, he said, that much is so. But what do you say about this, Socrates? Must we not have good doctors in the city? And would they not be, above all, those who have handled the most bodies, both healthy and diseased—and likewise good judges, those who have had dealings with all sorts of natures? Yes indeed,
I said, I do mean good ones. But do you know whom I consider such? If you tell me, he said. Well, I will try, I said; but you have asked a question that is not quite parallel in form. How so? he asked. Doctors, I said, would become most skilled if, from childhood on, in addition to learning the art, they had dealings with as many and as sickly bodies as possible, and had themselves suffered every disease and
were not by nature very healthy. For I do not think they treat body with body—if that were so, it would never be permissible for their own bodies to be, or become, diseased—but they treat body with soul, and a soul that has become and remains diseased cannot treat anything well. Rightly said, he replied. But a judge, my friend, rules soul with soul, and it is not permissible for a soul to have been raised from youth among wicked souls, to have consorted with them,
and to have gone through the whole range of wrongdoing itself, committing every injustice, so as to judge sharply the wrongs of others from its own experience, the way one judges bodily diseases; rather, it must be inexperienced and unstained by evil characters while young, if it is to be truly noble and good and to judge justly and soundly. That is why decent young people appear naive and are easily deceived by the unjust, since they
have within themselves no examples that match the feelings of the wicked. Indeed, he said, they suffer this quite badly. That is why, I said, the good judge must not be young but old, having learned late what injustice is like—not having perceived it as something native present in his own soul, but having studied it over a long time as something foreign present in the souls of others, learning to discern the nature of the evil it is,
by knowledge, not by experience of his own. Such a judge, at any rate, he said, seems to be a very noble one. And good too, I said, which is what you asked—for the one who has a good soul is good. But that clever, suspicious fellow, who has himself committed many wrongs and thinks himself shrewd and wise, when he deals with his like, appears clever, being wary and watching
the models within himself; but when he comes near good and older men, he then appears foolish, distrustful out of season and ignorant of a sound character, since he has no model of such a thing. But because he meets more wicked people than good ones, he seems wiser to himself and to others than he really is. Absolutely true, he said. So then, I said, it is not this kind of person we must look for as the good and wise judge,
but the other one; for wickedness could never come to know both virtue and itself, whereas virtue, in a nature that is educated over time, will come to acquire knowledge both of itself and of wickedness together. So it is this man, it seems to me, who becomes wise, not the bad one. I agree with that too, he said. Then will you also establish by law in the city a medicine such as we have described, together with a judicial practice of this kind,
which will care for the bodies and souls of those citizens who are well-formed by nature, but as for those who are not—of those unsound in body they will allow to die, and those depraved in soul and incurable they themselves will put to death? At any rate, he said, this has been shown to be the best thing both for the sufferers themselves and for the city. And the young,
clearly, will be careful, I said, to avoid needing your kind of judicial practice, using instead that simple music we said produces temperance. Of course, he said. And will not the musical man, pursuing gymnastic along these same lines, if he wishes, achieve it so as to have no need of medicine except when necessary? It seems so to me. And as for the gymnastic exercises and labors themselves, he will undertake them
looking to the spirited part of his nature and rousing that, rather than for the sake of mere strength—unlike other athletes, who manage their diet and exercise for the sake of bodily power alone. Quite right, he said. Then, I said, Glaucon, is it not the case that those who establish education in music and gymnastic do so not for the reason some suppose—that the one is to care for the body, the other for the
—soul? "What else?" he said. "It looks," I said, "as if both were established chiefly for the sake of the soul." "How so?" "Don't you notice," I said, "how the mind itself is affected in those who spend their whole lives at athletics without ever touching music, or conversely in those disposed the opposite way?" "What are you talking about?" he asked. "Savagery and hardness," I said, "and again softness and gentleness."
"Yes, I see it," he said. "Those who use unmixed athletics turn out more savage than they should, while those who use only music turn out softer than is good for them." "And yet," I said, "the savage element would come from the spirited part of one's nature, and if it's raised correctly it would be courage, but if it's stretched further than it should be, it would naturally become
hard and harsh." "So it seems to me," he said. "And what about gentleness? Wouldn't the philosophic nature possess it, and if that side is relaxed too far it becomes softer than it should, but if it's well raised it becomes gentle and orderly?" "That's so." "And we say the guardians must possess both these natures." "Yes, they must." "So mustn't
they be harmonized with each other?" "Of course." "And the soul in which they're harmonized is temperate and courageous?" "Quite so." "And the soul in which they're unharmonized is cowardly and boorish?" "Very much so." "So whenever someone lets music play its pipes over him and pour into his soul through his ears as through a funnel—as we were just now describing—those sweet, soft, and
mournful harmonies, and he spends his whole life humming and being enchanted by song, at first, if he had any spirit in him, that man softens it like iron and makes it useful instead of useless and hard; but when he goes on without letting up, and keeps being charmed instead, from that point on he melts it and dissolves it, until he has melted away his spirit entirely and cut out
the sinews, as it were, from his soul, and made a soft spearman of himself." "Quite so," he said. "And if he started out," I said, "with a naturally spiritless nature, he accomplishes this quickly; but if he was spirited, by weakening the spirit he makes it unstable, quickly provoked and quickly quenched by small things. So instead of being spirited such men become irritable and short-tempered, full of peevishness." "Exactly so."
"And what if, on the other hand, someone works hard at athletics and feasts very well, but never touches music or philosophy? At first, being in good bodily condition, doesn't he get filled with confidence and spirit and become more courageous than he was?" "Very much so." "But what happens when he does nothing else and has no share in the Muse at all? Even if there was some love of learning in
his soul, since it never tastes any study or inquiry, never takes part in argument or the rest of music, doesn't it become weak, deaf, and blind, since it's never roused or nourished, and its perceptions never get cleared out?" "That's so," he said. "Such a man becomes, I think, a hater of reasoned discourse and unmusical, and he no longer makes any use of persuasion through argument, but goes at everything by force and savagery,
like a wild beast, and lives in ignorance and awkwardness, without rhythm or grace." "That's exactly how it is," he said. "So for these two things, it seems, I would say some god has given human beings two arts, music and athletics, aimed at the spirited part and the philosophic part—not, strictly, at soul and body, except
incidentally—but at those two, so that they might be brought into harmony with each other by being stretched and relaxed to the proper degree." "Yes, it does seem so," he said. "So the man who blends music with athletics most beautifully and applies them to the soul in the best proportion—him we would most rightly call the truly musical and harmonious man, far more than the one who merely tunes the strings of an instrument together." "Rightly so, Socrates," he said. "And won't
we always need someone of this kind, Glaucon, as overseer in our city, if the constitution is to be preserved?" "We will need him, as much as possible." "These, then, would be the outlines of education and upbringing. Why should one go through the details of choral dances for such people, or their hunts and chases, their gymnastic contests and horse races?
It's fairly clear that these must follow from what we've said, and are no longer hard to find." "Perhaps not hard," he said. "Well then," I said, "what should we settle next? Isn't it the question of who among these people will rule and who will be ruled?" "Of course." "It's clear that the rulers must be the older ones, and the
ruled the younger?" "Clear." "And that the best of them must rule?" "That too." "And aren't the best farmers those who are most devoted to farming?" "Yes." "So now, since they must be the best of the guardians, mustn't they be most devoted to guarding the city?" "Yes." "So mustn't they be wise and capable for this task, and moreover have the city's interests at heart?" "That's so." "And a person would care most
about that which he happens to love." "Necessarily." "And he would love most that whose interests he believed coincided with his own, and where he thought that when it fared well, he himself fared well, and when it didn't, the opposite." "Just so," he said. "So we must select, from the rest of the guardians, men of this kind—those who, when we examine them, appear throughout their whole lives to be most eager
to do with all zeal whatever they believe benefits the city, and never willing to do, under any circumstance, what does not." "They would be suitable," he said. "It seems to me, then, that they must be watched at every stage of life, to see whether they keep guard over this conviction and are neither bewitched nor forced into casting it aside, forgetting the belief that one must do what is best for the city." "What
do you mean by this 'casting aside'?" he asked. "I'll tell you," I said. "It seems to me that a belief leaves the mind either willingly or unwillingly—willingly in the case of a false belief when someone learns better, unwillingly in every case of a true one." "I understand the willing case," he said, "but I need to learn about the unwilling one." "Well then, don't you too believe," I said, "that people
are deprived of good things unwillingly, but of bad things willingly? Or is it not bad to be deceived about the truth, and good to hold the truth? And don't you think holding true beliefs about things is what it means to speak truly?" "You're right," he said, "and it does seem to me that people are deprived of a true belief against their will." "So doesn't this happen to them through being robbed, or bewitched, or forced?" "I still don't
understand," he said. "I'm afraid I'm speaking too tragically," I said. "By 'robbed' I mean those who are argued out of their belief and those who forget it, because in the one case time, in the other an argument, takes it away without their noticing—do you follow now?" "Yes." "By 'forced,' I mean those whom some pain or suffering brings to change their belief." "I understood that too," he said, "and you're right." "And 'bewitched,' I think, you would agree describes those who
change their belief either because they are charmed by pleasure or frightened by some fear." "Yes, it does seem," he said, "that everything that deceives us bewitches us." "So, as I was just saying, we must look for the best guardians of the conviction within themselves that one must always do whatever seems best for the city. We must watch them, then, from childhood on, by setting them tasks in which
a person would be most likely to forget this principle or be deceived out of it, and we must select the one who remembers and is hard to deceive, and reject the one who is not. Isn't that right?" "Yes." "And we must also impose on them labors, pains, and contests in which the same qualities must be watched for." "Rightly so," he said. "Then," I said, "we must also set up a contest of a third kind, involving bewitchment, and observe them—just as people lead colts up to
noises and uproars to see if they're frightened—so too these young men must be brought into some terrors, and then again shifted into pleasures, testing them far more thoroughly than gold is tested in fire—to see whether each proves hard to bewitch and remains well-composed throughout, a good guardian of himself and of the music he was taught, showing himself rhythmic and well-attuned in all these trials, being the sort of person who would
be most useful to himself and to the city. And the one who is tested again and again, as a child, as a young man, and as a grown man, and comes through unspoiled—him we must establish as a ruler and guardian of the city, and give him honors both in life and after death, granting him the highest prizes in burial and other memorials. But the one who is not like this, we must reject. Something of this kind, I think,
Glaucon, is the process of selecting and establishing the rulers and guardians—as an outline, not spoken with precision." "And it seems that way to me too, more or less," he said. "So isn't it truly most correct to call these men, in the full sense, guardians against enemies from without and friends within—so that the latter will lack the will, and the former the power, to do harm—while the
younger men, whom we've just now been calling guardians, are auxiliaries and helpers to carry out the convictions of the rulers?" "That's how it seems to me," he said. "What device, then," I said, "could we find—one of those useful falsehoods we were just discussing—by which we might, through telling one grand falsehood, persuade above all the rulers themselves, or failing that, the rest of the city?" "What kind
of thing?" he asked. "Nothing new," I said, "but something Phoenician—something that has already happened many times in the past, as the poets say and have gotten people to believe, though it hasn't happened in our own time, and I don't know whether it could happen; it would take a great deal of persuading." "You seem," he said, "reluctant to say it." "You'll think," I said, "that I have very good reason to be reluctant, once I've said it." "Speak," he said, "and
don't be afraid." "I'll speak, then—though I don't know what boldness or what words I'll use to say it—and I'll try first to persuade the rulers themselves and the soldiers, and then the rest of the city, that all the upbringing and education we gave them were, as it were, things they only dreamed were happening to them, while in truth at that time they were being formed and reared beneath
the earth—themselves, their weapons, and all the rest of their equipment fashioned along with them—and that when they were completely finished, the earth, being their mother, sent them up; and now they must think of the land they're in as a mother and nurse, and take counsel for it and defend it if anyone attacks it, and regard the rest of the citizens
as brothers, born of the earth like themselves." "No wonder," he said, "you were so long ashamed to tell the falsehood." "Quite rightly so," I said. "But all the same, hear the rest of the story too. 'You are all brothers, all of you in the city'—so we shall say to them, telling the tale—'but the god who fashioned you mixed gold into those of you
"...mixed gold into their begetting — that's why they're the most honored — but silver into the auxiliaries, and iron and bronze into the farmers and the other craftsmen. Now since you're all related, for the most part you'll produce children like yourselves, but sometimes a silver child will be born from a golden parent, or a golden child from a silver one, and so on for all the rest, each from the other. So the god commands the rulers, first and above all, to be good guardians of nothing so much — to watch over nothing so intensely — as the children,
seeing which of these metals is mixed into their souls. And if a child of their own is born with an admixture of bronze or iron, they must show it no pity whatsoever, but give it the honor appropriate to its nature and thrust it out among the craftsmen or the farmers. And if,
conversely, one of these produces a child with gold or silver in it, they'll honor it and bring it up, some into the guardian class, some into the auxiliary — since there's an oracle that the city will be destroyed when an iron or bronze man guards it. So then — do you have some device by which they might be persuaded of this story?" "Not at all," he said, "not these men themselves — but perhaps their sons and those who come after, and the rest of humanity later on."
"Even that," I said, "would help make them more protective both of the city and of each other — for I pretty much understand what you mean. Well, this will go wherever rumor happens to carry it. As for us, let's arm these earthborn men and lead them forward, with the rulers
in command. Once they arrive, let them look for the best place in the city to make camp — a spot from which they could best hold down anyone inside who refuses to obey the laws, and best ward off anyone from outside, if an enemy comes at the flock like a wolf. And once they've made camp, after sacrificing to the proper gods, let them make their beds. Or how? "Just so," he said. "And these beds should be such as to keep out the cold in winter and be adequate for the summer" —
"of course." "For you seem to me to mean dwellings." "Yes," I said, "soldiers' dwellings, not money-making ones." "How do you mean this differs from that?" he said. "I'll try to tell you," I said. "It's surely the most terrible and shameful thing of all for shepherds to raise dogs as guardians of the flock in such a way, and to treat them so badly, that under the influence of indiscipline or hunger or some other bad habit the dogs themselves
turn to attacking the sheep and doing them harm, becoming more like wolves than dogs." "Terrible," he said, "of course." "So mustn't we guard in every way against our auxiliaries doing anything like that to the citizens — since they're stronger than the citizens — turning from kindly allies into savage masters?" "We must guard against it," he said. "And wouldn't they be equipped with the greatest safeguard against this
if they're truly well educated?" "But they are, surely," he said. And I said: "That point isn't worth insisting on too strongly, my dear Glaucon. What we were just saying is worth insisting on, though — that they must get the right education, whatever it turns out to be, if they're going to have the greatest thing needed for being gentle toward one another and toward those in their care." "And
rightly said," he replied. "Now besides this education, a person with sense would say that their dwellings and the rest of their property must be arranged in a way that neither stops them from being the best guardians possible nor incites them to do wrong to the other citizens." "And he'll say that truly." "See, then," I said, "whether they must live and be housed in some such manner as this,
if they're to be men of that sort. First, none of them should possess any private property, unless it's entirely unavoidable. Second, none should have a dwelling or storeroom into which anyone who wishes can't enter. As for their provisions — whatever is needed by disciplined and courageous men who are athletes of war — they should receive these, assessed from the other citizens, as pay
for their guardianship, enough for the year and no more; and they should attend common messes and live together like men in a military camp. As for gold and silver, we should tell them that they always have the divine kind within their souls, a gift from the gods, and have no further need of the human kind — that it would be impious to defile the possession of that divine gold by mixing it with the possession of mortal gold, since so much
unholy business has arisen over the currency the many use, while theirs remains untainted. Rather, alone among the people in the city, it isn't lawful for them to handle or touch gold and silver, or even come under the same roof as it, or wear it as ornament, or drink from vessels of silver or gold. In this way they'd be kept safe themselves and keep the city safe. But whenever they themselves acquire land
private land, together with dwellings and coined money, they'll turn into householders and farmers rather than guardians, and into hostile masters rather than allies of their fellow citizens; hating and hated in return, scheming and schemed against, they'll spend their entire lives fearing the people inside the city far more, and far more intensely, than the enemies outside — running, at that point, very close to ruin, themselves and
the rest of the city with them. For all these reasons, then," I said, "shall we say that the guardians must be arranged in this way regarding housing and everything else, and shall we legislate accordingly, or not?" "By all means," said Glaucon.
And Adeimantus broke in. "Socrates, how will you defend yourself if someone says you're not making these men very happy—and that through their own doing? The city genuinely belongs to them, and yet they get no good of it: they don't own land, as others do, or build fine big houses and furnish them accordingly,
or offer private sacrifices to the gods, or entertain guests, or possess gold and silver and all the things that are supposed to make people blessed—the very things you were just talking about. No, they simply sit in the city, so it seems, like hired mercenaries, doing nothing but stand guard." "Yes," I said, "and on top of that they work for their keep and don't even get pay
beyond their food, the way other people do—so that if they should ever want to travel privately, they won't be allowed to, or give presents to mistresses, or spend money in whatever other direction people who are thought happy spend it. You leave out these and plenty of other charges of the same kind." "Well," he said, "let those be included in the indictment too." "So what will our defense be, you're asking?" "Yes." "We'll find,
I think, that the same path leads us to what needs to be said. We'll say that it would be nothing surprising if these men, just as they are, were the happiest of all—but that isn't the point we had in view when we founded the city, that some one group in it should be outstandingly happy, but that the city as a whole should be, as much as possible. We thought that in a city of that kind we'd be most likely to find
justice, and in the worst-governed city, injustice, and that by observing both we could judge the question we've been pursuing all along. So right now, we think, we're molding the happy city—not by picking out a few people in it and setting them up as happy, but the city as a whole. In a moment we'll look at the opposite kind of city. Suppose someone came up to us while we were painting a statue and criticized us
for not putting the finest colors on the finest parts of the figure—since the eyes, the finest part, hadn't been painted purple but black—we'd think it a fair enough answer to say to him: 'My friend, don't suppose we ought to paint the eyes so beautiful that they no longer look like eyes at all, nor the other parts either—look instead at whether, by rendering each part appropriately, we make the whole beautiful. And in particular, right now, don't force
us to attach to the guardians a happiness of the kind that will turn them into anything but guardians. We know how to dress farmers in fine robes, deck them out in gold, and tell them to work the land for pleasure whenever they like; we know how to have the potters recline on their left side by the fire, drinking and feasting, with the wheel set beside them to throw pots whenever the fancy takes them; and we could make all the others happy in the same way,
so that the whole city is happy. But don't advise us like that—because if we listen to you, the farmer will no longer be a farmer, nor the potter a potter, nor will anyone else keep any of the roles that make up a city. Now for most of the others it matters less: cobblers who go bad and rot and pretend to be what they're not do no great harm to a city. But guardians
who aren't really guardians of the laws and the city, but only seem to be—you can see that they utterly destroy the whole city, root and branch, while they alone have the opportunity to govern it well and make it happy. Now if we're really making true guardians, men least likely to do harm to the city, while the man who raises this objection is thinking of something like farmers at a festival, feasting happily as if at a fair rather than
in a city, he'd be talking about something other than a city. So we must consider whether we're establishing the guardians with a view to their having the greatest possible happiness, or whether we should look instead to the whole city and see whether that happiness comes to be in it, while compelling and persuading these auxiliaries and guardians to do the thing that will make them
the best possible craftsmen of their own work, and likewise all the others—and so, as the whole city grows and is well ordered, we should allow each group to share in happiness to whatever extent its own nature allows." "Well," he said, "I think you put that well." "Then will you think I'm being reasonable," I said, "about the point related to this one?" "What point exactly?" "Consider whether it's these other craftsmen too
who are corrupted by certain things, so much so that they turn bad." "What things do you mean?" "Wealth," I said, "and poverty." "How so?" "Like this. Do you think a potter who's grown rich will still want to attend to his craft?" "Not at all," he said. "Won't he become lazier and more careless than he used to be?" "Much more." "So he becomes a worse potter?" "Yes," he said, "much worse." "And what's more, if from poverty he can't afford tools
or anything else his craft needs, he'll produce shoddier work, and he'll train his own sons, or anyone else he teaches, as worse craftsmen too." "Of course." "So under the influence of both, poverty and wealth, the products of the crafts get worse, and so do the craftsmen themselves." "So it appears." "Then it looks as though we've found some other things the guardians must guard against in every way, so that they never slip into the city unnoticed."
"What things are these?" "Wealth," I said, "and poverty—since the one breeds luxury, idleness, and a taste for novelty, and the other, besides a taste for novelty, breeds meanness and bad workmanship." "Quite so," he said. "But consider this too, Socrates: how will our city be able to wage war, once it has no money of its own—especially if it's forced to fight
a large and wealthy city?" "Clearly," I said, "it will be harder against one such city, but easier against two." "What do you mean?" he said. "Well, first of all," I said, "if they have to fight, won't they be fighting rich men, while they themselves are athletes of war?" "Yes, that's true," he said. "Well then,"
I said, "Adeimantus, don't you think a single boxer, trained as perfectly as possible for the job, could easily beat two men who aren't boxers, but are rich and fat?" "Perhaps not both at once," he said. "Not even," I said, "if he could keep retreating, then wheel round and hit whichever of the two kept pressing him first, and did this repeatedly, in the sun and the heat?"
"Wouldn't a man like that get the better of even more opponents of that kind?" "No doubt," he said, "there'd be nothing surprising in that." "And don't you think the rich have more expertise and experience in boxing than in warfare?" "I do," he said. "So it's likely our athletes will easily fight men twice or three times their own number." "I'll grant you that," he said, "you seem to be right." "And what
if they sent an embassy to the other city and told them the truth: 'We have no use for gold or silver, nor is it lawful for us to have it, though it is for you. So fight on our side, and you may keep what belongs to the other city.' Do you think anyone hearing that would choose to fight against tough, lean dogs rather than, with those dogs on their side, against fat, tender sheep?" "I don't think so." "But
suppose," he said, "the wealth of all the other cities gets gathered into one city—watch that this doesn't pose a danger to our city that has no wealth." "You're fortunate," I said, "if you think any city besides the kind we've been constructing deserves to be called a city at all." "Why, what else would you call them?" he said. "The others need a grander title," I said, "for each of them is a great many cities, not
a single city, as the saying goes in the game. Any one of them, whatever it is, is really two cities at war with each other: one of the poor, one of the rich, and within each of these there are a great many more, so that if you approach them as if they were one, you'll be quite wrong, but if you approach them as many, offering the wealth and power—or even the persons—of one group to the other,
you'll always have many allies and few enemies. And as long as your city is governed moderately, in the way we've just laid down, it will be the greatest city—not in reputation, I mean, but truly the greatest—even if it has only a thousand men to defend it. For you won't easily find a single city that great, either among Greeks or among barbarians, though you'll find many that are reputed to be, many times over, of that supposed size. Or do you think otherwise?"
"No, by Zeus," he said. "Then wouldn't this be the finest boundary for our rulers—how large the city must be made, and how much territory it should mark off to match that size, letting the rest go?" "What boundary is that?" he said. "I think it's this," I said: "let it grow only so long as it's willing to remain a unity while growing—only up to that point, and no
further." "That's a fine rule," he said. "Then this too is another instruction we'll give our guardians: to guard in every way against the city becoming either small or falsely great, but staying some adequate size and a single one." "And no doubt," he said, "we'll be giving them a trivial instruction." "Even more trivial than that," I said, "is the one we mentioned earlier, when we said
that if a child of the guardians turns out inferior, he must be sent down among the others, and if a child of the others turns out capable, he must be brought up among the guardians. This was meant to show that the other citizens too must each be directed to the one task for which their nature fits them, so that each, practicing his own single occupation, becomes one man and not many,
and so the whole city develops as a single unity rather than as many cities." "True," he said, "though that instruction is even slighter than the other." "It's not really, my good Adeimantus, that we're imposing many great burdens on them, as one might suppose, but all trivial ones—so long as they keep watch over the one great thing, as the saying goes—or rather, not great, but sufficient." "What's that?" he said. "Their education," I
said, "and their upbringing. For if by being well educated they become moderate men, they'll easily see through all these matters for themselves, and others too that we're now passing over—the possession of women, marriage, and the having of children—all of which, we know, must, in keeping with the proverb, be made as much as possible common among friends." "That would indeed be most correct," he said. "And besides," I said, "once a constitution
gets a good start, it proceeds like a circle, growing all the while—for sound rearing and education, when preserved, produce good natures, and good natures in turn, taking hold of that same kind of education, grow up even better than those before them, both in other respects and in their capacity to breed, as with the other animals too." "Likely enough," he said. "So, to put it briefly, this is the thing the overseers of the city must hold fast to, so that
it doesn't slip past them unnoticed and become corrupted, but so that they guard it above everything else: not introducing innovations in gymnastic and music contrary to the established order, but guarding them as strictly as possible, fearing it whenever someone says that people care most for 'that song which is newest on singers' lips'—lest someone often suppose the poet means not new songs, but a new manner of song,
—and praise it for that. But such a thing should be neither praised nor tolerated. We must be wary of changing to a new style of music, on the ground that this risks everything, since the modes of music never change without change in the greatest laws of the city—so Damon says, and I believe him.—Well then, said Adeimantus, put me down too among the believers.—So it seems, I said, that this is the place where the guard-post for our guardians must be built—in music.
—A lawless spirit, he said, easily creeps in unnoticed there.—Yes, I said, as if it were only a kind of play, and did no harm.—It does no other harm, he said, than this: settling in bit by bit, it quietly flows into manners and pursuits; and from there, grown larger, it emerges into people's dealings with one another;
and from those dealings, Socrates, it goes on to attack the laws and constitutions, with a great deal of insolence, until at last it overturns everything, private and public alike.—Well then, I said, is that how it is?—So it seems to me, he said.—Then isn't it true, as we said from the start, that our children must at once take part in a play that is more lawful, since if the play itself becomes lawless, and the children along with it, it is impossible for lawful
and serious men to grow up out of them?—How could it be otherwise? he said.—So then, whenever children who have begun well by playing within a lawful order absorb good order through music, the opposite of what happened before follows them into everything and makes it grow, correcting anything in the city that had gone wrong before.—True indeed, he said.—And so, I said, these people discover even the small things that seem to be mere customary rules—
the very things the earlier ones let slip entirely.—What sort of things?—Things like these: the silence that is proper for the young in the presence of their elders, and giving up seats to them, and rising for them, and care for parents, and again their haircuts, and clothing, and footwear, and the whole bearing of the body, and everything else of that kind. Don't you think so?—I do.—But to legislate about these things, I think, would be foolish; for they neither come about
nor would they last if legislated by word and written statute.—How could they?—At any rate, I said, Adeimantus, it seems that wherever a person sets out from in his upbringing, what follows tends to match it. Or doesn't like always call to like?—Of course.—And in the end, I suppose, we would say that it comes out at some one complete and vigorous result, whether good
or the opposite.—Of course, he said.—For my part then, I said, for these reasons I would no longer attempt to legislate about such matters.—Reasonably so, he said.—But what, in heaven's name, I said, about matters of the marketplace—the contracts people make with one another in trading, and, if you like, contracts among craftsmen too, and slander, and assault,
and the filing of lawsuits, and the appointment of jurors, and whatever dues or transactions or assessments are required in the markets or harbors, or in general anything to do with market regulation or city regulation or harbor regulation, or anything else of that kind—shall we venture to legislate about any of this?—It isn't worth it, he said, to give orders to fine and good men about such things; most of what needs to be legislated in these matters
they will easily find out for themselves.—Yes, my friend, I said, provided a god grants them the preservation of the laws we went through earlier.—And if not, he said, they will go on all their lives making one such law after another and correcting them, thinking they will hit upon what is best.—You mean, I said, that people like that will live like invalids who, out of self-indulgence, are unwilling to give up
their unhealthy way of life.—Exactly.—And indeed these people carry on quite charmingly: for all their treatment they accomplish nothing, except to make their ailments more varied and severe, always hoping that if someone recommends a remedy, that will make them well.—Yes indeed, he said, that is just what happens to people who are sick in that way.—And here is a further charming trait of theirs, I said: they consider the man who tells them the truth
their worst enemy—the one who tells them that until they stop their drinking and stuffing themselves and chasing pleasure and idleness, no medicine, no cautery, no surgery, no charm, no amulet, nothing of that sort will do them any good.—Not charming at all, he said; there's no charm in being angry at someone who's telling you the truth.—You're not, it seems, an admirer, I said, of men like that.
—No, by Zeus, I am not.—So then, if the whole city does the same thing—as we were just saying—you won't approve of that either. Or don't you think that the cities that are badly governed do the very same thing as these men, when they warn their citizens not to disturb the constitution of the city as a whole, on pain of death for anyone who does so, while whoever pleases them most, governed as they are, by fawning on them
and flattering them, anticipating their wishes and skillfully satisfying them—that man will be considered a good man, wise in great matters, and will be honored by them?—Yes, that is exactly what they seem to me to do, he said, and I don't approve of it in the least.—And what about those who are willing to serve such cities, and eager to do so—don't you admire their courage and readiness?
—I do, he said, except for those who have been deceived by them and think they really are statesmen, because they are praised by the many.—What do you mean?—Don't you sympathize, I said, with the men themselves? Or do you think it possible for a man who does not know how to measure, when many others just as ignorant tell him he is four cubits tall, not to believe this about himself?—No, he said, that at least is not possible.
—Then don't be harsh with them; for surely people of this sort are, in a way, the most charming of all—making laws such as we just described, and correcting them, always thinking they will find some limit to the wrongdoing in contracts and in the matters I was just speaking of, not realizing that they are, in truth, cutting off a Hydra's heads.—Yes indeed, he said, that's exactly what they're doing.—For my part, then,
I said, I would not think the true lawgiver ought to concern himself with this kind of law and constitution, whether in a badly governed city or a well-governed one—in the latter case because it is useless and accomplishes nothing further, and in the former because some of these things anyone at all could discover, while others follow automatically from the practices already established.—What then, he said, would still
remain for us to legislate about?—And I said that nothing remained for us, but for Apollo at Delphi remained the greatest, finest, and first of the enactments.—What sort of things? he said.—The founding of temples, and sacrifices, and other forms of worship for gods and daimons and heroes; and again the burial of the dead, and whatever rites must be performed for those
in the world below to keep them gracious to us. For such matters we ourselves have no knowledge, and in founding our city we will trust no other guide, if we have any sense, nor make use of any interpreter but the ancestral one; for this god, surely, is for all mankind the ancestral interpreter in such things, seated at the navel in the middle of the earth, and interprets from there.—And you're quite right, he said, to say so; and this is what must be done.
—Well then, I said, your city, son of Ariston, would now be founded. As for what comes next, look into it within the city itself—getting hold of a sufficient light from somewhere—and call on your brother, and Polemarchus, and the others, to see if we can somehow discover where justice might be in it, and where injustice, and how the two
differ from each other, and which of the two the man who is to be happy must possess, whether or not it is hidden from all gods and men.—You're not making sense, said Glaucon; you promised you would search for it yourself, since you said it would not be right for you not to come to the defense of justice with all your power, in every way.—You're right, I said, to remind me of that, and it must indeed be done that way, but you too must lend a hand.—Well then,
he said, we shall do so.—I hope, then, I said, to find it this way. I think our city, if it has indeed been founded correctly, is completely good.—It must be, he said.—Clearly, then, it is wise, and courageous, and moderate, and just.—Clearly.—So whichever of these qualities we find in it, what remains will be the one not yet found?—Of course.—Just as, then,
with any other set of four things, if we were looking for one particular one of them in something, and we recognized that one first, that would be enough for us; but if we recognized the other three first, that very fact would identify the one we were looking for—for clearly it could be nothing else than what was left over.—You're right, he said.—So then, since these too happen to be four, shouldn't we search for them in the same way?—Clearly so.
—Well now, it seems to me that the first thing plainly visible in it is wisdom; and there is something odd about it. What is it? he said.—The city we have described really does seem to me to be wise; for it is well-counseled, isn't it?—Yes.—And this very quality, sound deliberation, is obviously some sort of knowledge; surely it is not by ignorance
but by knowledge that people counsel well.—Clearly.—But there are many and various kinds of knowledge in the city.—Of course.—Is it, then, on account of the knowledge of the carpenters that the city should be called wise and well-counseled?—Not at all, he said, not on account of that, but rather it would be called skilled in carpentry.—So it is not on account of the knowledge concerning wooden furniture, deliberating about how best to have it, that a city should be called wise.
—No indeed.—What then? On account of the knowledge concerning bronze goods, or any other such knowledge?—Not on account of any of them, he said.—Nor on account of the knowledge concerning the production of crops from the earth, but rather it would be called skilled in farming.—So it seems to me.—What then, I said—is there some knowledge, among certain of the citizens in the city we have just founded, by which one deliberates not about
some particular thing in the city, but about the city as a whole, in what way it may best deal with itself and with other cities?—There is indeed.—What is it, I said, and among whom is it found?—This, he said, is the guardian knowledge, and it is found among these rulers whom we just now called the complete guardians.—On account of this knowledge, then, what do you call the city?
—Well-counseled, he said, and truly wise.—Which then, I said, do you suppose there will be more of in our city—bronzesmiths, or these true guardians?—Bronzesmiths, he said, far more.—And of all the others too, I said, who are called experts in some knowledge, wouldn't these be the fewest of all?—Far the fewest.—So it is by virtue of the smallest class and part of itself, and the knowledge within
this class—that of the one who presides and rules—that a whole city, founded according to nature, would be wise; and this, it seems, is by nature the fewest in number of all the classes, the one to which alone it belongs to have a share in that knowledge which alone, of all the kinds of knowledge, ought to be called wisdom.—Most true, he said.—This, then, is one of the four that we have found, I don't quite know how, itself and where in the city
— is established in the city. At any rate it seems to me that we've found it adequately. — But surely courage itself, and the part of the city in which it resides, on account of which the city is to be called courageous, isn't at all hard to see. — How so? — Who, I said, looking to anything else, would call a city cowardly or courageous, except to that part of it which fights and campaigns on its behalf?
— No one would look to anything else, he said. — For I don't think, I said, that the others in it, whether cowardly or courageous, would have the authority to make the city one way or the other. — No, they wouldn't. — So a city is courageous by virtue of some part of itself, on account of that part's having a power of the kind that will preserve, throughout,
the judgment about what things are to be feared — that these things are the same and of the same kind as those the lawgiver proclaimed in their education. Or is this not what you call courage? — I didn't quite follow what you said, he said; say it again. — I mean, I said, that courage is a kind of preservation. — What sort of preservation? —
The preservation of the judgment, produced by law through education, about what things are to be feared and what sort they are. And by 'throughout' I meant its preservation amid pains and pleasures and desires and fears alike, without being cast out. If you like, I'll compare it to something I think it resembles. — I do like it. — Well then, you know that dyers,
when they want to dye wool so that it's a genuine purple, first select from all the many colors a single kind, the white, and then prepare it beforehand with no small preparation, so that it will take the hue as fully as possible, and only then do they dye it. And whatever is dyed in this way becomes fast in its color, and no washing, whether with soap or without soap,
can strip away its bloom. But whatever is dyed otherwise — you know what happens, whether one dyes other colors, or even this same one without the preliminary treatment. — I know, he said, that they come out washed-out and ridiculous. — Well, I said, suppose that we too, to the best of our power, were doing something of this kind when we selected the soldiers and educated them in music and gymnastic. Think that we contrived nothing else than
that, persuaded as beautifully as possible, they should take in the laws like a dye, so that their judgment about what is to be feared, and about everything else, might become fast in them, owing to their having the right nature and the right nurture, and so that these solvents shouldn't wash the dye out of them — solvents that are terribly good at scouring it out: pleasure, which is more potent for this than any lye or
soda, and pain, and fear, and desire, more potent than any other solvent. This power then, and this preservation, throughout, of right and lawful judgment about what is to be feared and what is not, is what I for my part call and posit as courage — unless you mean something else by it. — No, nothing else, he said; for I think you regard the right judgment about these same matters,
when it arises without education — the sort found in beasts and slaves — as not at all lawful, and you'd call it something other than courage. — What you say is very true, I said. — Well then, I accept that this is courage. — Yes, accept it, I said, as civic courage, and you'll be accepting it correctly. We'll go through it again more thoroughly later, if you like; for now it isn't this we were seeking, but justice,
and for the purpose of that inquiry, I think, what we have is sufficient. — Well said, he replied. — Two things still remain, I said, that we need to make out in the city: moderation, and that for whose sake we're inquiring into all of this, justice. — Quite so. — How then might we find justice, so that we no longer need to trouble ourselves about moderation? — For my part, he said, I neither
know, nor would I wish it to come to light first, if it means we won't go on to examine moderation; but if you want to do me a favor, look into this before that. — Well, I said, I do want to, if I'm not doing anything wrong by it. — Then look, he said. — I must look, I said; and, as far as one can see from here, it resembles a kind of concord and harmony more than the previous ones did. — How so? — Moderation, I said, is a sort of order,
a mastery of certain pleasures and desires, as people say — using the phrase 'being stronger than oneself,' I don't know quite how — and other such expressions are used, as it were traces of it. Isn't that so? — Very much so, he said. — Now isn't 'being stronger than oneself' a ridiculous phrase? For surely the one who is stronger than himself would also be weaker than himself, and the weaker, stronger; for it's the same person
who's being addressed in all these expressions. — Of course. — But, I said, this way of speaking seems to me to want to say that within the man himself, in respect to his soul, there's a better part and a worse part, and whenever the part that's better by nature is in control of the worse, this is called 'being stronger than oneself' — it's a term of praise — but whenever, from bad upbringing
or bad company, the better part, being smaller, is overpowered by the multitude of the worse, then this condition is denounced, as a reproach, and the person so disposed is called 'weaker than himself' and licentious. — Yes, that does seem right, he said. — Look then, I said, at our new city, and you'll find one of these two conditions present in it; for you'll rightly say it is stronger than itself,
if indeed that in which the better rules over the worse is to be called moderate and stronger than itself. — Well, I am looking, he said, and what you say is true. — And moreover, one would find the many and varied desires and pleasures and pains chiefly among children and women and household slaves, and among that portion of those called free who are of the inferior, common sort.
— Quite so. — Whereas the simple and measured desires, those that are guided by intellect together with right judgment, using reasoning, you'll find in only a few, and those the best by nature and the best educated. — True, he said. — And don't you see this present too in your city — the desires of the common, inferior many being mastered
there by the desires and the good sense present in the fewer and more refined? — I do, he said. — If then any city is to be called stronger than pleasures and desires, and stronger than itself, this one must be so called. — Absolutely, he said. — And isn't it, then, moderate as well, on all these accounts? — Very much so, he said. — And moreover, if indeed, in any other city
the same judgment is present among both rulers and ruled about who ought to rule, this too would be present in this city. Or don't you think so? — Yes, very much so, he said. — In which of the citizens, then, will you say moderation resides, when they're disposed this way — in the rulers or in the ruled? — In both, I suppose, he said. — Do you see, then,
I said, that we were divining rather well just now, when we said that moderation resembles a kind of harmony? — How so? — Because, unlike courage and wisdom, each of which, residing in some one part, made the city wise or courageous respectively, moderation doesn't work that way; instead it literally stretches through the whole, across every string, producing a concord between the weakest and the strongest
and the middle ones — whether in point of good sense, if you like, or of strength, or, if you prefer, of numbers or wealth or anything else of that sort — so that we could most correctly say that this unanimity is moderation: an accord, in accordance with nature, between the worse and the better as to which of the two should rule, both in the city and in each individual. — I quite agree, he said. — Well then,
I said, three things have now been sighted by us in the city, as far as it appears at least this way; but as for the remaining form on account of which a city might still have a share in virtue, what could that be? For clearly it is justice. — Clearly. — So now, Glaucon, we must, like hunters, stand round the thicket in a circle and pay close attention, in case
justice slips away somewhere and disappears from sight, becoming invisible. For it's plain that it's somewhere in this area; so look, and be eager to make it out, in case you should happen to see it before I do, and tell me. — I wish I could, he said. — But you'd be doing me a fair enough service if you'd just follow me and be able to see what's pointed out. — Follow I will, I said, once you've prayed along with me.
I'll do that, he said, but only lead the way. — Well, I said, the place certainly looks hard to travel and shadowy; at any rate it's dark and hard to search through. But all the same we must go on. — Yes, we must go on, he said. And catching sight of something, I said, — There! There, Glaucon! We seem to have gotten hold of some track, and I don't think it will escape us entirely. — Good news, he said.
Indeed, I said, our situation has been rather sluggish. — How so? — For a long time now, my good man, it appears to have been rolling about at our feet from the very beginning, and we simply didn't see it — we were being utterly ridiculous, like people who sometimes go looking for the very thing they're holding in their hands. We weren't looking at it itself, but off somewhere in the distance, which is no doubt why it escaped
our notice. — How so? he asked. — Like this, I said: it seems to me that in speaking of it and hearing about it for a long time now, we haven't been understanding ourselves — that in a way we've been talking about it all along. — That's a long preamble, he said, for someone eager to hear the point. — Well, I said, listen and see if I'm making sense. What we laid down at the outset as something that had to be done throughout, when we were founding the city — this,
as it seems to me, is justice, or some form of it. And what we laid down, and often said, if you remember, was that each single person ought to practice the one occupation in the city for which his nature was best suited. — Yes, we said that. — And moreover, that doing one's own work and not meddling in many things is justice — this too we've heard from many others
and have often said ourselves. — Yes, we've said it. — This, then, my friend, I said, when it happens in a certain way, turns out to be justice — doing one's own. Do you know what I infer this from? — No, tell me, he said. — It seems to me, I said, that what's left over in the city, of the things we've examined — moderation, courage, and wisdom — is this thing, which gave to all of those
the power to come into being, and, once they had come into being, provided for their preservation, for as long as it remains present. And yet we said that justice would be what was left over of those, once we'd found the three. — Yes, that follows necessarily, he said. — But surely, I said, if we had to judge which of these, coming to be present in it, will make our city good above all, it would be hard to judge whether it's the unanimity of the rulers
—and among the rulers, or whether it's the preservation, among the soldiers, of the lawful belief about what things are to be feared and what are not, or the wisdom and vigilance present in the rulers—or whether it's this above all that makes the city good: the fact that it is present in child and woman, slave and free, craftsman and ruler and ruled alike, that each one, being one person, did his own work and didn't meddle in many things.
—That's hard to judge, he said. —Of course it is. So it seems that this power—each person in the city doing his own work—rivals its wisdom, its moderation, and its courage as a contribution to the virtue of the city. —Very much so, he said. —Then wouldn't you rank justice as a rival to these in contributing to the city's virtue? —Absolutely. —Consider it this way too, and see whether it will appear so.
Will you assign to the rulers in the city the job of judging lawsuits? —Of course. —And in judging, will they aim at anything more than this: that no one should hold onto another's property, and no one should lose his own? —No, just that. —On the ground that this is just? —Yes. —So in this way too, having and doing one's own—what belongs to oneself—would be agreed to be justice.
—That's so. —Now see whether you agree with what I think. If a carpenter undertakes to do the work of a shoemaker, or a shoemaker that of a carpenter, or they exchange one another's tools or honors, or even the same person tries to do both, and all the other trades get exchanged—does that seem to you to do the city any great harm? —Not really, he said. —But whenever, I think, a craftsman
or some other person naturally suited for moneymaking, then puffed up by wealth or numbers or strength or something of that sort, tries to move into the class of the warrior, or one of the warriors tries to move into the class of the counselors and guardians though unworthy of it, and these people exchange one another's tools and honors, or when the same person tries to do all these things at once—
then, I think, you too would agree that this change and meddling among them is ruin for the city. —Absolutely. —Then meddling among the three classes, and exchange with one another, is the greatest harm to the city, and could most rightly be called, above all, wrongdoing. —Quite so. —And won't you say that the greatest wrongdoing against one's own city is injustice? —Of course.
—So that is injustice. Now let's put it this way again: the moneymaking class, the auxiliary class, the guardian class, each doing its own work in the city—wouldn't that be the opposite of the former, and be justice, and make the city just? —It seems to me it can be no other way than this, he said. —Let's not yet, I said, state this too rigidly, but if
this pattern, once applied to each single human being, is agreed to be justice there too, we'll grant it then—for what else could we say?—but if not, we'll examine something else. For now, let's finish the inquiry we set out on: we thought that if we first tried to observe justice in something larger, where it exists, we would more easily discern what it is like in one man. And
it seemed to us that this larger thing was the city, and so we founded it as best we could, knowing well that justice would be present in a good city. Let's now apply what appeared to us there to the individual, and if it's agreed to fit, all will be well; but if something different appears in the individual, we'll go back again to the city and test it, and perhaps by examining the two side by side
and rubbing them together, we might make justice flash out as if from fire-sticks; and once it has come to light, we'll confirm it firmly for ourselves. —Well, he said, you're pointing the right way, and that's what we must do. —Then, I said, when one thing is called by the same name whether it's larger or smaller, is it unlike in the respect in which it's called the same, or is it like? —Like, he said. —So a just man,
then, will not differ at all, so far as the very form of justice goes, from a just city, but will be like it. —Like, he said. —But surely the city seemed to be just when the three classes of natures within it each did its own work, and moderate and courageous and wise through certain other affections and states belonging to these same classes. —True, he said.
—Then, my friend, we shall likewise hold that the individual, having these same forms in his own soul, is rightly credited with the same names as the city, on account of the same affections in each. —That follows of necessity, he said. —Well, I said, we've fallen into a trifling little inquiry, my astonishing friend—whether or not the soul has these three forms in it.
—It doesn't seem trifling to me at all, he said; perhaps, Socrates, the saying is true, that fine things are hard. —So it appears, I said. And you can be sure of this, Glaucon: in my opinion, we will never grasp this precisely by the methods we're now using in our discussion—there's another road, longer and further about,
that leads to it—though perhaps we can reach something worthy of what's been said and examined so far. —Isn't that enough? he said. For my part, that would be quite sufficient for now. —Well, I said, it will be quite enough for me too. —Then don't grow weary, he said, but keep looking. —Then, I said, isn't it a great necessity for us to agree that the same things are present in each of us—
the same forms and dispositions as are in the city? For surely they haven't gotten there from anywhere else. It would be absurd if someone thought that spiritedness didn't arise in cities from the private individuals who are in fact charged with having it—for example, the people of Thrace and Scythia, and pretty much the whole region to the north—or
the love of learning, which one would attribute above all to the region around us, or the love of money, which one would say belongs especially to the Phoenicians and the people of Egypt. —Very much so, he said. —Well, that's how things stand, I said, and it's not hard to know. —No, indeed. —But here's the hard part already: whether we do each of these things
with the same part of ourselves, or whether, since there are three parts, we do one thing with one and another with another—learning with one part, feeling anger with another of the things in us, and desiring with yet a third the pleasures of nourishment and procreation and all their kin—or whether it's with the whole soul that we act in each case, once we've set out to do it. That will be hard to determine properly. —I think so too, he said. —Well then, let's
try to define them this way, whether they are the same as one another or different. —How? —Clearly, the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposite things at the same time, in the same respect and in relation to the same object, so that if we ever find this happening in them, we'll know it wasn't one thing but several. —All right. —Consider then what I mean. —Say it, he said. —Can the same thing, I said, be standing still and moving
at the same time, in the same respect? —In no way. —Let's agree even more precisely, then, so we don't run into disputes as we proceed. If someone said that a man standing still, but moving his hands and his head, is the same man standing still and moving at the same time, we wouldn't think, I imagine, that we ought to speak that way, but rather that part of him is standing still and part is moving. Isn't that
so? —So. —And if the man making these claims got even cleverer still, and cleverly pointed out that tops as a whole both stand still and move at the same time, when they spin around fixed on the same point, or that anything else going around in a circle on the same spot does this too, we wouldn't accept it, on the ground that such things are not, in that respect, both at rest and
in motion relative to themselves; rather we would say that they have both a straight axis and a circular path within them, and with respect to the straight axis they stand still—for they don't tilt in any direction at all—while with respect to the circular path they move in a circle; and when, while spinning, they lean their axis to the right or the left or forward or backward, then they are in no way standing still at all. —And rightly so,
he said. —So none of these claims will disconcert us, nor persuade us any further that one and the same thing could ever, simultaneously, in the same respect and toward the same object, undergo, or be, or do opposites. —Not me, anyway, he said. —Still, I said, so that we won't be forced to go through all such disputes one by one and confirm at length that they aren't
true, let's assume this holds and move forward, agreeing that if it should ever appear otherwise than this, everything we've concluded from it will be undone. —Yes, we must do that, he said. —Then, I said, would you count nodding assent as opposite to shaking one's head in refusal, and reaching to grasp something as opposite to declining it, and drawing something toward oneself as opposite to pushing it away—
would you class all things of this sort as opposites of one another, whether as things done or things undergone? It won't matter which. —Yes, he said, as opposites. —Well then, I said—being thirsty and hungry, and desires generally, and again willing and wishing—wouldn't you put all these somewhere among those forms just mentioned? For instance,
wouldn't you say that the soul of someone desiring always either reaches out for that which it desires, or draws toward itself the thing it wishes to come to be its own, or, insofar as it wills something to be provided for it, nods assent to this within itself, as if someone were asking it, reaching out in longing for its coming to be? —I would, he said. —And what about not-willing, and being unwilling, and not desiring—shouldn't we class these among pushing away and driving something
off from itself, and among all the things opposite to those others? —Of course. —This being so, shall we say that desires form a class, and that the clearest of these are the ones we call thirst and hunger? —We shall say so, he said. —Isn't one the desire for drink, the other for food? —Yes. —Then insofar as it is thirst, would it be a desire in the soul for anything more than what we're speaking of—
that is, is thirst, as thirst, a desire for warm drink or cold, for much or little, or in a word for drink of some particular quality? Or rather, if some heat is present along with the thirst, would that additionally produce a desire for something cold, and if coldness is present, a desire for something hot? And if, because of the presence of a great quantity, the thirst is great,
will it produce a desire for a great quantity, and if it's slight, for a small quantity? But thirst itself will never be a desire for anything other than what it is by nature a desire for—drink itself; and likewise hunger for food. —So it is, he said; each desire itself is only for the thing itself that it is by nature a desire for, while the desire for this or that particular kind is something added on. —Let no one, I said, catch us unprepared
—that anyone might raise against us and confuse us, saying that no one desires drink as such, but good drink, nor food as such, but good food; since everyone, after all, desires good things—so if thirst is a desire, it would be desire for something good, whether that be drink or whatever else it is desire of, and the same for all the other desires. Perhaps, he said, whoever says this might seem to have a point. But all the same, I said—
—all things, I said, that are of such a kind as to be of something, some of them are of a particular something qualified, as it seems to me, while others are simply themselves, each in relation only to itself, unqualified. I didn't understand, he said. You didn't understand, I said, that the greater is such as to be greater than something? Certainly. Than the lesser, isn't that so? Yes. And the much greater than the much lesser. Isn't that so?
Yes. Well then, is what is at some time greater also at some time lesser, and what will be greater related to what will be lesser? Of course, he said. And so too the more in relation to the less, and the double in relation to the half, and all such things, and again the heavier in relation to the lighter, and the faster in relation to the slower, and further, the hot in relation to
the cold, and everything of that kind—isn't it so in every case? Certainly. And what about the sciences? Isn't it the same pattern? Science itself is the science of learning itself, or of whatever we ought to set science in relation to, while a particular science, qualified in some way, is the science of some particular qualified thing. I mean something like this: once there came to be a science of house-building,
didn't it differ from the other sciences, so as to be called the science of building? Of course. Wasn't that because it is qualified in a particular way, unlike any of the others? Yes. And wasn't it because it was of a particular qualified object that it itself became qualified in a particular way? And likewise all the other arts and sciences? That's how it is. This, then, I said, is what I meant to say before, if in fact
you now understand—that whatever things are such as to be of something, taken just by themselves, are related only to themselves, but the things that are qualified in some particular way are related to something qualified in some particular way. And I don't mean that the sciences are such as the things they are of—as though the science of healthy and diseased things were itself healthy and diseased, or the science of bad and good things were itself bad and good—but rather, since it did not become the science
of that very thing of which science as such is the science, but of some particular qualified thing—and this was the healthy and the diseased—it thereby turned out to be itself qualified in a particular way, and this is what made it no longer be called simply science, but, once the particular qualification was added, medicine. I understand, he said, and it seems to me to be so. As for thirst, then, I said, won't you set it down as one of those things that are of some particular
something—being what it is? Thirst is, after all, surely thirst of—Yes, he said—of drink. So then thirst for a particular kind of drink is a particular kind of thirst, but thirst itself is neither for much nor for little, neither for good nor for bad, nor in a word for any particular qualified thing, but is by its nature thirst simply for drink itself? Absolutely so. So the soul of the thirsty person,
insofar as it thirsts, wants nothing else than to drink, and toward this it strains and toward this it is impelled. Clearly so. So then, if ever something pulls it back when it is thirsty, that would have to be something different in it from the very thing that thirsts and drives it, beast-like, toward drinking? For surely, we say, the same thing does not act in opposite ways toward the same object simultaneously and with one and the same part of itself.
That's right, he said. Just as, I think, with an archer, it isn't right to say that his hands at once push the bow away and draw it toward him, but rather that one hand is the one pushing it away, and a different one the one drawing it in. Absolutely, he said. Now shall we say that there are people who, though thirsty, are at times unwilling to drink? Yes indeed, he said,
many people, many times. What then, I said, should one say about them? Isn't it that there is present in their soul something that bids them drink, and also something that forbids it, something different that overpowers the thing that bids? It seems so to me, he said. And doesn't the forbidding element, whenever it arises in such cases, arise from reasoning, while the elements that drive and drag come about through feelings
and diseased states? So it appears. So it isn't unreasonable, I said, to hold that these are two distinct things, different from one another—calling the part with which the soul reasons the rational part, and the part with which it feels desire and hunger and thirst and is agitated over the other appetites the irrational, appetitive part, companion of certain satisfactions and pleasures. No, he said, it is quite reasonable
to think of them in this way. Let these, then, I said, be marked off as two distinct kinds present in the soul. But as for spirit, and the part with which we feel anger—is it a third thing, or would it be of the same nature as one of these two? Perhaps, he said, of the same nature as the other one, the appetitive part. But, I said, I once heard something I trust—that Leontius, son of Aglaion, coming up from the Piraeus,
outside, under the north wall, noticed some corpses lying by the public executioner, and he wanted to look, yet at the same time felt disgust and turned himself away, and for a while he struggled and covered his face, but then, overpowered by the desire, he tore his eyes wide open and ran up to the corpses, saying, 'There you are, damn you—have your fill of the beautiful sight!' I too have heard that, he said.
This account, I said, shows that anger sometimes wars against the appetites, as one thing against another. Yes, it does, he said. And don't we often notice elsewhere too, whenever desires force someone against his reasoning, that he reviles himself and grows angry at the part within him that is doing the forcing, and that, as in a battle between two factions, spirit becomes the ally of reason in such a person? And when
it makes common cause with the appetites, when reason decides it ought not act against it—I don't think you would say you've ever noticed such a thing happening in yourself, nor, I think, in anyone else. No, by Zeus, he said. And what, I said, when someone believes he's doing wrong? Isn't it true that the nobler he is, the less able he is to feel anger, even when suffering hunger, cold, or anything of the sort
at the hands of one whom he believes is justly inflicting these things on him, and, as I say, his spirit refuses to be roused against that person? True, he said. But what about when a person believes he is being wronged? Doesn't his spirit boil and grow fierce in that case, and side with what seems just, and, through enduring hunger and cold and all such sufferings,
does it not hold out and win through, and not let up from its noble efforts, until it either succeeds, or dies, or, like a dog called back by its shepherd, is soothed by the reasoning within the man himself? Very much so, he said, it does resemble what you say—and indeed, in our city, we set the auxiliaries like dogs, obedient to the rulers who are like shepherds of the city. You understand well, I said,
what I mean to say. But do you also notice this further point? What is that? That the case regarding the spirited part now appears just the opposite of what we thought a moment ago. Then we supposed it was a kind of appetitive thing, but now we say it is far from that—rather, in the civil strife of the soul, it takes up arms much more on the side of the rational part. Absolutely, he said.
Is it, then, distinct from this rational part too, or is it some form of the rational, so that there would not be three but two kinds in the soul, the rational and the appetitive? Or, just as in the city there were three classes holding it together—the money-making, the auxiliary, and the deliberative—so also in the soul is this spirited element a third thing, a natural ally of the rational part, provided it is not corrupted by bad upbringing? It must be
a third, he said. Yes, I said, provided it appears as something other than the rational, just as it appeared to be other than the appetitive. But that's not hard to show, he said; one can see it even in small children, that they are full of spirit right from birth, whereas some, it seems to me, never come to share in reasoning at all, and most only quite late. Yes,
by Zeus, I said, well put. And further, one could see in animals too that what you say is so. And besides these, there's what we quoted before, the line of Homer that will bear witness: 'He struck his breast and rebuked his heart with a word.' For there Homer has clearly represented one part as rebuking another, the part that has reasoned about
the better and the worse rebuking the part that feels anger irrationally. Quite right, he said. So then, I said, we have with difficulty swum across this argument, and we have reached fair agreement that the same kinds, equal in number, exist both in the city and in the soul of each individual. That is so. Then it's already necessary that, just as the city was wise, and by virtue of what,
so too the individual is wise, and by the same thing? Of course. And by whatever the individual is brave, and in whatever way, by that same thing and in that same way the city is brave too, and that in everything else pertaining to virtue both are alike? Necessarily. And we shall say, Glaucon, I think, that a man is just in the very same manner in which the city was just. And this is altogether necessary. But surely
we haven't forgotten this—that the city was just by each of its three classes doing its own proper task within it. We don't seem to have forgotten it, he said. We must remember, then, that each of us too, in whom each of the parts within him does its own proper task, will be a just person, and one who does what is his own. Yes indeed, he said, we must remember that.
So then it belongs to the rational part to rule, since it is wise and has forethought on behalf of the whole soul, and it belongs to the spirited part to be obedient to it and its ally? Certainly. And won't a blending of music and gymnastic, as we said, render these two parts harmonious, tuning the one and nourishing it with fine words and studies, and relaxing the other, soothing it, taming it through harmony
and rhythm? Quite so, he said. And these two, thus raised, and having truly learned and been trained in their own proper functions, will take charge of the appetitive part—which is the greatest part of the soul in each of us, and by nature the most insatiable of wealth—and will watch over it, so that it does not, by being filled with the so-called pleasures of the body, become great and strong and no longer do its own work, but rather attempt to enslave
and rule over the parts it has no business ruling by its very nature, and so overturn the whole life of everyone. Yes indeed, he said. So then, I said, would these two also best guard against enemies from outside, on behalf of soul and body alike in their entirety—the one taking counsel, the other fighting in front, following the ruler and carrying out by its courage what has been decided?
That's so. And courageous, I think, is what we call each person in virtue of this part, whenever his spirited element preserves through pains and pleasures what has been declared by reason to be fearsome and what is not. Rightly so, he said. And wise in virtue of that small part which ruled within him and issued those declarations, since it in turn possesses knowledge in
itself of what is advantageous for each part and for the whole made up of all three together. Quite so. And what about temperate—isn't he so in virtue of the friendship and concord of these same elements, when the ruling element and the two that are ruled share the conviction that the reasoning part should govern, and raise no faction against it? Temperance, at any rate, he said, is nothing other than this,
whether in a city or in a private individual. And surely a man will be just, on the very grounds we have repeatedly stated, in this same way. That's absolutely necessary. Well then, I said, isn't there some way in which justice might seem to us blunted, as if it were something other than what it appeared to be in the city? It doesn't seem so to me, he said. For in this way, I said, we could confirm it altogether, if anything in our
soul still disputes it, by bringing forward the crude, everyday tests. What sort? For instance, if we had to come to agreement about that city, and about the man whose nature and upbringing correspond to it, as to whether such a man, having accepted a deposit of gold or silver, would embezzle it—do you think anyone would suppose him more likely to do this than those who are not of that sort? No one would, he said. And wouldn't he be
free of temple robberies and thefts and betrayals, whether of comrades in private or of cities in public affairs? Free of them. And moreover he would not be in any way untrustworthy, either regarding oaths or other agreements. How could he be? Adulteries, too, and neglect of parents, and failure to worship the gods, belong to anyone else rather than to such a man. To anyone else, certainly, he said. And isn't the cause of all
this that each of the elements within him does its own work with respect to ruling and being ruled? This, and nothing else. Do you still look for justice to be anything other than this power, which produces men and cities of this sort? No, by Zeus, he said, I do not. Then our dream has come to complete fulfillment,
the one we said we suspected—that right from the start of founding the city, by some god's guidance, we had probably hit upon a starting-point and a kind of pattern of justice. Absolutely so. And that thing, Glaucon, on account of which it was also useful, turns out to have been a mere image of justice—the notion that it's naturally right for the shoemaker to make shoes and do nothing else, and for the carpenter to do carpentry, and
so on with the rest. So it appears. But the truth, it seems, was something of this sort: justice, it turns out, has nothing to do with a man's outward conduct of his own affairs, but with what is within, with what truly concerns himself and what belongs to him—not letting the elements within him each do the work of another, nor letting the classes within his soul meddle with one another, but truly disposing well of what is properly his own,
ruling and ordering himself, becoming a friend to himself, and harmonizing the three parts together, exactly like the three defining notes of a musical scale—the lowest, the highest, and the middle—and whatever others happen to lie between them—binding all of these together and becoming entirely one out of many, temperate and harmonized, and only then acting, whether he acts concerning
the acquisition of money, or the care of the body, or some political matter, or private contracts—in all these considering and calling just and noble the action that preserves and helps produce this condition, and calling the knowledge that oversees such action wisdom, while calling unjust the action that always undoes this condition, and calling the opinion that
oversees that ignorance. What you say, Socrates, he said, is altogether true. Well then, I said—if we were to claim to have found the just man and the just city, and justice itself, whatever it actually is within them, I don't think we would seem to be saying anything very false. No, by Zeus, certainly not, he said. Shall we say it, then? Let's say it. So be it, I said—for after this
I think injustice must be examined. Clearly. Mustn't it in turn be a kind of civil strife among these same three elements, a meddling and doing of another's work, and a rebellion of some part against the whole of the soul, so that it might rule within it though it has no right to—being of a nature such that it is fitting for it to be enslaved, while the part that by nature belongs to the ruling class is not enslaved? Something of this sort, I think, we shall say the confusion
and wandering of these elements is—injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and ignorance, and, in sum, vice entire. These very things, he said. So then, I said, both the doing of unjust acts and the being unjust, and in turn the doing of just acts, all of these turn out already to be perfectly clear, if indeed injustice and justice themselves are clear? How so? Because, I said,
they turn out to be no different from what is healthy and diseased, except that the latter are in the body, these in the soul. In what way? he said. What is healthy, I suppose, produces health, and what is diseased produces disease. Yes. And doesn't doing just things produce justice, and doing unjust things injustice? Necessarily. And to produce health is to establish the elements in the body
in their natural relation of ruling and being ruled by one another, while to produce disease is for one element to rule and be ruled by another contrary to nature. Yes, that's so. And in turn, I said, isn't producing justice a matter of establishing the elements in the soul in their natural relation of ruling and being ruled by one another, while producing injustice is having one element rule and be ruled by another contrary to nature? Exactly so, he said. Virtue,
then, it seems, would be a kind of health and beauty and good condition of the soul, while vice would be disease and ugliness and weakness. That's so. And don't fine pursuits also tend toward the acquisition of virtue, and shameful ones toward vice? Necessarily. What remains for us now, it seems, is to examine whether it is profitable to do just
things and practice fine pursuits and be just—whether or not one is recognized as being such a person—or to do unjust things and be unjust, provided one doesn't pay the penalty or become better through punishment. But, Socrates, he said, this inquiry now seems to me to have become ridiculous—if, when the body's nature is being destroyed, life is held not worth living even with every kind of food
and drink and all wealth and all power, yet when the very nature of that by which we live is disturbed and destroyed, life will nonetheless be worth living, so long as a person does whatever he wishes except that which will rid him of vice and injustice and gain him justice and virtue—given that these two have turned out to be what we have described. It is ridiculous, I said. But
nevertheless, since we have come this far, we must not grow weary of seeing as clearly as possible that this is indeed so. By no means, by Zeus, he said, must we grow weary of anything. Come here, then, I said, so that you may also see how many forms vice has—at least those that seem to me worthy of being viewed. I'm following, he said—just tell me. And indeed, I said,
as if from a watchtower, now that we have climbed this high in our argument, it appears to me that there is one form of virtue, but unlimited forms of vice, of which four in particular are worth mentioning. What do you mean? he said. As many kinds of constitutions as there are that have distinct forms, I said, that many kinds of soul there probably are too. How many, then? Five kinds of constitutions, I said,
and five of soul. Tell me, he said, what they are. I say, I answered, that this one form of constitution which we have gone through would be one kind, though it might also be called by two names: if one man of outstanding excellence arises among the rulers, it would be called kingship; if several, aristocracy. True, he said. This, then, I say, is one form; for whether several
or one arose, they would not disturb any of the laws of the city worth mentioning, having been raised with the upbringing and education we described. No, that's not likely, he said.
Such a city and constitution, then, and such a man, I call good and correct; but the others I call bad and mistaken, if this one is right—both in the administration of cities and in the shaping of character in private souls—since they fall into four kinds of badness. "What are these four kinds?" he asked. And I was going on to describe them in order, as each seemed to me to grow out of the one before,
when Polemarchus—he was sitting a little way off from Adeimantus—reached out his hand, took hold of Adeimantus's cloak from above at the shoulder, drew him close, and leaning forward said something to him in a low voice, of which we caught nothing except this: "Shall we let him go, then—or what should we do about it?" "Not a chance," said Adeimantus, his voice now loud. And I said,
"What exactly is it you won't let me off?" "You," he said. "Why," I said, "what exactly?" "You seem to us to be skimping," he said, "and to be stealing away a whole section—not the smallest one—of the argument, so as to avoid going through it, and you thought you'd get away with tossing it off lightly, as if it were obvious to everyone that where wives and children are concerned, friends will hold all things in common." "Well, wasn't that right?" I said,
"Adeimantus?" "Yes," he said, "but this word 'right,' like everything else, needs an account of what manner of community is meant—there could be many kinds. So don't leave out the one you mean. We've been waiting a long time now, thinking you'd surely say something about the begetting of children—how they'll be begotten, and how, once born, they'll be raised—and this whole community of women and children that you speak of.
We think it makes a great difference—a whole difference, in fact—to the constitution, whether it's done rightly or not. So now, since you're taking up another constitution before adequately settling these matters, we've resolved—this is what you overheard—that you're not to be let off until you've gone through all of this as thoroughly as the rest." "Count me too," said Glaucon, "as party to this resolution." "You may be sure," said
Thrasymachus, "that all of us have voted on this, Socrates." "What a thing you've done," I said, "catching hold of me like this! What a huge discussion you're stirring up again about the constitution, as if from the very beginning—one I was glad to think already finished, content if someone would just let those things stand as they were said back then. You have no idea, in calling this up now, what a swarm of arguments you're rousing—which I saw coming and let alone at the time,
so it wouldn't cause a great deal of trouble." "Well, what of it?" said Thrasymachus. "Do you think these men have come here now to pan for gold, rather than to listen to arguments?" "Yes," I said, "but in due measure." "The measure, Socrates," said Glaucon, "for hearing arguments of this kind, for people with any sense, is a whole lifetime. So never mind about us—don't grow weary, on your side, of explaining, in whatever way seems best to you,
what community will exist for our guardians in the matter of children and women, and of the rearing of the young while they are still young, in that interval when they are being born and educated—which seems to be the most laborious part. Try, then, to say in what manner this should come about." "It isn't easy to go through, my happy friend," I said; "it holds many grounds for disbelief, even more
than the things we went through before. For even granting that it's told as something possible, people will disbelieve it; and even if it should come about in the fullest way, that it would be best—that too will be disbelieved. That's why there's a certain hesitation to touch on it, for fear the argument may seem to be no more than a wish, my dear friend." "Don't hesitate at all," he said; "for those who will hear it are neither unreasonable nor incredulous nor ill-disposed."
And I said, "My excellent friend, surely you say this wanting to encourage me?" "I do," he said. "Well then," I said, "you're doing just the opposite. If I were confident that I knew what I'm saying, your encouragement would be well placed—for among sensible friends, speaking the truth as one knows it about the greatest and dearest matters is safe and reassuring. But to make one's arguments while both disbelieving oneself and still searching—
which is exactly what I'm doing—that is frightening and precarious, not for fear of being laughed at (that would be childish) but for fear that, having slipped from the truth, I may drag down not only myself but my friends along with me, falling on the very matters where one should least stumble. I bow before Adrasteia, Glaucon, for what I'm about to say—for I expect it is a lesser fault to become a killer of someone unintentionally
than to be a deceiver about fine and good things and about the laws of justice. This is the kind of risk better run among enemies than among friends—so your encouragement really does me good." And Glaucon, laughing, said, "But, Socrates, if we suffer any harm from your argument, we discharge you as innocent, as in a case of homicide, and clean of any deceiving of us. So take courage and speak." "Well, indeed,"
I said, "one who's discharged is clean there too, as the law says; and it's likely that if it holds there, it holds here as well." "Speak, then," he said, "on that basis." "Well," I said, "I must now speak in reverse order from what perhaps should have come first; but perhaps it will turn out right this way—that after the drama of the men has been fully played out, we should in turn play out that of the women, especially since
you're inviting me to it in this way. For human beings born and raised as we have described, in my opinion there is no other correct way of acquiring and using wives and children than by following that same impulse along which we first set out—for we undertook, if you recall, to establish the men as guardians of a herd." "Yes." "Let us follow it through, then, assigning a similarly matching birth and
upbringing, and let's examine whether it suits us or not." "How do you mean?" he said. "Like this. Do we think the females among the guardian dogs should join in guarding whatever the males guard, and hunt together, and do everything else in common with them, or should the females stay indoors, kept at home as incapable, because of bearing and raising the puppies, while the males do the work and bear all the care
of the flocks?" "Everything in common," he said; "except that we treat the females as weaker and the males as stronger." "Is it possible, then," I said, "to use any creature for the same tasks if you don't give it the same rearing and education?" "It isn't possible." "So if we're to use the women for the same tasks as the men, we must teach them the same things." "Yes." "Now music and gymnastics
were given to the men." "Yes." "So these same two arts, along with the matters of war, must be given to the women as well, and used in the same way." "That seems likely, from what you say," he said. "Perhaps, then," I said, "much of what's now being said might appear ridiculous, set against custom, if it's actually put into practice as described." "Very much so," he said. "What," I said, "do you find
most ridiculous of it? Isn't it obvious that it's the women exercising naked in the wrestling grounds together with the men—not only the young ones, but even the older women, just like old men in the gymnasiums, who, wrinkled and unpleasant to look at, nevertheless keep at their exercise?" "By Zeus," he said, "that would look ridiculous, at least as things stand now." "Well then,"
I said, "since we've set out to speak our minds, we mustn't fear the jokes that clever wits would make—whatever and however many they might say—about such a change coming over the gymnasiums and over music, and not least over the handling of weapons and the riding of horses." "You're right," he said. "But since we've begun to speak, we must go on to the rough part of the law, begging these people not
to mind their own business but to take it seriously, and reminding them that it wasn't so long ago that the Greeks thought it shameful and ridiculous—as most of the barbarians still do now—for men to be seen naked; and when the Cretans, and then the Spartans, first began gymnastic exercise, it was open to the wits of that time to mock all of it. Don't you think so?" "I do." "But once, I believe, it appeared better, for those practicing it,
to strip than to keep all such things covered, then the ridiculous element, which had appeared to the eyes, faded away before what reason showed to be best. And this demonstrated that it's a fool who thinks anything else ridiculous except what is bad, and whoever tries to raise a laugh takes aim at some other spectacle as ridiculous than that of the foolish and the bad, and, in turn,
takes seriously some other target for what's fine besides that of the good." "Absolutely," he said. "Then mustn't we first come to an agreement about these matters—whether they are possible or not—and grant the chance to dispute, whether one wants to argue playfully or seriously, over whether human nature, the female sort, is capable of sharing in all the tasks of the male sort,
or in none at all, or in some but not others, and specifically whether it is capable in the matter of war? Wouldn't this be the finest way to begin, and so, plausibly, also the finest way to end?" "Very much so," he said. "Would you like, then," I said, "for us to argue against ourselves on behalf of the other side, so that the positions of that other argument aren't left undefended and taken
by siege?" "Nothing stops us," he said. "Let us, then, speak on their behalf: 'Socrates and Glaucon, no one else needs to argue against you, for you yourselves, at the very start of founding the city you were settling, agreed that each single person must, in accordance with nature, do the one task that is his own.'" "We did agree, I believe—how could we not?" "'Is there, then, any way it isn't an enormous difference, the nature of a woman from that of a man?'"
"How could it not differ?" "'And doesn't a different task, then, belong properly to each, the one suited to his own nature?'" "Of course." "'How then are you not mistaken now, and contradicting yourselves, when you claim in turn that the men and the women must do the same things, though they have natures set as far apart as can be?' Do you have any defense to offer against this, my remarkable friend?" "Off the cuff,"
he said, "it isn't at all easy; but I'll ask you—indeed I do ask you—to explain the argument on our behalf, whatever it may be." "These are the very things, Glaucon," I said, "and many others like them, which I long foresaw and feared, and so hesitated to touch the law concerning the possession and rearing of women and children." "No, by Zeus,"
he said, "it doesn't look like an easy matter." "No, it doesn't," I said. "But here's how it is: whether one falls into a small swimming pool or into the middle of the greatest sea, one swims all the same, no less." "Quite so." "Then we too must swim, and try to save ourselves out of the argument, hoping either that some dolphin will come to bear us up, or for some other unlikely rescue." "So it seems,"
he said. "Come, then," I said, "and let's see if somehow we can find the way out. We agree that a different nature must pursue a different way of life, and that the nature of woman and of man is different; yet we're now saying these different natures must pursue the same things. Is this the charge against us?" "Precisely." "What a noble thing, Glaucon," I said, "this faculty of disputation is!" "Why so?" "Because,"
I said, it seems to me that many people fall into it even against their will, and think they are not disputing but discussing, because they're unable to examine what's said by dividing it according to kinds, but instead pursue the contradiction of what was said purely by its wording, using contentiousness rather than dialectic with one another. "Yes," he said, "that does happen to many people. But surely it doesn't apply to us here, in the present case?" "It applies completely," I said. "At any rate we're in danger of laying hold of contradiction against our will."
"How so?" "We're pursuing, quite bravely and contentiously, the mere wording of the claim that natures which are not the same must not be given the same pursuits, but we haven't examined at all what kind of sameness or difference of nature we meant, or what it was aimed at,
when we were allotting distinct occupations to distinct natures, and identical occupations to the identical nature." "No, we didn't examine that," he said. "So it seems we're free," I said, "to ask ourselves whether the nature of bald men and long-haired men is the same, and not opposite, and once we agree it's opposite, then if bald men are cobblers we shouldn't allow long-haired men to be, and if long-haired men are,
not the others." "That would be ridiculous," he said. "Ridiculous for any reason," I said, "other than that we weren't positing sameness and difference of nature in every sense back then, but were guarding only that kind of difference and likeness that bears on the pursuits themselves? For instance, we said that a man with medical skill and a woman with medical skill have the same nature in soul.
Or don't you think so?" "I do." "Whereas a man with medical skill and a man with carpentry skill have a different one?" "Certainly." "So then," I said, "if the class of men and the class of women appear to differ with respect to some skill or other pursuit, we'll say that pursuit must be assigned to each accordingly; but if it appears they differ only in this respect, that the female bears young and the male
begets them, we'll say nothing has yet been shown as to how a woman differs from a man in the sense we mean, and we'll still think our guardians and their wives ought to practice the same things." "And rightly so," he said. "So after this, don't we tell the person making the opposite claim to teach us exactly this: with respect to which skill or which pursuit involved in the
organization of a city the nature of woman and of man is not the same but different?" "That's only fair." "Then perhaps someone else might say what you yourself said a moment ago—that it isn't easy to answer well on the spot, but on reflection it's not hard at all." "Yes, he might say that." "Do you want us to ask the one making these objections to follow along with us, in case we can
show him that there's no pursuit peculiar to a woman with respect to the management of a city?" "By all means." "Come then," we'll say to him, "answer: did you mean that one person is well suited for something and another poorly suited, in the sense that the one learns something easily, the other with difficulty; that the one, from little instruction, is able to discover much on his own in that subject, while the other,
even after much instruction and practice, can't even retain what he learned; and that in the one the body serves the mind adequately, while in the other it works against it? Are there any other marks than these by which you distinguish the person well suited for each thing from the one who isn't?" "No one," he said, "will claim there are others." "Do you know of anything practiced by human beings in which the male sex isn't
superior to the female in all these respects? Or should we go on at length talking about weaving and the tending of cakes and stews, in which the female sex is thought to amount to something, and where it's most laughable of all for it to be beaten?" "What you say is true," he said, "that one sex is decisively mastered by the other in practically everything. Yet many women
are better than many men at many things. But on the whole it's as you say." "Then there is no pursuit, my friend, involved in the management of a city that belongs to woman because she is woman, or to man because he is man, but the natural capacities are distributed alike among both creatures, and woman shares by nature in all pursuits, and man in all, only in all of them woman is weaker than man." "Quite so."
"Are we then to assign everything to men and nothing to women?" "How could we?" "No—there is, I think we'll say, a woman with medical skill, and one without it, and one musical, and another unmusical by nature." "Of course." "And is there not also a woman fit for gymnastic and for war, and another unwarlike and no lover of gymnastics?" "I think so." "And what of this: a woman who loves wisdom and one who hates it? And one spirited, and another
lacking spirit?" "That too." "Then there is also a woman fit to be a guardian, and one who is not. Or was it not this sort of nature that we chose for the men who are to be guardians as well?" "Yes, that very sort." "So woman and man have the same nature with respect to guarding the city, except insofar as one is weaker and the other stronger." "So it appears." "And such women, then, must be chosen to live together
and to guard alongside such men, since they are capable and akin to them in nature." "Quite so." "And must not the same pursuits be assigned to the same natures?" "The same." "So we've come round in a circle back to what we said before, and we agree it isn't contrary to nature to give the guardians' wives training in music and gymnastic." "By all means." "Then we weren't legislating things impossible, or like mere wishes,
since we were laying down the law according to nature; rather it's what happens today, contrary to this, that turns out, it seems, to be contrary to nature." "So it seems." "Now wasn't our inquiry whether what we were proposing is both possible and best?" "It was." "And that it's possible has been agreed?" "Yes." "And that it's best must be agreed next?" "Clearly." "Now with a view to a
woman becoming fit to be a guardian, surely one education won't produce men for us and another women, especially since it takes hold of the same nature to begin with?" "No, not a different one." "How do you stand, then, on a certain opinion?" "What opinion?" "On supposing in your own mind that one man is better, another worse; or do you think them all alike?" "Not at all." "In the city we were founding, then, do you think
the guardians we've turned out will be better men, having received the education we went through, or the cobblers, trained in cobbling?" "That's a ridiculous question," he said. "I understand," I said. "Well then: aren't these the best of the other citizens too?" "By far." "And what of the women—won't these women be the best of women?" "That too," he said, "by far." "And is there anything better for a city than that its women and men
become as excellent as possible?" "There is not." "And will music and gymnastic, coming to bear as we described, bring this about?" "How could they not?" "So it wasn't only possible but also best as a law that we were laying down for the city." "Just so." "The women of the guardians, then, must strip for exercise, since they'll be clothed in excellence instead of garments, and must share in war and the rest of the guarding of the city, and
must do nothing else; though of these very tasks, the lighter ones must be given to the women rather than the men, on account of the weakness of their sex. And any man who finds it laughable that women exercise unclothed for the sake of what is best is 'plucking the unripe fruit' of a laughter that has no wisdom in it, and he knows nothing, it seems, at what he's laughing or what he's doing; for this is and always will be said most rightly, that
the beneficial is beautiful, and the harmful is ugly." "Quite so." "So let's say we've escaped one wave, as it were, on this matter of a law about women, so as not to be entirely swept under in laying down that our guardians and guardian-women must practice everything in common—so that the argument is at least in some way consistent with itself, in saying that these things are possible and beneficial." "And indeed," he said,
"it's no small wave you're escaping." "You'll say it isn't a big one," I said, "once you see what comes next." "Tell me, then, so I may see," he said. "Following on this," I said, "and on all the earlier laws, there comes, I believe, this one." "Which one?" "That all these women are to belong to all these men in common, and no woman is to live privately with any one man; and likewise
the children likewise are to be shared in common, with no parent recognizing his own offspring, nor any child his parent." "This," he said, "is far harder to credit than the other, both as to its possibility and its benefit." "I don't think," I said, "there would be much dispute, at least about the benefit—that it isn't the greatest good for the women to be held in common and the children in common, if indeed it's possible; but"
I think there would be a great deal of dispute over whether it's possible or not." "Both points," he said, "could well be disputed." "You mean," I said, "a combined attack of arguments; but I was hoping to escape from one of them at least, if you agreed it was beneficial, and that the only thing left for me would be the question of possibility." "But you haven't gotten away with
slipping off," he said. "You must give an account of both." "I must submit to justice," I said. "But grant me this much: let me have a holiday, the way lazy people are accustomed to feast their own minds when walking alone. Such people, before discovering how something they desire will come about, set that question aside so as not to wear themselves out deliberating over what is possible and what isn't; they simply assume
that what they want is already there, and go on from there arranging the rest, and take delight in going through all they'll do once it happens, making a soul that was already idle even idler still. So now I too am growing soft, and I want to put off that question and examine later how it's possible, and for now, treating it as possible, I'll consider—if you'll allow me—how the rulers will arrange these things once they come about, and how
it would turn out most advantageous of all, both for the city and for the guardians. These are the things I'll try to examine with you first, and those other questions afterward, if indeed you allow it." "Well, I do allow it," he said, "so go ahead and examine." "I think, then," I said, "if the rulers are to be worthy of that name, and their auxiliaries likewise, the latter will be willing to do what is ordered, and the former will do the ordering, in
part themselves obeying the laws, and in part imitating them in whatever we entrust to their discretion." "That's likely," he said. "You, then," I said, "as their lawgiver, will select the women just as you selected the men, and hand them over as being, so far as possible, of similar natures; and since they have houses and common meals in common, and no one possesses anything private of that sort, they'll be
together, and being mixed together in gymnasia and in the rest of their upbringing, they will, I think, be led by an innate necessity toward mingling with one another. Or don't you think what I'm saying is necessary?" "Not by geometrical necessities," he said, "but by erotic ones, which are likely to be sharper than the others at persuading and drawing along the mass of people." "Quite so," I said.
But after this, Glaucon, it will not be right—nor will the rulers allow it—for people in a city of happy citizens to mate with one another haphazardly or do anything else of that sort. "No, that would not be just," he said. "Clearly, then, we shall next make the marriages sacred, as far as possible—and the most beneficial marriages would be the most sacred." "Absolutely." "How then will they be most beneficial? Tell me this,
Glaucon: I notice you keep hunting dogs in your house, and a good many well-bred birds too. Have you ever, by Zeus, paid any attention to how they mate and breed?" "What do you mean?" he said. "First of all, among these animals themselves, well-bred as they all are, aren't some of them—or don't some of them turn out to be—the best?" "There are." "Do you then breed indiscriminately from all of them alike,
or do you take special care to breed from the best?" "From the best." "And again—from the youngest, or the oldest, or as much as possible from those in their prime?" "From those in their prime." "And if breeding isn't done this way, do you think the stock of birds and dogs will be much worse?" "Certainly," he said. "And what's your view of horses," I said,
and the other animals? Is it any different with them?" "That would be strange," he said. "Good heavens," I said, "my dear friend, how excellent our rulers will need to be, if the same holds for the human race as well." "Well, it does hold," he said, "but why do you say that?" "Because," I said, "they will be forced to use a good many drugs.
We think that a doctor is of a lesser sort when patients' bodies don't need drugs but are willing to submit to a regimen; but when drugs actually have to be administered, we know a bolder sort of doctor is needed." "True—but what are you getting at?" "At this," I said: it looks as though our rulers will need to make plentiful use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of
those they rule. And we said, I think, that all such things are useful in the manner of a drug." "And rightly so," he said. "Well, in the matter of marriages and childbearing this rightness seems to come into play more than anywhere else." "How so?" "It follows from what we've agreed," I said, "that the best men must have intercourse with the best women as often as possible, and the worst with the worst as seldom as possible, and that the offspring of the former
must be reared and the latter not, if the flock is to be of the highest quality—and all this must happen without anyone knowing it except the rulers themselves, so that our herd of guardians remains as free of strife as possible." "Quite right," he said. "So then certain festivals must be established by law, at which we'll gather the brides together with their bridegrooms, along with sacrifices, and hymns composed by our poets fitting
the marriages taking place. As for the number of marriages, we will leave that to the rulers to decide, so that they can keep the number of men as constant as possible, taking into account wars, diseases, and everything of that kind, so that our city becomes neither too large nor too small, as far as that can be managed." "Right," he said. "Then, I think, some clever lottery must be devised, so that the inferior man
blames chance rather than the rulers on each occasion of pairing." "Quite so," he said. "And surely the young men who prove good in war or elsewhere must be given rewards and prizes—among other things, more generous opportunity to sleep with the women—so that at the same time, under this pretext, as many of the children as possible will be fathered by such men." "Right." "And then the officials in charge of these matters—whether men or women or both, since
offices are held in common by both women and men among us—will take charge of the children as they're born from time to time." "Yes." "The children of the good, I imagine, they will take and bring to the rearing-pen, to certain nurses living apart in a section of the city; but the children of the inferior, and any child born
defective among the others, they will hide away, as is fitting, in some secret and unknown place." "Yes, if the guardian stock is to remain pure," he said. "And these same officials will also see to the children's nourishment, bringing the mothers to the rearing-pen when their breasts are full, taking every precaution that no mother recognizes her own child, and providing other women with milk if the mothers themselves don't have enough, and they will also take care
that the mothers nurse only for a moderate length of time, handing over the wakeful nights and the rest of the labor to wet-nurses and attendants." "You're describing a very easy time of childbearing for the guardians' wives," he said. "And rightly so," I said. "Let's go on to what we set out to discuss next. We said that the offspring should come from parents in their prime." "True." "Do you agree with me that a moderate span for the prime of life is twenty
years for a woman, and thirty for a man?" "Which years exactly?" he said. "For a woman," I said, "beginning at twenty and continuing until forty, she should bear children for the city; for a man, once he's past the sharpest peak of his running prime, he should father children for the city from that point until fifty-five." "That is indeed," he said, "the prime of both body and mind for both sexes." "So if anyone older or younger than these ages
touches the business of common procreation, we shall declare the offense neither holy nor just, since he will be fathering a child for the city who, if it escapes notice, will be born not under the sacrifices and prayers offered at each set of marriages—which the priestesses and priests and the whole city pray will make the offspring always better from the good and more beneficial from the beneficial—but
born in secrecy through dreadful incontinence." "Right," he said. "The same law applies," I said, "if any man still of childbearing age takes hold of a woman of that age without a ruler's pairing; we shall say he is establishing a bastard child for the city, unsanctioned and unconsecrated." "Quite right," he said. "But once, I think, the women and the men have passed the age for bearing children,
we will surely allow them freedom to have intercourse with whomever they wish—except a daughter, a mother, a daughter's daughter, or an ancestor above the mother; and likewise the women, except with a son, a father, and their descendants and ancestors in the same lines—and even this only once we have instructed them above all to try not to bring any offspring at all into the light, should one be conceived,
and if something forces its way through, to dispose of it on the understanding that no rearing is available for such a child." "That much," he said, "is reasonably stated. But how will fathers and daughters, and the others you just mentioned, recognize one another?" "They won't at all," I said. "Rather, from the day a man becomes a bridegroom, all the children born in the tenth month afterward, and in the seventh,
he will address as his own—the males as sons, the females as daughters—while they in turn will address him as father; and in the same way their children will be called his grandchildren, and those children in turn will call this generation grandfathers and grandmothers; and those born in the period when their mothers and fathers were begetting children will be called sisters and brothers, so that, as we just
said, they will not touch one another. But the law will allow brothers and sisters to live together, if the lot happens to fall that way and the Pythia gives her approval as well." "Quite right," he said. "This, then, Glaucon, is the community of women and children for the guardians of your city—of this sort and to this extent. Now we must
confirm from our argument that it does indeed follow from the rest of the constitution and is by far the best arrangement. Or how shall we proceed?" "Just that way, by Zeus," he said. "Isn't this the starting point of our agreement—to ask ourselves what we can name as the greatest good for the constitution of a city, the very thing the lawgiver should aim at in laying down laws, and likewise what the worst evil is, and afterward to examine whether what we've just described
fits into the track of the good and clashes with the track of the evil?" "More than anything," he said. "Do we know of any greater evil for a city than what tears it apart and makes it many instead of one? Or any greater good than what binds it together and makes it one?" "We do not." "And doesn't the sharing of pleasure and pain bind a city together,
whenever, as much as possible, all the citizens feel joy or grief alike over the same events of gain or loss?" "Absolutely," he said. "And doesn't the privatizing of such feelings dissolve a city, when some are in deep grief and others in great joy over the same things happening to the city and its people?" "Of course." "And doesn't this
sort of thing come about whenever the words 'mine' and 'not mine' are not spoken together in a city, and likewise about what belongs to someone else?" "Exactly so." "In whatever city the greatest number say these same words, 'mine' and 'not mine,' about the same thing at the same time, that city is governed best?" "By far." "And whichever city comes closest
to the condition of a single human being? For instance, whenever one of us has a finger struck, the whole community bound together throughout the body, stretched toward the soul into a single ordered system under the ruling part within it, perceives it, and the whole feels the pain together as one, though only a part suffered—and that's how we come to say the man's finger hurts him. And the same account applies to any other part of a person,
the same reasoning holds for pain when a part suffers and for pleasure when it recovers?" "The same," he said. "And this is exactly what you're asking—the city governed best lives closest to that condition." "So then, I think, when any single one of its citizens experiences anything at all, good or bad, such a city will above all say that this experience belongs to itself, and either the whole will share the joy or the whole will share the grief."
"That must be so," he said, "at least for a well-governed city." "Then it's high time," I said, "we went back to our own city and examined in it the points we've agreed on in our discussion, to see whether it, most of all, possesses them, or whether some other city does more." "We must," he said. "Well then? In other cities too there are, I suppose, rulers and a populace, and there are in
this one as well?" "There are." "Will all of these call one another citizens?" "Of course." "But besides 'citizens,' what does the populace in other cities call their rulers?" "In most cities, masters; in the democratically governed ones, this very word, rulers." "And what does the populace in ours call them? Besides 'citizens,' what does it say the rulers are?" "Saviors,"
he said, "and helpers." "And what do these call the populace?" "Paymasters and providers." "And what do the rulers in other cities call the populace?" "Slaves," he said. "And the rulers—what name do they give each other?" "Fellow rulers," he said. "And what do ours call each other?" "Fellow guardians." "Can you tell me, then, whether among the rulers in other cities, any of them would address one of his fellow rulers as kin,
—as a stranger's, and many people's? Of course. So he thinks and speaks of his own as belonging to himself, and of a stranger's as not belonging to himself? Just so. And what about your guardians? Is there any one of them who could consider or address any of his fellow guardians as a stranger? Not at all, he said. Because whoever he meets, he will consider himself to be meeting either as a brother or as a
sister or as a father or as a mother or a son or daughter, or as one of their descendants or ancestors. That's beautifully put, I said, but tell me this too: will you legislate that only the names be shared among them, or that all their conduct follow the names as well—that toward their fathers they observe everything the law prescribes about fathers, concerning reverence and
care, and being obedient to one's parents—or else it will go worse for him before both gods and men, on the ground that he's acting neither piously nor justly if he does anything other than this? Will these be the very sayings, or others, that all the citizens chant straight into the children's ears from birth, about the fathers pointed out to them,
and about the other kin as well? These, he said. For it would be ridiculous if, without any actions behind them, kinship names were merely uttered through the mouth. So in this city, more than in any other, they will all speak in unison when someone does well or badly, using that phrase we mentioned just now—that 'what is mine is doing well' or 'what is mine is doing badly.' Very true, he said.
And along with this belief and this phrase, we said pleasures and pains would be shared in common? And rightly did we say so. So won't our citizens share most of all in that one thing which they will call 'mine'? And by sharing in that, won't they have community of pain and pleasure to the highest degree? Very much so. Now isn't the cause of this, in addition to the rest of the arrangement,
the community of women and children among the guardians? Yes, that above all, he said. And yet we agreed that this is the greatest good for a city, when we compared a well-run city to a body in how it relates to pain and pleasure in one of its parts. And we were right to agree to that. So the community of children and women among the
auxiliaries has been shown to be the cause of the greatest good for our city. Quite so, he said. And indeed this agrees with what we said before—for we said, I think, that these men should have neither private houses nor land nor any possession, but should receive their upkeep from the others as wages for their guarding and spend it all in common, if they are really going to be guardians. Right, he said. So isn't it just as I say,
that both what was said before and what's being said now make them even more truly guardians, and prevent them from tearing the city apart by each calling something different 'mine'—one man dragging off to his own house whatever he can get apart from the rest, another to his, a different house, with a wife and
different children, bringing about private joys and pains over private things; but rather, holding one single belief about what is their own, all straining toward the same thing, being as far as possible alike in feeling pain and pleasure together? Absolutely, he said. Well then, won't lawsuits and accusations against one another practically vanish from among them, because they own nothing private
except the body, everything else being held in common? Hence they'll be free of the factional strife that arises among people over the possession of money or children and relatives. It's a great necessity, he said, that they be rid of it. And moreover there could be no just lawsuits for violence or assault among them; for age-mates defending themselves against age-mates we'll say is a fine and just thing,
putting the necessity down to bodily fitness. Rightly, he said. And there's this too that's correct, I said, about this law: if anyone ever gets angry at someone, in venting his anger in this way he'd be less likely to proceed to more serious factional strife. Quite so. And an older person will be charged with ruling over and disciplining all the younger. Clearly. And it's also clear that a younger person will never
attempt to use force against an older, or strike him, unless the rulers order it, as is likely. Nor do I think he'll dishonor him in any other way; for the two guardians are enough to prevent it—fear and reverence, reverence keeping him from laying hands on someone as a parent, and fear that the others would come to the aid of the one suffering, some as sons, others as brothers, others as fathers. That's how it turns out, he said. In every way, then, from
these laws the men will live at peace with one another? Very much so. And since these are not at odds among themselves, there's no danger that the rest of the city will ever be split, either against them or against itself. No indeed. As for the smallest of the evils, I'm reluctant even to mention them, out of a sense of propriety—things they will be rid of, such as the poor flattering the rich, and the anxieties and
pains people have in raising children and in money-making because of the necessity of feeding household slaves—borrowing here, denying debts there, procuring money by any means whatever and depositing it with wives and servants to manage—and, my friend, all the things people suffer in connection with such matters, which are obvious and demeaning and not worth mentioning. Obvious indeed, he said, even to a blind man. Of all these things then
they will be rid, and they will live a life more blessed than the most blessed life the Olympic victors live. How so? Those men are counted happy for a small fraction of what these men will have. For their victory is finer, and their upkeep at public expense more complete. For the victory they win is the preservation of the whole city, and with respect to food and everything else life requires, they and their children
are crowned, and they receive honors from their own city while living, and when they die they share in a burial worthy of them. Yes indeed, he said, very fine things. Do you remember, then, I said, that earlier some argument or other of ours—I don't recall whose—reproached us for not making the guardians happy, since, though it was in their power to have everything the citizens have, they would have nothing? And we said, I believe, that this
matter, if it should come up, we would consider later, but that for now we were making the guardians guardians, and the city as happy as we could make it, not molding it with an eye to any one class within it to make that group happy. He remembered, he said. What then? Now that the life of our auxiliaries has appeared far finer and better than that of the Olympic victors, surely it isn't
anywhere near comparable to the life of shoemakers, or of other craftsmen, or of farmers? It doesn't seem so to me, he said. But indeed, what I said there is fair to say here too: if a guardian tries to become happy in such a way that he's no longer even a guardian, and a moderate, secure life such as we say is best won't satisfy him,
but some foolish, adolescent notion about happiness seizes him and drives him, on the strength of his power, to appropriate everything in the city for himself, he will learn that Hesiod was truly wise in saying that the half is somehow more than the whole. As for me, he said, if he takes my advice, he'll stay with this life. So you agree, I said, to the community of women
with men that we've gone through—concerning education and children and the guarding of the other citizens—that whether they remain at home in the city or march out to war, the women must guard together and hunt together like dogs, and share in everything everywhere as far as possible, and that in doing this they will do both what is best and nothing contrary to the nature of the female in relation to the male, the nature they
both have for sharing with one another? I agree, he said. Well then, I said, it remains to determine whether it's even possible, as with other animals, for this kind of community to arise among human beings—and in what way it's possible. You anticipated me, he said, in saying what I was about to bring up. As for what happens in war, I think, I said, it's clear how they will fight. How? he said. That they will campaign together, and
moreover they will take along to war those of their children who are sturdy enough, so that, like the children of other craftsmen, they may observe the tasks they will have to perform once grown; and besides observing, they should assist and serve in everything to do with war, and attend to their fathers and mothers. Or haven't you noticed, in the crafts, how the children of potters, for instance, spend a long time
assisting and observing before they lay a hand to the potter's wheel? Indeed. Should those men train their children with more care than the guardians train theirs, through experience and observation of what concerns them? That would be ridiculous, he said. But surely every animal will fight differently when its own offspring are present. That's so. But there's no small risk, Socrates, that if things go wrong, as often happens in war, they might
cause their children to be lost along with themselves and make it impossible for the rest of the city to recover. What you say is true, I said. But do you think, first of all, that one must guard against ever running any risk at all? Not at all. Well then, if risk must be run somewhere, shouldn't it be where success will make them better? Clearly. But do you think it makes only a small difference, not worth the risk of observing, whether or not the children
who will become fighting men watch what pertains to war? No, it makes a difference, in relation to what you're saying. So this much must be laid down as a starting point—to make the children spectators of war—but also to contrive safety for them, and that will be well; isn't that so? Yes. So then, I said, first of all their fathers, so far as men can be, will not be ignorant but will be good judges of which
campaigns are dangerous and which are not? Likely so, he said. So they will take them along on some, and be cautious about others. Rightly. And they will surely set over them, I said, not the most worthless commanders, but those competent by experience and age to be leaders and tutors. That's fitting. But, we'll say, many things have turned out contrary to expectation for many people before now. Very much so. So in view of such things, my friend, the children
must be given wings from the start, so that if anything is needed, they can take wing and get away. How do you mean that? he asked. They must be mounted on horses, I said, as young as possible, and once taught to ride, they should be led on horseback to the spectacle—not on spirited or combative horses, but the swiftest and most tractable. For this way they will get the best view of their own future work, and will most safely escape to safety, if need be, following along with older
guides. You seem right to me, he said. And what about the conduct of war itself? I said. How must your soldiers behave toward one another and toward the enemy? Does what occurs to me seem right, or not? Say, he said, whatever it is this time. Of them, I said, whoever leaves his post, or throws away his weapons, or does anything else of that sort out of cowardice—shouldn't he be reduced to a craftsman
—should he be made a farmer? Certainly. And the man taken alive by the enemy—shall we simply give him as a gift to his captors, to use as booty however they like? Absolutely. And the man who distinguished himself and won honor—don't you think he should first, while still on campaign, be crowned by each of the young men and boys serving with him, in turn?
—or not? I think so. What about this—shaking his hand? That too. But this, I think, said I, you no longer agree with. What's that? Kissing and being kissed by each of them. Most of all, he said—and I add this to the law: for as long as they're on that campaign, no one may be allowed to refuse the kiss of anyone who wants it, so that if someone happens to be
in love with a boy or a girl, his keenness to carry off the prize for bravery will only grow. Good, said I. That the good soldier will have more marriages available to him than others, and more frequent choices of such partners than the rest, so that as many children as possible will come from someone like him—we've already said. Yes, we said that, he said. And indeed, following Homer, it's
only right to honor such young men, as many as prove good. For Homer too said that Ajax, having distinguished himself in the war, was honored with the long cuts of meat, as though this were the fitting honor for a man in his prime and courageous, since through it, along with being honored, he will also increase his strength. Quite right, he said. So we'll follow Homer in this too, said I. And indeed we too, at sacrifices and
on all such occasions, will honor the good—so far as they prove good—with hymns and with the things we just mentioned, and besides these, with seats of honor, meat, and full cups of wine, so that in honoring them we're also training our good men and women. Excellent, he said, what you say. Well then—of those who die on campaign, whoever dies having won distinction, shall we not first
say he belongs to the golden race? Most certainly of all. And shall we not believe Hesiod, when some of that race die, that— they become pure spirits upon the earth, noble, warding off evil, guardians of mortal men? We shall believe it, then. So after inquiring of the god how we ought to establish those who are divine spirits, and by what distinguishing mark, we will establish them in whatever way
he directs? What else could we do? And for the rest of time we'll tend and worship their tombs as we would those of spirits? And shall we hold the same practice whenever someone dies of old age or some other way, among those who were judged to be outstandingly good in life? That's only just, he said. And what about this—how will our soldiers treat the enemy?
What do you mean? First, regarding enslavement—do you think it right for Greeks to enslave Greek cities, or should we not allow it to any of them so far as possible, and accustom them instead to spare the Greek race, being wary of enslavement at the hands of the barbarians? Sparing them, he said, is altogether and entirely the better course. So neither should our own people own a Greek as a slave, nor should we advise the other Greeks to do so? Certainly
not, he said—that way they'd be more inclined to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands off one another. And what about this—stripping the dead of everything but their weapons, once victorious—is that a fine thing to do? Doesn't it give cowards an excuse not to go toward the man still fighting, as if they were doing something necessary when they linger over the corpse—and haven't many armies already
been destroyed through just such plundering? Very much so. And doesn't it seem petty and greedy to strip a corpse, and the mark of a small and womanish mind to treat the body as an enemy once the real enemy has flown off, leaving behind only the thing he fought with? Or do you think those who do this are any different from dogs, who get angry at the stones thrown at them but don't
touch the one who threw them? Not in the least, he said. So we must give up despoiling corpses and hindering the recovery of the dead? We must give it up indeed, by Zeus, he said. And surely we won't dedicate the weapons at the temples as offerings—especially not those of Greeks—if we care at all about goodwill toward the other Greeks. Rather we'll be afraid there's some pollution in bringing such things from kinsmen to a sacred place,
unless the god says otherwise. Quite right, he said. And what about ravaging Greek land and burning houses? What will our soldiers do to the enemy in this regard? I'd be glad, he said, to hear your own opinion on it. Well, it seems to me, said I, that neither should be done, but only the year's crop taken.
—as for why, do you want me to tell you? Certainly. It seems to me that, just as there are two names, war and civil strife, so too there are two things, corresponding to two kinds of difference. I mean by the two: the one, what is one's own and akin; the other, what is foreign and alien. Now the hostility toward one's own is called civil strife, while that toward
the foreign is called war. And that's not at all off the mark, he said. See then whether this too is on the mark. I say that the Greek race is, to itself, its own and akin, but to the barbarian race, alien and foreign. Well put, he said. So when Greeks fight barbarians and barbarians fight Greeks, we'll say they're at war and are enemies
by nature, and that hostility should be called war. But when Greeks do such things to Greeks, we'll say they are friends by nature, but that in such a case Greece is sick and torn by faction, and that such hostility should be called civil strife. I for my part, he said, agree to think of it that way. Then consider, said I, that in what is now agreed to be civil strife, wherever such a thing happens and
a city is split apart, if each side ravages the other's fields and burns houses, the strife seems a wretched thing, and neither side seems to love its city—for otherwise they would never dare to ravage their own nurse and mother—but it seems moderate for the victors only to take the crops from the defeated, and to bear in mind that they will be reconciled and not go on warring forever. Yes, he said, that attitude is far gentler
than the other. Well then, said I—the city you're founding, won't it be Greek? It must be, he said. Won't its people be good and gentle? Very much so. But won't they be lovers of Greece, and consider Greece their own, and share in the same rites as the other Greeks? Very much so indeed. So won't they treat any difference with the Greeks, as being among their own, as civil strife, and not even call it
war? No indeed. And won't they conduct their disputes as people who will be reconciled? Certainly. So they'll bring them to their senses in a kindly spirit, not punishing them with a view to enslavement or destruction, acting as correctors, not as enemies. That's how it will be, he said. So being Greeks themselves, they won't ravage Greece, nor burn dwellings, nor agree that in every city everyone is their enemy—men, women, and children alike—but only ever a few
the ones responsible for the difference. And for all these reasons they won't be willing to ravage the land of those they consider mostly friends, nor tear down houses, but will carry the dispute only so far as the guilty are forced by the suffering of the innocent to pay the penalty. I for my part, he said, agree that this is how our citizens ought to treat their Greek opponents; but toward
the barbarians, as the Greeks now treat one another. Shall we then set this law too for our guardians—neither to ravage land nor burn houses? Let's set it, he said, and let this, along with what came before, stand as good. But really, Socrates, you seem to me—if anyone lets you go on talking about such things—never to get around to what you set aside earlier when you pushed all this
forward: whether such a constitution is even possible, and in what way it could be possible. For that if it did come about, all good things would come to the city where it came about—including things you leave out that I'll mention myself, that they would fight best against their enemies because they'd be least likely to abandon one another, recognizing and calling each other by these names—brothers, fathers, sons. And if
the women too took part in the campaign, whether stationed in the same rank or posted behind, both to frighten the enemy and in case there should ever be need of reinforcement, I know that in every way they'd be unbeatable in this respect—and I see, too, all the good things left at home that would come from it. But since I grant that all this would follow, and countless other things
besides, if this constitution came to be, don't say any more about it—rather let's now try to convince ourselves of this very point, that it's possible, and how it's possible, and let the rest go. All at once, said I, you've made a sort of raid on my argument, and you show no mercy for my hesitation. Perhaps you don't realize that I've barely escaped the first two
waves, and now you're bringing on the greatest and most difficult of the triple wave—which, once you see and hear it, you'll fully forgive me for, seeing how reasonable it was that I hesitated and was afraid to state and attempt to examine so paradoxical a claim. The more you say such things, he said, the less we'll let you off from telling us how this constitution could come about.
Just tell us, and don't waste time. Well then, said I, first we must recall this—that it was in searching for what justice and injustice are like that we arrived here. We must; but what of it? he said. Nothing—except that if we find what justice is like, will we require that the just man differ from it not at all, but be in every way such as justice itself is? Or
will we be satisfied if he comes as close to it as possible and partakes of it more than others do? That's how it will be, he said—we'll be satisfied. So it was for the sake of a model, said I, that we sought justice itself, what it is, and the perfectly just man, if he could exist, and what he would be like once come to be—and likewise injustice and the most unjust man—so that, looking to them, and to how they appear to us in respect of happiness
and its opposite, we would be forced to agree also about ourselves, that whoever is most like them will have a portion most like theirs—not for the purpose of showing that these things can actually come to be. That's true, what you say, he said. Then do you think a painter any less good who, having painted a model of what the most beautiful human being would be like, and
having rendered everything in the picture adequately, cannot show that such a man could actually come to exist? No, by Zeus, I don't, he said. Well then—weren't we too, we say, making a model in speech of a good city? Certainly. Do you think we're speaking any less well, on that account, if we can't show that it's possible to actually run a city in the way we described? Not at all,
he said. —Well, that is the truth of it, I said. But if, for your sake, we must also make the effort to show how and under what conditions it would be most possible, then grant me again the same admissions for the purposes of such a demonstration. —Which ones? —Can anything be carried out in practice exactly as it is stated in speech, or is it the nature of action to lay hold of truth less than speech does, even if
someone thinks otherwise? Do you agree with that, or not? —I agree, he said. —Then do not compel me to show that what we went through in speech must come about in every respect in deed as well. If we prove able to discover how a city could be governed most nearly as we have described, say that we have discovered how these things you demand can come to be. Or
will you not be content to get that much? I certainly would be. —So would I, he said. —Next after that, it seems, let us try to seek out and demonstrate what it is that is now done badly in cities, on account of which they are not governed this way, and what would be the smallest change by which a city could come to this manner of constitution — preferably one change, or if
not, two, or if not, the fewest in number and the smallest in force. —Absolutely, he said. —Well, I said, with one change I think we can show that it would be transformed — no small change, to be sure, nor an easy one, but possible. —Which? he said. —Now I am at the very point, I said, which we likened to the greatest wave. It shall be said,
then, even if, exactly like a breaking wave, it is going to drown me in laughter and disgrace. Consider what I am about to say. —Say it, he said. —Unless, I said, either the philosophers become kings in the cities, or those now called kings and rulers pursue philosophy genuinely and adequately, and this comes together into the same hands — political power and
philosophy — while the many natures now proceeding separately toward one or the other are forcibly shut out, there is no rest from evils, dear Glaucon, for the cities, nor, I think, for the human race; nor will this constitution we have now gone through in speech ever grow into possibility and see the light of the sun. This is what has long made me shrink
from speaking: I saw how very contrary to opinion it would sound. For it is hard to see that no other city could be happy, in private life or in public. —And he said: Socrates, what a saying, what an argument you have hurled out! Now that you have said it, expect a great many people, and not paltry ones, to strip off their cloaks, as it were, and, naked, snatching whatever weapon comes to each man's hand,
rush at you full stretch to do wondrous deeds. If you don't fend them off with argument and escape, you will pay the penalty by being well and truly jeered. —And isn't it you, I said, who got me into this? —And a good thing I did, he said. But I won't betray you; I'll defend you with what I can — and what I can offer is goodwill and encouragement, and perhaps I might answer you more suitably than another
would. So, with a helper like that, try to show the doubters that things are as you say. —I must try, I said, since you offer so great an alliance. Now it seems to me necessary, if we are somehow going to escape the people you speak of, to define for them which philosophers we mean when we dare to say they must rule, so that, once they are clearly marked out, one can defend oneself by showing that
to some it belongs by nature to lay hold of philosophy and to lead in a city, while to the rest it belongs not to lay hold of it and to follow the leader. —It would be time, he said, to define them. —Come then, follow me this way, and see if we can explain it adequately somehow or other. —Lead on, he said. —Will you need reminding, I said, or do you remember, that when we say a man loves something, he must,
if the description is correct, be seen not to love one part of it and not another, but to cherish the whole? —I need reminding, it seems, he said, for I don't quite grasp it. —That answer, Glaucon, I said, would have suited someone else; it does not suit a man of eros to forget that all boys in their bloom somehow sting and stir the lover of boys, the erotic man,
seeming worthy of his attention and affection. Or isn't that how you people behave toward the beautiful? One boy, because he is snub-nosed, will be called charming and praised by you; another's hooked nose you call kingly; the one in between, you say, has perfect proportions; the dark ones look manly; the pale ones are children of gods. And 'honey-pale' — do you think that word is the invention of anyone
but a lover coining pet names and cheerfully putting up with sallowness, provided it comes with the bloom of youth? In a word, you make every excuse and give voice to every plea, so as not to reject a single one of those flowering in their prime. —If you want, he said, to take me as your example of how lovers behave, I concede it for the argument's sake. —And what about this? I said.
Don't you see wine-lovers doing exactly the same — welcoming every wine on every pretext? —Very much so. —And the lovers of honor too, I think you observe: if they cannot be generals, they serve as brigade commanders, and if they cannot be honored by the greater and grander, they are content to be honored by the lesser and meaner, being desirers of honor as such. —Precisely. —Then affirm this or deny it:
when we call a man desirous of something, shall we say he desires the whole of that kind, or one part of it and not another? —The whole, he said. —So the philosopher too we shall call a desirer of wisdom — not of one part and not another, but of all of it? —True. —Then a man who is fussy about his studies, especially while young and not yet possessed of an account of what is useful
and what is not — him we will not call a lover of learning or a philosopher, just as we say a man fussy about his food is not hungry, does not desire food, and is not a food-lover but a poor eater. —And we shall be right to say so. —But the one who is readily willing to taste every kind of learning, who goes gladly to his studies and cannot get enough — him we shall justly call a philosopher. Won't we? —And
Glaucon said: Then many strange people will fit your description. All the lovers of sights seem to me to be what they are through delighting in learning things, and the lovers of sounds are a very strange lot to count among philosophers — men who would never willingly go to a discussion and that kind of pastime, yet who run around to all the Dionysian festivals, as if they had hired out their ears to listen to every chorus,
missing none, whether in the cities or the villages. Are we to call all these, and others with a taste for such things, and the devotees of the petty crafts, philosophers? —Not at all, I said, but they resemble philosophers. —And the true ones, he said — whom do you mean? —The lovers of the sight of truth, I said. —That much is right, he said; but what do you mean by it? —It would not be at all easy
to explain to someone else, I said; but you, I think, will grant me this. —What? —Since beautiful is the opposite of ugly, they are two. —Of course. —And since they are two, each is also one? —That too. —And about just and unjust, and good and bad, and all the forms, the same account holds: each is itself one,
but by their association with actions and bodies and one another, each appears everywhere and seems to be many. —You are right, he said. —This, then, is how I divide, I said: on one side those you mentioned just now, the lovers of sights and lovers of crafts and men of action; on the other, those our argument concerns, whom alone one would rightly call philosophers. —How do you mean? he said. —The lovers of sounds and of sights,
I said, cherish beautiful voices and colors and shapes and everything crafted out of such things, but their thought is incapable of seeing and cherishing the nature of the beautiful itself. —That is indeed how it is, he said. —Whereas those able to approach the beautiful itself and see it
by itself — would they not be rare? —Very rare. —Then the man who believes in beautiful things but neither believes in beauty itself nor is able to follow if someone leads him to the knowledge of it — do you think he lives in a dream or awake? Consider: isn't dreaming just this — whether asleep or awake, to think that what resembles something is not a resemblance
but the thing itself which it resembles? —I at least, he said, would say that such a man is dreaming. —And what of the opposite case: the man who believes there is something beautiful itself, and is able to discern both it and the things that partake of it, and neither takes the partaking things for it nor it for the partaking things — does he seem to you to live awake or in a dream? —Very much
awake, he said. —Then we would rightly call this man's thought knowledge, since he knows, and the other's opinion, since he opines? —Certainly. —And what if the one we say opines but does not know grows angry with us and disputes that we speak the truth? Will we have some way to soothe him and persuade him gently, while concealing that he is not in his right mind? —We need one,
at any rate, he said. —Come then, consider what we shall say to him. Or would you like us to question him like this — telling him that if he knows something, no one begrudges it, and we would be delighted to see that he knows something — 'But tell us this: does the one who knows know something, or nothing?' You answer me on his behalf. —I'll answer for him, he said: he knows something. —Is what he knows a thing that is, or a thing that is not?
—That is. How could something that is not be known? —Then are we satisfied of this, however many ways we might examine it: that what completely is, is completely knowable, and what in no way is, is in every way unknowable? —Most fully satisfied. —Good. Now if something is so constituted as both to be and not to be, would it not lie between what purely is and what in no way
is? —Between them. —Then since knowledge is set over what is, and ignorance necessarily over what is not, over this in-between we must seek something in between ignorance and knowledge, if there happens to be such a thing? —Certainly. —Now do we say opinion is something? —Of course. —A power different from knowledge, or the same? —Different. —Then opinion is set over
one thing and knowledge over another, each according to its own power. —Just so. —And knowledge is by nature set over what is, to know how what is, is? — But rather, it seems to me necessary to draw a distinction first. —How? —We shall say that powers are a certain class of beings by which we can do what we can do — we and everything else that
— whatever it can do, this is what I mean by calling sight and hearing 'faculties' — if indeed you understand the kind of thing I want to say. — I do understand, he said. — Then hear what I think about them. Of a faculty I see neither color nor shape nor anything of that sort, as I do of many other things, by looking at which I distinguish some things from others in my own mind.
Of a faculty I look only to this: what it is set over, and what it accomplishes; and it is by this that I have called each of them a faculty — the one that is set over the same thing and accomplishes the same thing I call the same faculty, and the one set over something different and accomplishing something different I call a different one. — And what about you? How do you do it? — The same way, he said. — Come back here then, my excellent friend,
I said. Knowledge — do you say it is a certain faculty, or in what class do you place it? — In this one, he said, the most powerful of all faculties. — And opinion — shall we put it in the class of faculty, or in some other kind? — By no means, he said; for that by which we are able to opine is nothing other than opinion. — But surely just a moment ago you agreed that
knowledge and opinion are not the same thing. — How could anyone with any sense, he said, take the infallible to be the same as the fallible? — Well said, I replied, and it is clear that opinion is agreed by us to be something other than knowledge. — Something other. — Then each of them, being different, is by nature set over something different? — Necessarily. — Knowledge, surely, is set over that which is, to know it
as it is? — Yes. — And opinion, we say, opines? — Yes. — Does it know the very same thing that knowledge knows? And will the knowable and the opinable be the same thing? Or is that impossible? — Impossible, he said, on the basis of what we have agreed: if a different faculty is by nature set over a different thing, and both of these are faculties — opinion and knowledge — each different from the other, as we say, then it follows from this that the knowable and the opinable
cannot be the same. — So if that which is is knowable, would not the opinable be something other than that which is? — Something else. — Does one then opine what is not? Or is it impossible even to opine what is not at all? Consider this. Does not one who opines direct his opinion toward something? Or is it possible to opine, yet to opine nothing? — Impossible. — But rather one who opines opines some one thing,
does he not? — Yes. — But surely what is not could most correctly be called not some one thing but nothing at all? — Quite so. — And to what is not we assigned ignorance of necessity, and to what is, knowledge? — Rightly, he said. — Then one does not opine either what is or what is not? — No. — Then opinion would be neither ignorance nor knowledge? — It seems not. — Is it then outside these, exceeding
either knowledge in clarity or ignorance in obscurity? — Neither. — But does opinion, I said, appear to you darker than knowledge, yet brighter than ignorance? — Yes, much so, he said. — And does it lie within the bounds of both? — Yes. — Then opinion would be something between these two. — Quite so indeed. — Did we not say earlier that if something should appear to be at once both being and not-being, such a thing would
lie between that which purely is and that which in every way is not, and that neither knowledge nor ignorance would be set over it, but rather that which appears between ignorance and knowledge? — Rightly. — And now there has appeared between these two the thing we call opinion? — It has appeared. — It remains for us, it seems, to find that thing which partakes of both, of being and of
not-being, and which could not rightly be called purely either one, so that, if it should appear, we may in justice call it the opinable, assigning the extremes to the extremes and the intermediate to the intermediate. Is that not so? — It is so. — These points being laid down, let him speak, I shall say, and let him answer me — that good man who believes there is no beauty itself, no form of beauty itself, ever
remaining the same in the same respects, but believes instead that there are many beautiful things — that lover of spectacles who cannot stand it when anyone claims that beauty is a single thing, and justice likewise, and the rest in the same way. For of these many beautiful things, my excellent friend, we shall say, is there one that will not also appear ugly? And of the just things, one that will not appear unjust? And of the holy things, one that will not appear unholy?
— No, he said; rather it is necessary that they appear in some way both beautiful and ugly, and likewise for all the other things you ask about. — And what of the many things that are double? Do they appear any less halves than doubles? — Not at all. — And great things and small, light and heavy — will they be called any more by the names we give them than by their opposites? — No, he said; each will always partake of both. — Then is each
of the many things this, which one might say it is, more than it is not? — It resembles, he said, those double-edged jokes at feasts, and the children's riddle about the eunuch and the bat — about what and with what he is said to have struck it — for these too admit of both, and none of them can be firmly conceived as either being or not being, neither both nor neither.
— Do you then, I said, have anything to do with them, or any better place to put them than the position between being and not-being? For surely they will not appear darker than not-being so as to be more not-being, nor brighter than being so as to be more being. — Very true, he said. — We have found, it seems, then, that
the many conventional beliefs of the many about the beautiful and about the rest roll about somewhere between what is not and what purely is. — We have found that. — And we agreed beforehand that if something of this sort should appear, it must be called opinable, not knowable — the wandering intermediate thing caught by the intermediate faculty. — We have agreed. — Then those who look upon the many beautiful things, but do not see the beautiful itself
nor are able to follow another who leads them to it, and who see the many just things but not justice itself, and so with everything else — these, we shall say, opine all things, but know nothing of what they opine. — Necessarily, he said. — And what of those, in turn, who look upon each thing itself, ever the same in the same respects? Do they not know, rather than opine? — This too is necessary. — Then shall we not say that these
love and cherish the things over which there is knowledge, and those the things over which there is opinion? Or do we not remember that we said the latter love and gaze upon beautiful sounds and colors and such things, but cannot bear it said that the beautiful itself is anything real? — We remember. — Would we strike a false note, then, if we named them opinion-lovers instead of wisdom-lovers? And will
they be very angry with us if we speak this way? — No, not if they are persuaded by me, he said; for it is not right to be angry at the truth. — So the name for those who embrace each thing that is, in itself, is philosophers — wisdom-lovers — and opinion-lovers is not their name? — Absolutely.
—The philosophers, Glaucon, I said, and those who are not, have finally come into view, though only after a long discussion, and with some difficulty—showing who each of them really is. Perhaps, he said, it isn't easy to show it briefly. It doesn't seem so, I said—at any rate it seems to me it would have come out better if this were the only thing we had to discuss, and we didn't have so much else left to go through in order to see how the just life differs from the unjust.
—So what comes next for us? he said. —What else, I said, but what follows? Since the philosophers are those able to grasp what is always the same in the same way, while those who cannot, but wander among the many things that take all sorts of forms, are not philosophers—which of the two must be the leaders of a city? —How could we put it, he said, and be putting it reasonably? —Whichever of the two, I said, show themselves capable of guarding the laws and practices of cities—those we should set up as guardians. —Right, he said.
—And is this clear, I said—whether it's the blind or the sharp-sighted who should keep watch over anything? —How could it not be clear? he said. —Well then, do you think there's any difference between the blind and those who are truly deprived of the knowledge of each thing that is—
who have no clear model in their soul, and cannot, as a painter looking always to what is most true and referring constantly to it, studying it as precisely as possible, in that way lay down here on earth, if it's necessary to lay them down, the customary rules about the beautiful, the just, and the good, and, once laid down, guard and preserve them? —No, by Zeus, he said,
there's not much difference. —Shall we then set these people up as guardians rather than those who have come to know each thing that is, and who fall no shorter than the others in experience, nor lag behind in any other part of virtue? —It would be strange, he said, to choose others, if these men are not lacking in the rest—since in this very thing, the most important thing, they would surpass the others. —So shall we say this, then—
in what way the same people will be able to have both that knowledge and these other qualities? —By all means. —Now, what we were saying when we began this discussion—we must first come to understand their nature. And I think, if we agree sufficiently about that, we'll also agree that the same people are capable of having these qualities, and that no others but these should be leaders of cities. —How so? —This much,
then, let us agree about the nature of the philosophers—that they always love the kind of learning that reveals to them something of that being which always is and does not wander about through coming-to-be and passing-away. —Let it be agreed. —And further, I said, that they love the whole of it, and are not willing to give up any part, small or great, more honored or less honored—just as we said earlier
about the lovers of honor and the erotic lovers. —You're right, he said. —Then consider this next point—whether those who are going to be as we've described must also, of necessity, have this further trait in their nature. —Which trait? —Truthfulness—being unwilling ever to admit falsehood in any way, but hating it, and loving truth. —That's likely, he said. —Not only likely, my friend,
but wholly necessary—that a person who is erotically inclined by nature toward something should love everything akin to and connected with the object of his love. —Right, he said. —And could you find any closer kin to wisdom than truth is? —How could I? he said. —Then is it possible for one and the same nature to love wisdom and also to love falsehood? —Not at all. —So the true lover of learning must, from earliest youth,
strive after all truth as much as possible. —Absolutely. —But surely when someone's desires incline strongly toward one thing, we know they're weaker toward everything else, like a stream diverted into that one channel. —Of course. —So in one whose desires have flowed toward learning and everything of that sort, I suppose they would be concerned with the pleasure of the soul itself, by itself, and would leave behind
those pleasures that come through the body—if he is truly a philosopher and not merely one in pretense. —That follows necessarily. —And surely such a person is moderate, and in no way a lover of money—since the things for the sake of which money is pursued with such great expense concern someone else far more than him. —So it is. —And there's also this we must consider, when you're going to judge a philosophical nature from one that isn't. —Which is?
—That it not escape your notice if there's some illiberality in it—for pettiness is most opposed to a soul that is always going to reach out toward the whole and the entirety of the divine and the human. —Very true, he said. —Then where a mind possesses greatness of vision and contemplation of all time and all being, do you think it's possible for such a person to consider human life something great? —Impossible, he said. —So such a person won't
regard death as anything terrible either, will he? —Not in the least. —Then a cowardly and illiberal nature, it seems, could have no part in true philosophy. —I don't think so. —Well then—could the orderly person, who is not a lover of money, not illiberal, not boastful, not cowardly, ever turn out to be dishonest or unjust in his dealings? —He couldn't. —So this too, when you're examining whether a soul is philosophical or not—not just when the person is young—
you'll observe: whether it is just and gentle, or unsociable and savage. —Certainly. —And surely you won't leave out this either, I imagine. —Which? —Whether it learns easily or with difficulty. Or do you expect anyone could love something adequately when he does it with pain and makes only slow, meager progress? —That couldn't happen. —And what if he could retain nothing of what he learns,
being full of forgetfulness? Could such a person fail to be empty of knowledge? —How could he not be? —And laboring to no purpose, don't you think he'll be forced in the end to hate both himself and that kind of activity? —Of course. —So let's never admit a forgetful soul among those adequately fitted for philosophy, but let's require that it be a soul with a good memory. —Absolutely. —And surely we can't say
that a nature lacking harmony and grace tends anywhere but toward disproportion. —Of course. —And do you think truth is akin to disproportion, or to proportion? —To proportion. —So, besides the other qualities, let us look for a mind naturally proportioned and graceful, one whose native disposition will lead it easily toward the form of each thing that is. —Of course. —Well then—do we seem to you
to have gone through qualities that aren't necessary, and that don't follow from one another, for a soul that is going to have adequate and complete participation in what is? —Most necessary indeed, he said. —Is there then any way you could find fault with such a pursuit—one that no one could ever pursue adequately unless he were by nature possessed of a good memory, quick to learn, magnificent, graceful, and a friend and kinsman of truth, justice, courage, and moderation? —Not even
Momus himself, he said, could find fault with that. —But, I said, once such people are made complete by education and by age, wouldn't you entrust the city to them and to no one else? And Adeimantus said: Socrates, no one could contradict you on these points. But here is what happens to those who hear you say what you're now saying each time: they think that because they are inexperienced
in questioning and answering, they're led astray a little bit at each question by the argument, and when these small concessions are gathered together at the end of the discussion, a great error appears, the opposite of what they first held—and just as in checkers, those who don't know how to finish get cornered by skilled players and have no move to make, so they too, in the end, get cornered and have nothing to say, in some other kind of game,
not played with counters but with words—though the truth is no more settled by that. I say this with an eye to our present case. For someone might now say to you that in argument he has no answer to give at each separate question, but that in fact he sees that of all who set out toward philosophy—not touching it for the sake of education and then, while still young,
leaving it behind, but lingering in it too long—most of them become quite strange, not to say thoroughly vicious, while even the most respectable of them are nonetheless affected in this way by the very pursuit you praise: they become useless to their cities. And when I heard this I said: Do you think, then, that those who say this are lying? —I don't know, he said, but I'd gladly hear what you think.
—You'll hear, then, that to me they seem to be telling the truth. —Then how, he said, can it be right to say that cities will have no rest from evils until philosophers rule in them—men we agree are useless to them? —You're asking, I said, a question that needs an answer given through an image. —And you, he said, are not accustomed, I think, to speaking through images. —Very well, I said—are you mocking me,
having thrown me into an argument so hard to prove? Listen to the image anyway, so you can see even more clearly how reluctantly I make comparisons. So harsh is the treatment the most decent men suffer at the hands of their cities that there is no single thing that has suffered the same way—one must gather the image from many things put together, defending them, the way painters paint goat-stags and
such creatures by combining features. Imagine something like this happening, whether on many ships or one: a shipowner surpassing everyone on board in size and strength, but a bit deaf and likewise a bit short-sighted, and knowing about as little about seafaring, while the sailors are quarreling among themselves over the piloting, each one thinking he ought to pilot, though he has never learned the art
and cannot point to a teacher of his, or even a time when he was learning it—and what's more, they claim it can't be taught at all, and are ready to cut to pieces anyone who says it can be taught—while they themselves are always crowded around the shipowner, begging him and doing everything they can to get him to hand over the helm to them; and sometimes, when they fail to persuade him and others succeed instead, they either kill
those others or throw them off the ship, and having bound the noble shipowner with mandrake or drink or something else, they take command of the ship using what's on board, and, drinking and feasting, sail as such men are likely to sail; and besides this they praise as a 'seaman,' a 'pilot,' one who 'knows the ship's business,' whoever is skilled at helping them get control, whether by persuasion or
by force, over the shipowner, while they denounce as useless anyone who isn't like that—having no notion at all about the true pilot, that he must of necessity concern himself with the year, the seasons, the sky, the stars, the winds, and everything that belongs to his art, if he means truly to be fit to command a ship, and how he will pilot it, whether some are willing or not—
never supposing it possible to acquire both this and the skill of piloting at the same time, together, through art or practice. Given that such things happen aboard ships, don't you think the truly fit pilot would be called a stargazer, a babbler, and useless to them by the sailors on ships thus arranged? —Very much so, said Adeimantus. —Well then, I said, I don't suppose
—that you need to look closely at the image, since it's how cities are disposed toward true philosophers—and just take in what I'm saying. —I will, he said. —First, then, teach that man who's amazed that philosophers aren't honored in cities the image, and try to persuade him that it would be far more amazing if they were honored. —I'll teach him, he said. And—
—that what you're saying is true: that the most decent people in philosophy are useless to the many. Still, tell him to blame those who don't make use of them for that uselessness, not the decent ones. It isn't natural for the pilot to beg the sailors to be ruled by him, nor for the wise to go knocking at the doors of the rich. Whoever made up that clever line was lying. The truth is naturally the other way—
whether a man is rich or poor, if he's sick, he has to go to the doctor's door, and everyone who needs to be ruled has to go to the one capable of ruling; it isn't the ruler, if he's truly of any use, who has to beg those he rules to be ruled. If you compare our present-day political rulers to the sailors we were just talking about, you won't go wrong, and the ones they call useless and idle stargazers to the true pilots—
—Quite right, he said. —So given all this, and in these circumstances, it isn't easy for the best pursuit to win a good reputation among people pursuing the opposite. And by far the greatest and strongest slander comes to philosophy from those who claim to practice it—the very people you say the accuser of philosophy has in mind when he says that most of those who go in for it are utterly rotten, and the decent ones—
—are useless, and I agreed you were right about that. Didn't I? —Yes. —So we've gone through the cause of the decent ones' uselessness. Do you want us to go on next and try to show, if we can, the necessity behind the wickedness of the many, and that philosophy isn't to blame for that either? —By all means. —Let's listen, then, and speak, recalling from where we set out in describing the—
nature that the man who's to become truly good and noble must have. What led him, if you recall, was first of all truth, which he had to pursue in every way and altogether, or else, being a fraud, have no share at all in true philosophy. That's how it was put. —Isn't this one point already quite contrary to what's now believed about him? —Very much so, he said. —So won't we be—
—not unreasonable in defending him, saying that the one who's genuinely a lover of learning is naturally driven to strive toward what is, and doesn't stay put among the many particular things believed to be, but goes on and doesn't blunt his desire or let go of his love before he grasps the very nature of each thing with that part of the soul fit to grasp such a thing—and it's fit to grasp it by kinship with it—and once he's drawn near to it and mingled with what truly is,
having begotten understanding and truth, he would know and truly live and be nourished, and only then let go of his labor pains, not before? —As reasonably as could be, he said. —Well then? Will there be any room in such a man for loving falsehood, or, quite the opposite, for hating it? —Hating it, he said. —And with truth leading the way, I don't suppose we'd say a chorus of evils could ever follow along with her. —How could it? —No, a sound and just—
—character, and with it self-control follows too. —Right, he said. —And do I need to marshal from the beginning all over again the rest of the chorus that belongs to the philosophic nature? You remember, I think, that courage, magnificence, ease of learning, and memory came out as fitting these people. And when you objected that everyone would be forced to agree with what we're saying, but that if he set the arguments aside and looked at the very people the argument concerns, he'd say he—
—saw some of them useless, and most of them thoroughly bad in every way. In examining the cause of that slander, we've now come to this: why are the many bad? And it's for that very reason we took up again the nature of the true philosophers and defined it out of necessity. —That's so, he said. —Well, said I, we need to look at the ways this nature is corrupted—how—
it's destroyed in most cases, while some small part escapes—the ones people call not wicked, but useless—and after that, in turn, at the natures that imitate this one and settle into its pursuit, what sort of souls they are that come to a pursuit unworthy of them and too great for them, and, going wrong in many ways, bring upon philosophy everywhere and among everyone the kind of reputation you're describing. —What corruptions do you mean? he said—
—I'll try, I said, to go through them for you if I can. Now I think everyone will agree with this much: that a nature having all the qualities we just now prescribed, if it's to become a complete philosopher, is rare among human beings, and there are few such. Don't you think so? —Very much so. —Now look how many and how great are the ways these few can be ruined. What are they? —The most—
—astonishing thing to hear is that each of the very qualities we praised in that nature destroys the soul that has it and drags it away from philosophy—I mean courage, self-control, and everything we went through. —Strange to hear, he said. —And besides these, I said, all the so-called goods corrupt it too and drag it away—beauty, wealth, bodily strength, powerful family connections in the city, and everything—
that goes along with these. You have the pattern of what I mean. —I do, he said, and I'd gladly hear more precisely what you're saying. —Grasp it rightly, then, I said, as a whole, and it will become clear to you, and what's been said about these things won't seem strange. —How do you mean, then? he said. —Of every seed, I said, or growing thing, whether of plants rooted in the earth or of—
—animals, we know that whatever fails to get the nourishment, season, or place proper to it—the more vigorous it is, the more it falls short of what's fitting for it; for evil is more opposed to good than to what isn't good. —Of course. —So it stands to reason, I think, that the best nature comes off worse than the poor one when it gets nourishment alien to it. —It does. —So then, said I—
—Adeimantus, shouldn't we say the same of souls—that the most naturally gifted, given a bad upbringing, become exceptionally bad? Or do you think great crimes and sheer wickedness come from a poor nature rather than from a vigorous one ruined by its upbringing, and that a weak nature will never be the cause of anything great, either good or bad? —No, he said, it's as you say. —So the nature we set down as—
the philosopher's, if it happens to get the education that suits it, is bound to grow into every virtue, but if it's sown and planted in unsuitable soil and raised there, it turns out the opposite in every way—unless some god happens to come to its aid. Or do you too believe, as the many do, that some young people are corrupted by sophists—by certain private individuals who act as sophists in a way that—
—matters and is worth mentioning—and not rather that the very people who say this are themselves the greatest sophists of all, and that they educate most completely and turn out just the kind of people they want, young and old, men and women alike? —When do they do this? he said. —Whenever, I said, sitting packed together in assemblies, courts, theaters, army camps, or any other public gathering of a crowd, with—
—great uproar they blame some of what's said or done and praise other parts, both to excess, shouting and clapping, and besides them the rocks and the place they're in echo and double the noise of the blame and the praise. In circumstances like that, what do you suppose a young man's heart is like, as the saying goes? Or what sort of private education—
—will hold out in him against this, and not be swept away by such blame or praise and carried off downstream wherever the current takes it, so that he'll say the same things are noble and shameful as they do, practice what they practice, and become just like them? —There's great necessity in that, Socrates, he said. —And yet, said I, we haven't yet spoken of the greatest necessity.
—What kind? he said. —The one these educators and sophists apply in deed when they fail to persuade by word. Don't you know they punish the one who won't be persuaded with disenfranchisement, fines, and death? —Very much so indeed, he said. —What other sophist, then, or what private arguments do you think could prevail against these, running counter to them? —None, I think, he said. —No indeed, said I—
—even attempting it is sheer folly. For no character is or ever has been or ever will be formed toward virtue against the education these people give—no human character, my friend—though we should except the divine, as the proverb says; you'll be right to say that whatever is preserved and turns out as it should amid such a state of constitutions is saved by a portion of god's doing.
—I don't think otherwise either, he said. —Then besides this, I said, let this too seem right to you. —What is it? —Each of these hired private individuals, whom these people call sophists and regard as rivals in the craft, teaches nothing other than the very opinions the many hold when gathered together, and calls that wisdom. It's just as if someone, in feeding a great and—
—powerful beast, studied its moods and appetites—how one must approach it and how handle it, when it's most dangerous or most gentle and from what causes, what sounds it's used to making on each occasion, and what sounds, made by another, tame it or make it savage—and having learned all this through long association and practice, called it wisdom—
—and, having put it together as a craft, turned to teaching it, knowing nothing in truth about which of these opinions and appetites is fine or shameful, good or bad, just or unjust, but applying all these names according to the great beast's own judgments—calling what pleases it good, what vexes it bad—and having no other account of them at all, but calling what's merely necessary just and fine, never having seen how—
—far apart, in reality, the necessary is from the good, nor being able to show anyone else. Wouldn't such a man, by Zeus, seem to you an absurd educator? —He would to me, he said. —Well, do you think he differs at all from the man who thinks he's grasped wisdom by having noted the moods and pleasures of the many and varied crowd when it gathers—
—whether in painting or in music or indeed in politics? For if a man associates with them displaying his poetry, or some other piece of craftsmanship, or a service to the city, making the many his masters beyond what's necessary, the so-called necessity of Diomedes will compel him to do whatever they praise. But that these things are truly good and fine—
—have you ever yet heard anyone give an account of that which wasn't laughable? I don't think I have, he said, and I don't expect to. —Keeping all this in mind, then, recall this: can a crowd possibly tolerate, or believe there is, the beautiful itself as opposed to the many beautiful things, or each thing itself as opposed to the many particular things? —Least of all, he said. —So a crowd can't possibly be philosophic—
—then it must be impossible for a great many people. —Impossible. —And so those who philosophize must inevitably be blamed by them. —Inevitably. —And by these private individuals too, all those who mingle with the crowd and are eager to please it. —Clearly. —Given all this, what safety do you see for a philosophic nature, that it might remain in that pursuit and reach its end? Think it through from what came before. For we have agreed
that quickness to learn, memory, courage, and magnificence belong to this nature. —Yes. —Then won't such a person, right from childhood, be first in everything, especially if his body grows to match his soul? —Of course he will, he said. —Then I suppose, once he grows older, his own household and his fellow citizens will want to make use of him for their own affairs.
—Of course. —So they will fall at his feet with requests and honors, currying favor and flattering in advance the power he is going to have. —That's certainly what tends to happen, he said. —Then what do you think such a person will do in such circumstances, especially if he happens to belong to a great city, and in it is rich and well-born, and handsome and tall besides? Won't he be filled
with impossible hope, thinking himself capable of managing the affairs of both Greeks and barbarians, and on the strength of this exalt himself, puffed up with pretension and empty pride devoid of sense? —Very much so, he said. —And if, while he is in this state, someone gently approaches him and tells him the truth—that he has no sense in him, though he needs it, and that it cannot be acquired except by slaving for its acquisition—
do you think it easy for him to listen, through all these evils surrounding him? —Far from it, he said. —But suppose, I said, because of his good nature and his affinity for reasoned argument, he does somehow perceive it, and is bent and drawn toward philosophy—what do we imagine those people will do, the ones who think they are losing his usefulness and his companionship? Won't they do everything
in word and deed, both to him, so that he won't be persuaded, and to whoever tries to persuade him, so that he won't be able to—plotting against him privately and setting him up in public contests? —Great necessity indeed, he said. —Is there any way, then, that such a person will philosophize? —Not at all. —You see, then, I said, that we weren't wrong to say
that the very parts of the philosophic nature itself, when it falls into bad nurture, become in some way the cause of its falling away from the pursuit—and so do the so-called goods, wealth and all such equipment? —No, that was rightly said, he replied. —This, then, my friend, is the ruin and corruption—so great and of such a kind—of the best nature
for the finest pursuit, a nature that is rare enough to begin with, as we say. And it is from among these very men that those who do the greatest harm to cities and to individuals come, and also those who do the greatest good, whenever the current happens to carry them that way; a small nature never does anything great, for either an individual or a city. —Very true, he said. —So these men,
falling away in this way, the very ones for whom it is most fitting, leave philosophy deserted and unfinished, and themselves live a life not fitting or true to them, while philosophy, like an orphan bereft of kin, is invaded by others unworthy of her, who shame her and heap reproaches on her—the very reproaches you say her detractors bring, that among those who consort with her, some are worthless and most deserve much evil.
—That is indeed, he said, what people say. —And reasonably said, I replied. For other little men, seeing this position now standing empty, yet full of fine titles and pretensions, dash out of their own trades into philosophy with delight, like men escaping from prison into a sanctuary—those, that is, who happen to be the cleverest at their own petty craft.
For even so degraded, philosophy still, compared with the other arts, retains a more majestic reputation, and it is this that many men with stunted natures reach for, men whose bodies have been maimed by their trades and crafts, and whose souls likewise have been cramped and worn down by their vulgar labors—or isn't that inevitable? —Very much so, he said. —Do you think, then,
I said, that they look any different from a bald little smith who has come into money, freshly released from bonds, bathed at the baths, wearing a new cloak, got up like a bridegroom, about to marry his master's daughter because of her poverty and lack of kin? —No, he said, not different at all. —What sort of offspring, then, are such men likely to father? Bastard and base ones, no? —Great necessity of it.
—And what of it? When men unworthy of education keep company with her and consort with her unworthily, what sort of thoughts and opinions shall we say they beget? Aren't they truly and fittingly called sophistries, nothing genuine or worthy of true understanding in them? —Absolutely so, he said. —A very small remnant is left, then, Adeimantus, of those who consort with philosophy as she deserves—perhaps some noble and well-reared
character, caught by exile, remaining true to her nature for lack of anyone to corrupt him; or one who, in a small city, has a great soul born in him and looks down on the city's affairs, holding them in contempt; and a small number too might come to her rightly, having with good reason held some other art in contempt because of their fine natural gifts. And the bridle of our companion Theages might also be the sort to hold someone back;
for in Theages's case everything else is arranged for his falling away from philosophy, but the ill health of his body, keeping him out of politics, holds him back. As for my own case, it is hardly worth mentioning—the divine sign; for it has happened, I think, to hardly anyone before me, or to no one at all. And of these few, those who have come to be and have tasted how sweet and blessed a
possession it is, and who have also seen well enough the madness of the many, and that no one does anything sound, so to speak, in the affairs of cities, nor is there any ally with whom one might go to the rescue of justice and be saved—but rather, like someone dropped into a den of wild animals, unwilling to join them in wrongdoing and yet unable alone to hold out against all their savagery, he would perish before he could
do any good for his city or his friends, and be useless to himself and to everyone else—when he has reckoned all this out, he keeps quiet and minds his own business, like a man who, in a storm of dust and hail driven by the wind, steps aside under a little wall, and seeing the others filled with lawlessness, is content if somehow he himself can live his life here free of injustice and unholy deeds, and
then, when he departs from it, depart in good hope, gracious and well-disposed. —Well, he said, that would be no small thing to have accomplished before departing. —Nor the greatest thing either, I said, if he does not chance upon a constitution suited to him; for in one that suits him, he himself will grow more, and along with what is his own he will save the common good as well. Now as to the reason why philosophy has incurred slander,
and that it is unjust, I think what has been said is enough, unless you have something else to say. —No, he said, I have nothing more to say on this; but which of our present constitutions do you say is suited to her? —None whatsoever, I said; that is exactly my complaint—that no present constitution of any city is worthy of a philosophic nature; which is why it gets twisted and altered,
just as foreign seed sown in another soil tends to be overpowered and to weaken away into the character of the local growth—so too this class of person now fails to hold its own power, but falls away into an alien character. But if it should ever gain the best constitution, just as it is itself the best, then it will show that it was truly divine, while the rest
are merely human—both natures and pursuits alike. —Clearly, then, you're going to ask next what this constitution is. —You haven't guessed it, he said; for that isn't what I was going to ask, but whether it is the same one we went through in founding our city, or a different one. —In other respects, I said, it is the same; but this very point was said even then, that there would need
always to be present in the city something that holds the same account of the constitution as you, the lawgiver, held when you laid down the laws. —Yes, that was said, he replied. —But it wasn't made clear enough, I said, out of fear of the very objections which you yourselves have shown make its demonstration long and difficult; and indeed what remains is not the easiest thing of all to go through either. —What is that?
—In what manner a city, taking philosophy in hand, will not be destroyed. For all great things are precarious, and, as the saying goes, fine things are truly hard. —Still, he said, let the demonstration be brought to completion, this much having been made clear. —It won't be unwillingness, I said, but rather, if anything, inability that will prevent it; you will see for yourself how eager I am. Notice now too how eagerly and recklessly I am about to say
that a city ought to take up this pursuit in a manner just the opposite of the present one. —How so? —At present, I said, those who do take it up are mere youths, who, right out of childhood, in the interval between household management and money-making, approach its hardest part—I mean the part concerning arguments—and then let it go, counting themselves the most philosophic of men; and later on, if, when others are doing the same thing, they are invited and are willing to become
listeners, they think it a great matter, considering it something one ought to practice only as a sideline; and as old age approaches, except in a few cases, they are extinguished far more thoroughly than Heraclitus's sun, in that they never light up again. —What ought they to do, then? he said. —Just the opposite entirely: while they are youths and boys, they should take up a youthful education and philosophy, and during that time, while their bodies are growing and maturing into manhood, take great care of them, thereby acquiring a service
for philosophy; and as their age advances, the age in which the soul begins to reach its completion, they should intensify its exercises; and when their strength fails and they are past political and military service, then at last let them range freely at pasture, doing nothing else except as a sideline—those, that is, who are going to live happily and, upon dying, to crown the life they have lived with a fitting portion in that other place. —Truly
you seem to me, he said, to speak with real eagerness, Socrates; yet I think most of those listening will resist even more eagerly still, and will not be persuaded in the least, starting with Thrasymachus. —Don't set Thrasymachus and me at odds, I said; we've only just become friends, though we weren't enemies before either. We won't relax our efforts, for we will keep on until we either persuade him and the others, or accomplish something
useful for that other life, whenever they come again upon such arguments, born anew. —You've spoken, he said, of a rather short span of time. —Of no time at all, in fact, I said, measured against the whole of it. Still, that the many are not persuaded by what has been said is no wonder at all; for they have never yet seen the very thing now being spoken of come to pass, but rather they have seen phrases of this sort deliberately fitted to one another
—made to resemble it, not thrown together by chance, as they are now. But a man matched to virtue and made like it, as far as possible, in perfect deed and word, holding power in another such city—that they have never seen, neither one nor several. Or do you think so? Not at all. Nor again, my good man, have they been adequate listeners to noble and free discussions, of the kind that seek
the truth strenuously, in every way, for the sake of knowing it, while holding at a distance those clever, contentious ones that aim at nothing else but reputation and strife, whether in lawsuits or in private company. Nor to those either, he said. It is for the sake of these things, then, I said, and foreseeing them, that we spoke then, though fearing to, compelled by the truth, that
neither city nor constitution, nor likewise a man, will ever become perfect, until some necessity, by chance, falls upon these few philosophers—who are not wicked, though now called useless—and compels them, whether they wish it or not, to take care of a city, and the city to be obedient to them; or until, by some divine inspiration, a true love of true philosophy falls upon the sons of those now in positions of power or kingship, or upon those men themselves.
That either or both of these should be impossible—I, for my part, say there is no argument for that. For then we would justly be laughed at, as saying things that are merely like wishes. Isn't that so? It is. If, then, a necessity for the best natures to take care of a city has, in the boundless time gone by, come about—
or is now, in some barbarian region far off, out of our sight, or will come about hereafter—concerning this we are ready to fight it out in argument, that the constitution we have described has come to be, and is, and will come to be, whenever this Muse gains mastery of a city. For it is not impossible for it to come about, nor are we saying impossible things; that they are difficult, even we agree.
Yes, and I think so too, he said. And will you say that the many do not think so? Perhaps, he said. My good man, I said, don't accuse the many so harshly. They will hold a different opinion, if you, without contentiousness but rather soothing them and clearing away their prejudice against the love of learning, show them whom you mean by the philosophers, and define, as we just did,
their nature and their pursuit, so that they don't think you mean those they themselves have in mind. Or even if they look at it that way, you will say they will take a different view and answer differently. Or do you think anyone is harsh with one who is not harsh, or envious of one who is not envious, being himself free of envy and gentle? I will say it before you: I think it is only among a few
that so harsh a nature comes to be, not among the multitude. And I too, of course, agree, he said. Then do you also agree with this, that the many being ill-disposed toward philosophy is the fault of those outsiders who have no business crashing the party, reviling one another, being contentious, and always making their arguments about persons—doing what is least fitting for philosophy? Very much so,
he said. Nor indeed, Adeimantus, is there any leisure for one whose thought is truly turned toward the things that are to look down at human affairs, and, contending with men, be filled with envy and ill-will; but rather, gazing upon things ordered and ever in the same state, seeing that they neither wrong nor are wronged by one another, but are all in order and according to reason,
he imitates them and, as far as possible, makes himself like them. Or do you think there is any device by which a man, admiring something he keeps company with, would not imitate it? Impossible, he said. So then the philosopher, keeping company with what is divine and orderly, becomes himself orderly and divine, so far as is possible for a human being; though there is much slander against everything of the kind. Quite so. If, then,
some necessity should fall upon him to practice putting what he sees there into the characters of men, both privately and publicly, and not merely to mold himself alone, do you think he will turn out to be a poor craftsman of moderation and justice and the whole of civic virtue? Least of all, he said. But if the many perceive that we speak the truth about him, will they be harsh with the philosophers and disbelieve us when we say
that a city could never be happy otherwise, unless it is sketched out by those painters who use the divine pattern? They will not be harsh, he said, if indeed they perceive it. But what manner of sketching do you mean? Taking, I said, the city and human characters as if they were a tablet, they would first make it clean—which is not at all easy; but you know that in this
they would at once differ from all others, in that they would be unwilling to touch either a private individual or a city, or write laws, until they either received it clean or made it so themselves. And rightly so, he said. Then after this do you think they would sketch in outline the form of the constitution? Of course. And then, I think, as they work it out, they would look often in both directions, toward what is by nature just and beautiful and moderate
and all such things, and again toward that other thing, working it into human beings—mixing and blending from their practices the semblance of a man, taking their measure from that which Homer too called, when it came to be in men, godlike and god-resembling. Rightly, he said. And one thing, I think, they would erase, and another again inscribe, until they made human characters as far as possible
dear to the gods, so far as that is possible. That would certainly be the most beautiful painting, he said. Do we then, I said, in some way persuade those you said were marching against us in full array, that such is the painter of constitutions whom we were praising to them before, on whose account they were angry with us because we were handing cities over to him—and are they now, hearing this, somewhat calmed? Yes, indeed, very much so,
he said, if they are sensible. For on what grounds could they still dispute it? Whether philosophers are not lovers of what is and of truth? That would be absurd, he said. Or that their nature, which we described, is not akin to the best? Not that either. What then? That such a nature, given the fitting pursuits, would not be perfectly good and philosophic, if any nature would
be? Or will they say rather that those others are, whom we set apart? Surely not. Will they still be savage when we say that, until the philosophic class gains mastery in a city, there will be no rest from evils for city or citizens, nor will the constitution we tell of in myth ever come to completion in deed? Perhaps less so, he said. Do you want us, then, I said, to say not merely that they are less savage, but that they have become altogether gentle
and persuaded, so that, if nothing else, out of shame they might agree? By all means, he said. Let these men, then, I said, be persuaded of this; but as to this other point, will anyone dispute that the offspring of kings or rulers might not turn out, by their natures, to be philosophers? Not a single person, he said. And can anyone say that, having become such, there is great necessity for them to be corrupted? That
it is hard for them to be saved, even we grant; but is there anyone who would dispute that in all time, out of all such men, not even one would ever be saved? How could there be? But surely, I said, one such man being sufficient, with a city obedient to him, would accomplish all the things now disbelieved. Yes, one is sufficient, he said. For when a ruler establishes the laws and
practices we have gone through, it is surely not impossible for the citizens to be willing to carry them out. Not impossible at all. But is it anything strange or impossible that others should come to think as we think? I for one don't think so, he said. And that these things are the best, if indeed they are possible, we have, I think, gone through sufficiently before. Sufficiently indeed. Now, it seems,
we agree, regarding the legislation, that what we describe would be best if it came about, but that it is difficult for it to come about—yet not impossible. That is what we agree, he said. Since this point, then, has with difficulty been brought to a close, we must next say what remains—by what manner and from what studies and pursuits the saviors of the constitution will be produced among us, and at what ages each will take up each task. We must indeed say, he said. It was no
cleverness on my part, I said, that made me pass over, earlier, the difficulty about the possession of women and the begetting of children and the establishment of the rulers, knowing that the perfectly true account would be resented and hard to accept; for now the need to go through it has come no less. And the matters concerning women and children have indeed been settled, but that
of the rulers must be taken up again as if from the beginning. We said, if you remember, that they must show themselves city-loving, tested in pleasures and pains, and must not be seen casting aside this conviction in labors, in fears, or in any other change of circumstance—or else the one incapable of this must be rejected, while the one who comes through everywhere unspoiled, like gold tested in fire, must be established
as ruler, and honors and prizes given to him both living and dead. Such were the things said as the argument slipped past and veiled itself, afraid to stir up what now confronts us. Very true, he said, what you say—I remember. It was hesitation, I said, dear friend, to say what has now been ventured; but now let this at least be ventured to say, that the most exact guardians must be established as philosophers. Let it be said, then,
he said. Consider, then, how reasonably they will be few for you; for the nature we went through, which must be present in them, is seldom willing to grow together into one whole in its parts—it grows, for the most part, torn apart. How do you mean? he said. Men who are quick to learn, retentive, sharp, keen, and all that follows from these, you know, are not willing to grow at the same time along with spirited and high-minded
dispositions such as would be willing to live in order, with quiet and steadiness; rather, such men are carried by their keenness wherever chance takes them, and all steadiness deserts them. True, he said. And on the other hand, those steady characters, not easily changeable, whom one would rather use as trustworthy, and who in war are hard to move against fears, behave the same way again toward learning:
they are hard to move and hard to learn, as if numbed, and are filled with sleep and yawning whenever something of that sort must be worked hard at. That is so, he said. But we say that a person must partake well and finely of both, or else neither the most exact education, nor honor, nor rule should be given to him. Rightly so, he said. Then don't you think this will be rare?
How could it not be? He must, then, be tested in the labors and fears and pleasures we spoke of then, and further, in what we then passed over but now mention, that he must also be exercised in many studies, watching whether his nature will be able to bear even the greatest studies, or whether it will play the coward, as some do when faced with cowardice in other matters. It is indeed fitting, he said, to look at it so
—to consider. But what exactly do you mean by the greatest subjects of learning? You remember, I said, that we distinguished three parts of the soul and used them to work out what justice, moderation, courage, and wisdom each are. If I didn't remember that, he said, I'd deserve not to hear the rest. And do you remember what was said before that, as a kind of preface? What was that?
We said that although it was possible to see them in the finest way, there was another, longer path by which one could travel around and get a clear view of them, but that it was possible to attach proofs to them consistent with what had been said earlier. And you all said that was enough, and so what was said then fell short of full precision, as it seemed to me — but if it satisfied you, you can say so yourselves. It satisfied me well enough, he said; and it seemed to satisfy the others too.
But, my friend, I said, when it comes to matters like these, any measure that falls short of the reality, even a little, is no measure worth having — nothing incomplete is ever the measure of anything. Yet some people think they've already done enough and needn't inquire any further. Yes, he said, plenty of people feel that way, out of laziness. But that, I said, is a feeling our guardian of the city and its laws should feel less than anyone.
Naturally, he said. Then, my friend, I said, he must travel the longer road, and put no less effort into learning than into physical training — otherwise, as we were just saying, he will never reach the end of the greatest and most fitting subject of study. Aren't these the greatest things, he said — justice and the rest we've gone through? Or is there something still greater?
Something still greater, I said — and of these very things we mustn't be content with a mere sketch, as we are now, but must not neglect the most complete working-out. Or isn't it ridiculous that, in matters of little worth, we strain every effort to make things as precise and pure as possible, while for the greatest matters we don't think the greatest precision is called for? Yes, he said, that's a fine thought — but this greatest subject of learning,
what do you mean by it, and what is it about — do you think anyone would let you off without asking what it is? Not entirely, I said — go ahead and ask yourself. You've certainly heard it more than once; but now either you aren't thinking of it, or you mean to give me trouble by pressing the question again. I think it's more the latter, since you've heard many times that the form of the good is the greatest thing to learn,
the thing by reference to which just things and everything else become useful and beneficial. And now you pretty much know I'm about to say this, and also that we don't know it adequately — and if we don't know it, then however well we might know everything else without it, you know it would do us no good, just as it would be no good possessing something without the good in it. Or
do you think there's any advantage in possessing every kind of property, if it isn't good? Or in understanding everything else without the good, understanding nothing fine or good? By Zeus, I don't, he said. But you also know this: to most people the good seems to be pleasure, while to the more refined it's understanding. Of course. And that, my friend,
those who hold the latter view can't explain what kind of understanding they mean, but are forced in the end to say it's understanding of the good. That's absurd, he said. How could it not be, I said, if they reproach us for not knowing the good, and then talk to us as if we did know it — for they say it is understanding of the good, as though we understood what they meant when they utter the word 'good.'
Very true, he said. And what about those who define the good as pleasure? Aren't they caught in no less confusion than the others? Aren't even they forced to admit that some pleasures are bad? Very much so. So it turns out, I think, that they end up agreeing that the same things are both good and bad. Isn't that so? Certainly. So it's clear there's great and widespread dispute about it? Of course.
And what about this — isn't it clear that with things just and fine, many people would choose what merely seems so, even if it isn't, and still act on it, possess it, and be thought to have it; but when it comes to good things, no one is content any longer with what merely seems good — everyone seeks what really is good, and here everyone despises mere appearance. Very much so, he said. This, then, which every soul pursues,
and for the sake of which it does everything, divining that it is something, yet perplexed and unable to grasp adequately what it is, or to have the same steady confidence about it that it has about other things, and so missing out — even on whatever benefit those other things might have offered — are we to say that about a matter of such magnitude and importance, even the best people in our city, the ones to whom we're going to entrust everything,
are we to leave them in the dark like this? Least of all, he said. I think, at any rate, that just and fine things, if it's unknown in what way they are good, won't have gained much of a guardian in someone who doesn't know that; and I divine that no one will know them adequately beforehand without this. You divine well, he said. So won't our constitution be perfectly ordered only if such a guardian, one who has knowledge of these things, oversees it? Necessarily, he said.
But you, Socrates — do you yourself say the good is knowledge, or pleasure, or something else besides these? There you go, I said — it's been obvious for a long time that you weren't going to be satisfied with what other people think about these matters. Because it doesn't seem right to me, Socrates, he said, to be able to state other people's views but not one's own,
after spending so much time on these questions. Well then, I said — do you think it's right to speak about things one doesn't know as though one knew them? Not as though I knew, certainly, he said, but I am willing to state what I believe as a matter of belief. Well then, I said — haven't you noticed that opinions without knowledge are all ugly things? Even the best of them are blind — or do you think
those who hold some true opinion without understanding differ at all from blind men who happen to walk the right road? Not at all, he said. Then do you want to look at ugly things, blind and crooked, when you could hear bright and beautiful ones from others? For god's sake, Socrates, said Glaucon, don't stop as if you were right at the end. It will be enough for us if you go through the good the way you went through justice, moderation, and
the rest. That would satisfy me too, my friend, I said, very much — but I'm afraid I won't be able to, and in my eagerness I'll only embarrass myself and be laughed at. No, blessed friends, let's leave aside for now what the good itself actually is — for that seems to me more than I could reach with my present effort,
given how it strikes me right now. But I am willing to speak about what appears to be an offspring of the good and most like it, if that pleases you too; if not, we'll let it go. Please, speak, he said — you can pay back the account of the parent another time. I only wish, I said, that I could give it in full, and that you could receive it, rather than, as now, only the interest. But do
take this offspring of the good itself, this interest, as your due. Only be careful I don't unintentionally deceive you, paying out counterfeit interest on the account. We'll be careful, as far as we can, he said — just speak. Only after I've come to an agreement with you, I said, and reminded you of what was said earlier, and of other things often said on other occasions. What things? he said. We often say
that there are many beautiful things, I said, and many good things, and that we speak of and distinguish each of these by definition. Yes, we do. And also the beautiful itself, and the good itself, and likewise for everything we then set down as many, we in turn set down according to a single form for each, as though each were one, and we call it what each thing is. That's so. And we say the many
are seen but not thought, while the forms, in turn, are thought but not seen. Absolutely so. Then with what part of ourselves do we see the things that are seen? With sight, he said. And do we hear the things that are heard with hearing, I said, and perceive all the other perceptible things with the other senses? Of course. Then have you noticed, I said, how much more lavishly
the craftsman of the senses fashioned the power of sight and of being seen? Not really, he said. Well, look at it this way. Is there any further thing, of another kind, that hearing and sound require — the one so that it may hear, the other so that it may be heard — some third thing without which the one won't hear and the other won't be heard? Nothing, he said. And I don't think, I said, that many
of the other senses need any such third thing either — not to say none of them do. Can you name one that does? Not I, he said. But don't you notice that sight and the visible do need something? How so? Given that sight is present in the eyes, and its possessor tries to use it, and color is present in the objects, unless a third thing of its own particular nature comes in besides,
you know that sight will see nothing, and the colors will be invisible. And what is this thing you mean? he said. What you yourself call light, I said. True, he said. So it's no small kind of yoke by which the sense of sight and the power of being seen are yoked together, and by a more honored bond than the other pairings, if light is not without honor. But indeed,
he said, it's far from being without honor. Then which of the gods in heaven can you point to as the cause of this — the one whose light makes our sight see in the finest way, and the things seen be seen? The one you mean, he said, and everyone else means — clearly you're asking about the sun. And is sight naturally related to this god in this way? How? Sight itself is not
the sun, neither sight itself nor that in which it arises, which we call the eye. No, indeed. But it is, I think, the most sun-like of all the organs of sense. By far. And doesn't it possess the power it has as something dispensed to it from the sun, like an overflow? Certainly. So isn't it also true that the sun is not itself sight, but, being the cause of sight,
is seen by that very sight? So it is, he said. This, then, I said, is what I meant by the offspring of the good, which the good begot as an analogue of itself — what the good is in the intelligible region, in relation to intellect and the objects of intellect, this is what the sun is in the visible region, in relation to sight and the objects of sight. How so? he said — explain further. Eyes,
I said, you know that when someone turns them no longer on things whose colors are covered by daylight, but on things lit by the gleams of night, they grow dim and appear nearly blind, as though clear sight were not in them at all. Very much so, he said. But when, I think, they're turned on things the sun shines on, they see clearly, and it appears that clear sight is present in these very same eyes.
—Of course. Well then, think of the soul in the same way. When it fixes itself on that region where truth and reality shine, it grasps and knows it and clearly has understanding. But when it turns to what is mixed with darkness—the realm of coming-to-be and passing away—it forms mere opinion and grows dim-sighted, shifting its opinions up and down, and seems
once again to have no understanding. So it does. This, then, that gives truth to the things known and confers on the knower the power of knowing—say that this is the idea of the good, and understand it as the cause of knowledge and of truth as it is known. Beautiful as knowledge and truth both are, if you consider the good to be something other than these, and even more beautiful, you will be right to think so. As for knowledge
and truth—just as it is right, in the other case, to consider light and sight sunlike, but wrong to think either of them is the sun, so here too it is right to consider both of these good-like, but wrong to think either of them is the good—rather the condition of the good must be honored still more highly. What extraordinary beauty you're describing, he said, if it provides knowledge and truth and yet is itself
beyond these in beauty—for surely you don't mean it is pleasure. Watch your tongue, I said. Look at the image of it further, this way instead. How? You would say, I think, that the sun provides visible things not only with the power of being seen, but also with generation, growth, and nourishment, though it is not itself generation. Of course. And for the objects of knowledge
you should say not only that being known comes to them from the good, but also that their being and reality are bestowed upon them by it, even though the good is not itself reality but is beyond reality, exceeding it in dignity and power. And Glaucon, quite comically, said: By Apollo, what a superhuman transcendence! You're the one to blame, I said, for forcing me to state my opinions
about it. Then don't stop, he said, on any account—except perhaps to go through the analogy with the sun once more, if you're leaving anything out. Well, I said, I'm certainly leaving out a great deal. Then don't leave out even the smallest part, he said. I think, I said, I will leave out a great deal even so; still, so far as is possible under present circumstances, I won't leave anything out willingly. Please don't, he said. Consider
then, I said, as we say, that there are two such things, and one reigns over the intelligible kind and region, the other over the visible—I won't say "heaven," so you don't think I'm playing games with the word. In any case you have these two forms, visible and intelligible? I have. Then, just as if you took a line divided into two unequal parts, divide each of those parts again in the same
ratio—the part standing for the visible kind and the part for the intelligible—and you will have, in terms of relative clarity and obscurity, in the visible section one part consisting of images—by images I mean first shadows, then reflections in water and in whatever is dense, smooth, and bright, and
everything of that sort, if you follow me. I do follow. Set the other part, then, as what this resembles—the living things around us, every kind of plant, and the whole class of manufactured things. I set it so, he said. Would you also be willing to say, I asked, that this has been divided as regards truth and its lack, so that the copy stands to
that which it resembles as the opinable stands to the knowable? I certainly would, he said. Now look in turn at how the section of the intelligible must be cut. How? This way: one part of it the soul is compelled to seek by means of the things previously imitated, treating them as images, proceeding from hypotheses not toward a first principle but toward a conclusion; the other part, by contrast—the part that moves toward an unhypothesized first principle—proceeds from a hypothesis but without the images used in the other case, making its way
by means of forms themselves, through them alone. I don't fully understand, he said, what you mean by this. Let me try again, I said; you'll understand more easily after what I'm about to say. I think you know that those who work with geometry and calculation and studies of that sort assume as hypotheses the odd and the even, the various figures, the three kinds of angles, and other
things akin to these in each field of study; treating these as known, they make hypotheses of them and no longer see any need to render an account of them to themselves or to anyone else, as though they were obvious to everyone; and starting from these, they go through the rest and arrive, consistently, at the very thing they set out to investigate. Yes indeed, he said, I know that much. And you also know that they make use of visible
figures and construct their arguments about them, though they are not thinking about these figures themselves but about those other things which these resemble—making their arguments for the sake of the square itself and its diagonal itself, not the diagonal they draw—and so with everything else, so that the very things they mold and draw, of which there are also shadows and reflections in water, they now use in turn as
images, seeking to see those realities themselves which one could not see otherwise than by thought. True, he said. This, then, is what I called the intelligible form—yet the soul, in seeking it, is compelled to use hypotheses, not proceeding to a first principle, since it cannot step above its hypotheses, but using as images the very things that are themselves copies made by the things below,
which, compared to those copies, are regarded and honored as if clear and distinct. I understand, he said, that you mean what falls under geometry and its sister arts. Then understand the other section of the intelligible as that which reason itself grasps by the power of dialectic, treating its hypotheses not as first principles but truly as hypotheses—stepping stones
and springboards, so to speak—so that, advancing all the way to the unhypothesized first principle of everything, it may, having grasped that, turn back again and, holding fast to what depends on it, descend in this way to a conclusion, making no use whatsoever of anything perceptible, but proceeding by means of forms themselves, through them, into them, and ending in forms. I understand, he said, not completely—what you're describing sounds to me like an enormous undertaking—but I do understand that you wish to distinguish as clearer
what is contemplated by the science of dialectic concerning being and the intelligible, than what is contemplated by the so-called arts, for which hypotheses serve as first principles; and though those who study these are compelled to view their objects by thought rather than by sense perception, still, because they investigate not by ascending to a first principle but from hypotheses, they seem to you not to possess understanding about these matters, even though the matters themselves are intelligible when taken together with a first
principle. And I think you call the state of mind of geometers and people of that sort thought, not understanding, treating thought as something between opinion and understanding. You have taken my meaning most adequately, I said. And now take these four states arising in the soul as corresponding to the four sections: understanding for the highest, thought for
the second, and to the third assign belief, and to the last, imagination; and arrange them in proportion, considering that they share in clarity to just the degree that their objects share in truth. I understand, he said, and I agree, and I arrange them as you say.
After this, I said, compare our nature, in respect of education and its lack, to an experience like this. Picture people living in an underground cave-like dwelling, with an entrance open to the light that runs the whole length of the cave. They've been there since childhood, legs and necks bound in chains, so that they stay put and can only look straight ahead,
unable to turn their heads around because of the chains. Their light is a fire that burns far off, above and behind them; and higher up, between that fire and the prisoners, runs a road, beside which — look — a low wall has been built, like the screen puppeteers set up in front of their audience, over which they show their puppets. — I see it, he said. — Then picture, alongside
this wall, people carrying all sorts of implements that project above it, and statues of men and other animals worked in stone and wood and every material, some of the carriers presumably talking, others silent. — This is a strange image, he said, and strange prisoners. — Like us, I said. Because, to begin with, do you think such people would have seen anything
of themselves or one another except the shadows cast by the fire onto the wall of the cave facing them? — How could they, he said, if they'd been forced to keep their heads motionless their whole lives? — And what of the objects being carried? Wouldn't the same be true of those? — Of course. — So if they were able to talk with one another, don't you think they'd take
what they saw to be the real things? — Necessarily. — And what if the prison also had an echo from the wall facing them? Whenever one of those passing by spoke, do you think they'd suppose the voice came from anything other than the passing shadow? — No, by Zeus, I don't, he said. — Then such people, I said, would take nothing else to be the truth except the shadows
of the manufactured objects. — Quite inevitably, he said. — Now consider, I said, what their release would be like, and their cure from these chains and from this folly — what it would naturally be like, if something of this sort happened to them. Whenever one of them was freed and forced suddenly to stand up, turn his neck, walk, and look toward the light, he would suffer pain doing all this,
and because of the glare he'd be unable to make out the things whose shadows he used to see. What do you think he'd say if someone told him that what he saw before was mere nonsense, but that now, being closer to what is and turned toward more real things, he sees more correctly — and, moreover, if pointing out each of the passing objects, one forced him to answer what each one was? Don't you think
he'd be at a loss, and believe that what he used to see was truer than what was now being shown to him? — Far more so, he said. — And if one forced him to look at the light itself, wouldn't his eyes hurt, and wouldn't he flee, turning away toward the things he's able to make out, and think those really clearer than what was being pointed out to him? — Just so, he said. — And if, I said, from there
someone dragged him by force up the rough, steep ascent, and did not let go until he'd hauled him out into the sunlight, wouldn't he be pained and irritated at being dragged, and when he came into the light, with his eyes filled with the sun's brightness, wouldn't he be unable to see even one of the things now called true? — No, he said, not right away, at least.
He would need time to get used to it, I think, if he's going to see the things above. And at first he would most easily make out shadows, and after that the reflections of men and other things in water, and later the things themselves; and from there he'd more easily gaze on the things in the sky, and the sky itself, at night, looking at the light of the stars
and moon, than at the sun and its light by day. — Of course. — And last of all, I imagine, the sun — not images of it in water or in some alien place, but the sun itself, in its own place — he'd be able to look at and study as it really is. — Necessarily so, he said. — And after this he would go on to reason about
it, that this is the one that provides the seasons and the years, and governs everything in the visible region, and is in some way the cause of all the things they used to see. — Clearly, he said, that's what he'd come to after those other things. — Well then? When he remembers his first dwelling and what passed for wisdom there, and his fellow prisoners then, don't you think he'd
count himself happy for the change, and pity them? — He certainly would. — And if there had been honors and praises among them then, and prizes for the one who saw the passing shadows most sharply, and best remembered which used to come before, which after, and which together, and from this was most able to divine what was going to come next — do you think he'd still desire those things
and envy those among them who were honored and held power, or would he rather have felt what Homer describes, and wish strongly 'to be a serf on the land of some landless man,' and endure anything at all, rather than hold those opinions and live that way? — Yes, he said, I think he would — that he'd endure anything rather than live that way. — And consider this too, I said.
If such a man went back down again and sat in the same seat, wouldn't his eyes be filled with darkness, coming suddenly from the sun? — Very much so, he said. — And if he had to compete again, judging those shadows, with the prisoners who had never been released, while his eyes were still failing — and this before his eyes had settled, which might take
quite some time to adjust — wouldn't he be a laughingstock, and wouldn't it be said of him that he went up and came back with his eyesight ruined, and that it isn't even worth trying to go up? And as for anyone who tried to free them and lead them up, if they could somehow get their hands on him and kill him, wouldn't they kill him? — They certainly would, he said. — This image, then,
my dear Glaucon, must be applied as a whole to what was said before — likening the region revealed through sight to the dwelling of the prison, and the light of the fire within it to the power of the sun; and if you take the upward journey and the viewing of things above as the soul's ascent to the intelligible region, you won't miss my
meaning, since that's what you want to hear about. Whether it's true, God only knows. But this, at any rate, is how it appears to me: in the realm of the knowable, the last thing to be seen, and only with difficulty, is the form of the good; but once seen, it must be concluded that this is indeed the cause of all that is right and beautiful in everything — that in the visible realm it gives birth to light and to the lord of light, and
in the intelligible realm it is itself the sovereign source of truth and understanding — and that whoever is going to act wisely in private or in public must see it. — I agree, he said, insofar as I'm able. — Come, then, I said, agree with this too, and don't be surprised that those who have come this far are unwilling to manage human affairs, but that their souls are always straining upward
to spend their time there. That's likely enough, I think, if indeed things really are according to the image just described. — Likely indeed, he said. — Well, then — do you think it at all strange, I said, if someone coming from divine contemplations to human evils behaves awkwardly and looks utterly ridiculous, still dim-sighted and not yet sufficiently accustomed to the darkness around him, forced
to contend in courts or elsewhere about the shadows of justice, or about the statues whose shadows they are, and to dispute over how these are understood by people who have never seen justice itself? — Not strange at all, he said. — But anyone with sense, I said, would remember that there are two kinds of disturbance to the eyes, arising from two causes:
moving from light into darkness, and from darkness into light. And thinking the same things happen to the soul, whenever he saw one troubled and unable to make anything out, he wouldn't laugh unthinkingly, but would consider whether it had come from a brighter life and was dimmed by the unfamiliarity, or whether, coming from greater ignorance into greater brightness, it was dazzled by the brilliance of the glare — and so,
he would count the one happy for its experience and its life, and pity the other; and if he wanted to laugh at it, his laughter would be less ridiculous than laughter directed at the soul that has come from above, out of the light. — That's very fairly put, he said. — We must, then, I said, think of these matters like this, if what's been said is true: that education is not what some who profess it claim it to be.
They claim, I believe, to put knowledge into a soul that doesn't have it, as if putting sight into blind eyes. — That's certainly what they say, he said. — But our present argument, I said, indicates that this power is already present in each soul, and that the instrument by which each person learns is like an eye that could not be turned from darkness to light
except by turning the whole body along with them: in the same way, this instrument must be wheeled around along with the entire soul, away from that which is coming-to-be, until it becomes capable of enduring the sight of that which is, and of the brightest part of that which is — and this, we say, is the good. Isn't that so? — Yes. — Of this, then, I said, there would be a craft — of this very turning around — concerned
with how it might most easily and effectively be redirected, not with implanting sight in it, but on the understanding that it already has that, though not rightly turned, nor looking where it ought, and to contrive a way to bring this about. — So it seems, he said. — Now as for the rest of what people call the soul's virtues, they do seem to be something close to those of the body — for in truth, when they're not present beforehand, they can later be produced by habits and
practices — but the virtue of understanding, it seems, belongs to something more divine than anything else, something that never loses its power, but through the way it is turned becomes useful and beneficial, or else useless and harmful. Or have you not yet noticed, in the case of people called wicked but clever, how sharply their petty soul sees, and how keenly it discerns the things toward which it's turned, as
having no poor vision, but being compelled to serve vice, so that the more sharply it sees, the more evils it accomplishes? — Quite so, he said. — Yet this, I said, this feature of such a nature — if it had been struck off from childhood, right from the start, cut away from those leaden weights, so to speak, akin to its coming into being, weights that grow attached to it through feasting and such pleasures and gluttonies
— that turn the soul's vision downward. If it were freed from these and turned around toward the truth, that same faculty in those same men would see the truth just as sharply as it now sees the things it's turned toward. — That's likely, he said. — Well, isn't this likely too, and in fact necessary given what we've said: that neither the uneducated, who have no experience of truth, could ever adequately govern a city, nor those who are allowed to spend their whole lives in study can either —
the first because they have no single aim in life at which they must direct everything they do, in private or in public; the second because they won't willingly act at all, thinking they've already been transported, while still alive, to the Isles of the Blessed? — True, he said. — Then it's our job, I said, as founders,
to compel the best natures to reach the study we said before was the greatest — to see the good and make that ascent — and once they've gone up and seen enough, not to let them do what's now allowed. — What do you mean? — To stay there, I said, and refuse to go back down again to those
prisoners, or to share in their labors and honors, whether trivial or serious. — Then, he said, will we be wronging them, making them live a worse life when they could have a better one? — You're forgetting again, my friend, I said, that the law isn't concerned with making any one group in the city exceptionally happy, but contrives to bring this about for the city as a whole,
harmonizing the citizens by persuasion and compulsion, making them share with one another whatever benefit each group is able to contribute to the community, and it produces such men in the city not in order to let each go wherever he pleases, but in order to make use of them itself, to bind the city together. — True, he said — I'd forgotten. — Consider, then, Glaucon, I said,
that we won't be wronging the philosophers who arise among us either — that we'll say something just to them when we compel them to look after and guard the others. We'll say: those who become such men in other cities are reasonably not obliged to share in the labors there, since they spring up spontaneously, against the will of the regime they live under, and it's only fair that what grows up on its own, owing its nurture to no one, should feel no urge
to pay anyone back for its upbringing. But we have bred you, for yourselves and for the rest of the city alike, to be leaders and kings in the hive, as it were — better and more completely educated than those others, and more capable of taking part in both lives. So each of you must go down in turn to live among the others and get used to seeing in the dark; once accustomed to it, you'll see a thousand times better than the people
there, and you'll recognize what each of the images is, and what it's an image of, because you've seen the truth about beautiful, just, and good things. And so the city will be governed by us and by you in a waking state, not as in a dream, the way most cities now are governed by men fighting shadows of each other and quarreling over ruling, as if that were some great good. But the truth, I imagine,
is this: in the city where those who are going to rule are least eager to rule, that city must be governed best and with the least faction; and the one with the opposite kind of rulers will be governed in the opposite way. — Quite so, he said. — Do you think, then, that our nurslings will disobey us when they hear this, and refuse to share in the city's labors each in his turn, spending most of their time living with one another in
the pure realm above? — Impossible, he said; we'll be laying just demands on just men. Yet each of them will approach ruling as something necessary, quite the opposite of what happens now with rulers in every city. — Yes, that's how it is, my friend, I said: if you can find, for those who are going to rule, a way of life better than ruling, then it's possible for you to have a well-governed city — for only in that city
will the truly rich rule, rich not in gold but in what the happy man must be rich in: a good and intelligent life. But if beggars, hungry for private goods, go into public affairs thinking that's where they should snatch their good from, it can't be done; for once ruling becomes something fought over, this kind of war, domestic and internal, destroys both the men themselves and the rest of the
city. — Very true, he said. — Do you know of any other life, then, I said, that looks down on political office besides the life of true philosophy? — No, by Zeus, he said. — But surely those who go after ruling must not be lovers of it; otherwise there will be rival lovers fighting over it. — Of course. — Whom else, then, will you compel to take up guardianship of the
city, if not those who are wisest about the things through which a city is governed best, and who have other honors and a better life than the political one? — No one else, he said. — Do you want us, then, to examine now how such men will come to be, and how one might bring them up into the light — the way certain men, in the stories, went up from Hades to join the gods? — Of course I want that, he said.
This, it seems, would not be a turning of a potsherd, but a conversion of the soul from a kind of nighttime day to the true day — an ascent to what is, which we'll call true philosophy. — Quite so. — Then we must consider what kind of study has this power. — Of course. — What, then, Glaucon, would be a study that draws the soul from what is becoming
to what is? Here's another thing I have in mind as I speak: didn't we say these men must be athletes of war when young? — Yes, we did. — Then the study we're looking for must also have that further quality. — What quality? — That it not be useless to men of war. — It certainly must, if that's possible. — Now, gymnastic and music were what they were educated in earlier, in our scheme. — Yes,
that's so, he said. — And gymnastic, I think, is concerned with what comes into being and passes away, for what it supervises is the body's growth and its wasting away. — So it seems. — Then that can't be the study we're looking for. — No. — Is it music, then, as much as we went through before? — But that, he said, was the counterpart of gymnastic, if you remember — it educated the guardians through habits, imparting a certain harmoniousness by means of harmony,
not knowledge, and a certain rhythmic quality by means of rhythm, and in its stories it had certain other kindred habits, both the mythical stories and the truer ones; but it contained no study leading toward the sort of thing you're now looking for. — You remind me most precisely, I said; it really did contain nothing of the kind. — But then, my dear
Glaucon, what could such a study be? All the crafts, after all, seemed to be somehow menial — — Of course. — And yet what other study is left, apart from music, gymnastic, and the crafts? — Come, I said, if we have nothing else to grasp outside these, let's take up one of the things that extend to everything. — What do you mean? — This common thing, for instance, which
all crafts, forms of thought, and sciences make use of — which everyone must learn among the very first things. — What is that? he said. — This trivial thing, I said — distinguishing one and two and three; I mean, in sum, number and calculation. Or isn't it the case with these that every craft and science is compelled
to partake of them? — Very much so, he said. — And war too? I said. — Necessarily so, he said. — It's quite absurd, then, I said, that Palamedes in the tragedies always makes Agamemnon out to be such a general. Have you not noticed that he says he invented number and used it to organize the ranks of the army at Troy, and to count the ships and everything else, as though before that they were uncounted and
Agamemnon, it seems, didn't even know how many feet he had, if indeed he didn't know how to count? Yet what sort of general do you suppose he was? — A strange one indeed, he said, if that were true. — Shall we then set down, I said, calculation and the ability to count as a necessary study for a man of war? — Most necessary of all, he said, if he's to understand anything of battle formations at all — or rather
if he's to be a human being at all. — Do you notice, then, I said, the same thing about this study that I do? — What is that? — It seems likely to be, by nature, one of those studies that lead toward understanding, which we're looking for — yet no one uses it correctly, though it's altogether suited to draw the mind toward being. — What do you mean? he said. — I'll try, I said, to make clear at least what I think. As I distinguish for myself which things are guides
to what we mean and which are not, join me in considering and either agree or disagree, so that we can see more clearly whether things are as I divine. — Show me, he said. — I show you, then, I said, if you can see it: some things in our perceptions don't call on the understanding to examine them, since they're adequately judged by perception itself, while others altogether summon it to examine them, since perception produces nothing sound
there. — You clearly mean, he said, things that appear at a distance, and things drawn in shadow-painting. — You haven't quite hit on what I mean, I said. — What do you mean, then? he said. — The things that don't call on it, I said, are those that don't at the same time issue in a contrary perception; but those that do issue in a contrary perception I count as calling on it, whenever perception reveals this no more than its opposite, whether it strikes
from near or from far. You'll understand more clearly what I mean this way. Here, we say, are three fingers — the smallest, the second, and the middle one. — Quite so, he said. — Think of me as speaking of them as seen from close up. But consider this about them. — What? — Each of them appears equally a finger, and in this respect it makes no difference whether
it's seen in the middle or at the end, whether white or black, thick or thin, or anything of that sort. In all these cases the soul of most people isn't compelled to ask the understanding what a finger is, since sight never signals to it that the finger is at the same time the opposite of a finger. — No, it doesn't, he said. — Then reasonably, I said,
a thing of this kind wouldn't be able to call on or awaken understanding. — Reasonably so. — But what about this: does sight see their largeness and smallness adequately, and does it make no difference to it whether one of them lies in the middle or at the end? And likewise with thickness and thinness, or softness and hardness, for touch? And do the other senses too
reveal such things adequately? Or does each of them do this instead: first, the sense assigned to the hard is necessarily also assigned to the soft, and it reports to the soul that it perceives the same thing as both hard and soft? — Yes, that's so, he said. — Then isn't it necessary, I said, that in cases like this the soul in turn be at a loss as to what this
—perception announces the hard, if it also announces the same thing as soft, and the same for light and heavy—what is the light and the heavy, if the heavy signifies light and the light signifies heavy? "Yes," he said, "these reports are indeed strange to the soul and need examination." "It's reasonable, then," I said, "that in cases like these the soul first
tries, by summoning calculation and understanding, to look into whether each of the things reported is one or two." "Of course." "And if it appears to be two, each of the two appears distinct and one?" "Yes." "So if each is one, and the two together are two, it will conceive the two as separate—for it could not conceive an inseparable two, but only one." "Correct." "And sight, in fact, sees great and
small too, we say, but not as separate—rather as something confused together, isn't that so?" "Yes." "And to clarify this, understanding in turn is compelled to see great and small not as confused but as distinguished—the opposite of what sight does." "True." "So isn't it from here, somewhere, that it first occurs to us to ask what, then, is the great and what the small?" "Absolutely."
"And this is how we came to call the one intelligible and the other visible." "Quite right," he said. "This, then, is just what I was trying to say a moment ago: that some things summon thought and others do not—those that strike perception together with their own opposites I define as summoning it, while those that do not, I define as not awakening understanding." "I understand now," he said, "and I agree that's so."
"Well then—which class do number and the one seem to belong to?" "I don't follow," he said. "Reason it out, then," I said, "from what's already been said. For if the one is adequately seen just by itself, or grasped by some other perception, it wouldn't draw the mind toward being, as we said about the finger. But if some opposite is always seen along with it, so that
it appears no more one than its opposite, then something would be needed to judge between them, and the soul within would be forced into perplexity and inquiry, stirring up its own understanding, and would ask what, then, the one itself really is—and in this way the study of the one would be among those that lead and turn the soul around toward the vision of being." "But surely,"
he said, "the sight of the one has this feature not least of all—for we see the very same thing at once as one and as an unlimited multitude." "Then if that's true of the one," I said, "doesn't the same hold for number as a whole as well?" "Of course." "And yet arithmetic and calculation deal entirely with number." "Very much so." "And these subjects appear to lead toward
truth." "Remarkably so." "Then it seems these would be among the studies we're seeking—for a warrior must learn them for the sake of troop formations, and a philosopher must learn them because he has to rise up out of becoming and grasp being, or else never become a true reckoner." "That's so," he said. "And our guardian happens to be both warrior and philosopher." "Certainly." "So this subject would be fitting
to legislate, Glaucon, and to persuade those who are going to have a share in the greatest offices of the city to take up calculation—not casually, but until they arrive, through pure thought itself, at the contemplation of the nature of numbers—not for the sake of buying and selling, as merchants or shopkeepers practice it, but for the sake of war and for the soul's own ease of
turning away from becoming toward truth and being." "Beautifully put," he said. "And indeed," I said, "I now realize, now that the subject of calculation has been mentioned, how subtle it is and how useful in many ways for what we want—provided one pursues it for the sake of knowledge and not for trafficking." "In what way?" he said. "In just this, as we were saying a moment ago—how
powerfully it draws the soul upward and forces it to discuss numbers themselves, never tolerating anyone who proposes visible or tangible bodies as the numbers under discussion. You know, I imagine, how those skilled in these matters, if someone tries in argument to cut the one itself into parts, laugh at him and won't accept it—rather, if you try to break it up, they
multiply it instead, taking care that the one should never appear to be not one but many parts." "Very true," he said. "So what do you suppose, Glaucon, would happen if someone asked them: 'My good fellows, what numbers are you discussing, in which the one is just as you claim it to be—each one perfectly equal to every other, not differing in the least, and containing no parts within itself?' What
do you think they'd answer?" "This, I think—that they're speaking of numbers that can only be thought about, and can't be handled in any other way at all." "Do you see, then, my friend," I said, "that this subject really does seem to be necessary for us, since it evidently compels the soul to use pure understanding itself in pursuit of truth itself?" "Indeed," he said, "it certainly does
do that." "And here's something else—have you noticed this: that those naturally gifted at calculation turn out to be quick, so to speak, at practically every other subject, while the slow, if trained and exercised in this, even if they gain nothing else from it, still all improve and become sharper than they were?" "That's so," he said. "And what's more, I think you won't easily find many subjects that give
more trouble to one learning and practicing them than this one." "No, indeed." "So for all these reasons, the subject shouldn't be dropped—rather, those of the best natures should be trained in it." "I agree," he said. "Let this, then," I said, "be settled as one point for us—and let's examine, second, whether the subject that comes next after it has anything to do with us." "What subject is that? Do you mean
geometry?" he said. "That's exactly it," I said. "As far as it bears on warfare," he said, "it's clearly relevant—for in setting up camp, seizing terrain, concentrating and deploying an army, and all the other formations troops take up both in battle itself and on the march, a man would differ from himself depending on whether he knew geometry or not." "But
still," I said, "for purposes like those, even a small portion of geometry and calculation would suffice. What we need to examine is whether the greater and more advanced part of it tends toward that other goal—making it easier to see the form of the good. And everything tends toward that, we say, which compels the soul to turn itself around toward that region where
dwells the most blessed part of being, which it must by every means behold." "You're right," he said. "So then, if it compels the soul to contemplate being, it's relevant; but if it compels contemplation of becoming, it isn't." "So we say." "Well then," I said, "no one with even a little experience of geometry will dispute this with us—that this science is entirely the opposite of what
is said about it by those who practice it." "How so?" he said. "They speak in a quite ridiculous and constrained way—as though they were doing something practical, and framing all their language for the sake of action, talking of 'squaring,' 'applying,' 'adding,' and all such expressions, when in fact the whole subject is pursued for the sake of knowledge." "Absolutely so," he said. "Then mustn't we agree on this further point?" "Which one?"
That it is knowledge of what always is, not of anything that comes to be and passes away." "Easy to agree," he said, "for geometrical knowledge is knowledge of what always is." "Then it would be something that draws the soul toward truth, noble friend, and produces the philosopher's habit of mind by directing upward what we now wrongly keep turned downward." "As much as possible," he said. "As much as possible, then,"
I said, "we must most strictly require that the people in your beautiful city not neglect geometry in any way. For even its side benefits are not small." "What benefits?" he said. "Those you mentioned yourself," I said, "regarding warfare—and also, for all studies generally, we know, I think, that there's a world of difference
between someone who has grasped geometry and someone who hasn't." "The whole world of difference, by Zeus," he said. "Then shall we set this down as a second subject for the young?" "Let's set it down," he said. "And what next—shall we make astronomy the third? Or don't you think so?" "I think so, certainly," he said, "for being finely attuned to seasons, months, and years is useful not only for farming and seafaring, but no less for generalship too." "You're delightful," I
said, "in seeming afraid of the crowd, lest you appear to be prescribing useless subjects. But it's really no small thing—though hard to believe—that in each of these studies some instrument of the soul is purified and rekindled, one that is being destroyed and blinded by other pursuits, though it's worth preserving more than ten thousand eyes, since by it alone is truth seen. To those who agree with this,
you'll seem to speak marvelously well; but those who have never perceived it at all will naturally think you're talking nonsense, since they see no other benefit worth mentioning coming from it. So consider right now which of the two groups you're addressing—or rather, whether you're addressing neither, but making the argument chiefly for your own sake, though you wouldn't begrudge it to anyone else either, if they could gain some
benefit from it." "That's how I choose it," he said, "to speak, ask, and answer mostly for my own sake." "Then step back a moment," I said, "for just now we took the wrong thing as coming next after geometry." "What did we take wrongly?" he said. "After plane surfaces," I said, "we took solids already in rotation, before taking up solids by themselves. The correct order is to take up the third dimension of growth right after the second,
and this concerns, I suppose, the growth of cubes and whatever partakes of depth." "Yes, it does," he said, "but this subject, Socrates, doesn't seem to have been discovered yet." "There are two reasons for that," I said—"because no city holds these studies in honor, they are pursued half-heartedly, difficult as they are, and those who seek them need a guide, without whom they wouldn't discover anything,"
"who in the first place is hard to come by, and then, even once he did appear, as things stand now, those engaged in this research, full of their own self-importance, wouldn't listen to him. But if a whole city took charge together and held these studies in honor, then such researchers would be persuaded, and being pursued continuously and intensively, the truth would become clear as to how matters stand—since even now, though disdained and stunted by the many,
and by researchers who can't even give an account of their usefulness, still, against all this, they grow by force of their own charm, and it's no wonder they've come to light at all." "And indeed," he said, "their charm is remarkable and distinctive. But tell me more clearly what you were just saying. You were placing the study of plane surfaces under geometry." "Yes," I said. "And then," he said, "first you placed"
—astronomy, next after that—but then you backed away. I was in a hurry, I said, to get through everything quickly, and that made me go too slow. The subject that comes next, the study of depth, I skipped over because of how absurd its current state of inquiry is, and went straight from geometry to astronomy, which is the movement of depth. You're right, he said, to put it that way. So, I said, let's set down astronomy as our fourth subject, on the assumption that the one we skipped will exist once a city takes it up.
That's likely, he said. And by the way, Socrates, the rebuke you gave me just now for praising astronomy in a vulgar way—I now praise it the way you approach it. It seems obvious to everyone, I think, that astronomy forces the soul to look upward and leads it from things here to things up there. Perhaps, I said, obvious to everyone but me. To me it doesn't look that way at all.
Then how does it look to you? he said. The way people who lead others up toward philosophy handle it now makes it, quite thoroughly, a matter of looking downward. What do you mean? he said. You seem to me, I said, to have formed a rather generous notion of what learning about the things above actually is. It looks to me as though, if someone tilted his head back to study patterns worked into a ceiling and learned something that way, you'd think he was studying with his intellect rather than
with his eyes. Well, maybe your view is the sound one and mine is naive. As for me, I simply can't think of any study that makes the soul look upward except one concerned with what is and what is invisible. Whether a person gapes upward or squints downward trying to learn something about the objects of sense-perception, I say he'll never actually learn it—since none of that admits of knowledge—
and his soul isn't looking up but down, even if he does his learning lying on his back, floating on land or on sea. That's a fair sentence, he said—you were right to rebuke me. But then how did you mean we ought to learn astronomy, differently from the way people learn it now, if it's going to be of any use for the purposes we're talking about? Like this, I said. These intricate patterns in the sky,
since they're worked into something visible, we should regard as the finest and most exact things of their kind that exist, yet still falling far short of the true realities—the movements by which real speed and real slowness, in true number and in all true shapes, move in relation to one another and carry along what is within them, things graspable only by reasoning and thought, not by sight. Or do you
think otherwise? Not at all, he said. Well then, I said, we should use the patterned beauty of the heavens as illustrations to help us study those higher realities, in just the way one might make use of diagrams drawn and worked out with extraordinary skill by a Daedalus or some other craftsman or painter. Anyone experienced in geometry, seeing diagrams like that, would consider them the finest examples of workmanship, while still thinking it absurd to examine them
in earnest as though from them one could learn the truth about equals or doubles or any other ratio. Of course it would be absurd, he said. Then don't you think, I said, that a genuine astronomer will feel just the same whenever he gazes at the wheeling courses of the stars? He'll suppose that the craftsman of the heavens arranged the sky and everything in it as beautifully as such works can possibly be arranged;
but as for the ratio of night to day, of these to a month, of a month to a year, and of the other stars to these and to one another—won't he think it strange, do you suppose, for anyone to hold that these things, since they have bodies and are visible, occur forever in the same unvarying way and never deviate in the slightest, and to spend every effort trying to grasp
the exact truth about them? It does seem so to me, he said, now that I hear you say it. Then it's as problems, I said, that we should pursue astronomy, just as we do geometry, and leave the actual heavens alone, if we mean to make the naturally intelligent part of the soul useful instead of useless by taking up astronomy in the true sense. That's a far bigger task, he said, than the way astronomy is practiced now. And I suspect, I said,
that we'll have to prescribe things the same way for everything else too, if we're to be of any use as lawgivers. But can you suggest anything relevant among the studies still due? I can't think of anything, he said, not off the top of my head. Well, movement doesn't offer just one form but several, I said, or so I imagine. All of them, perhaps, someone truly wise could name; but there are
two that even we can see clearly. Which are those? In addition to the one we've named, I said, there's its counterpart. Which one is that? It looks to me, I said, as though, just as our eyes are fixed on astronomy, so our ears are fixed on harmonic movement, and these two sciences are sisters to each other, as the Pythagoreans claim — and we go along with them, Glaucon. Or how do we stand on this? That's how it is, he said. Then, I said,
since it's such a large task, we'll go ask them how they account for it, and whatever else goes along with that; but through all of this we'll keep watch over our own concern. What concern is that? That the students we're raising never attempt to learn any of this in an incomplete form, one that fails to arrive always at the point where everything must arrive, as we were just saying about astronomy. Or don't you know that
they do the very same thing with harmonics? They measure the audible concords and pitches against one another, laboring endlessly, just like the astronomers. By the gods, he said, yes, and absurdly too—they talk about certain 'densities,' pressing their ears close as though hunting a sound from next door; some claim to still catch a faint tone in between and say that this is the smallest interval by which measurement should be made,
while others dispute this, insisting the notes already sound alike—both sides setting their ears ahead of their minds. You mean, I said, the good ones, the ones who torment and torture the strings, twisting them on the pegs. To keep the image from running on too long, with the striking of the plectrum and the accusations, denials, and boasts of the strings, I'll drop the image and say
I don't mean those people, but the ones we said just now we would question about harmony. They do the same thing as the astronomers—they look for numbers within these audible concords, but they never rise to the level of problems, of examining which numbers are concordant and which are not, and why in each case. That's a superhuman task you're describing, he said. Useful, though, I said,
for the search after the beautiful and the good, but useless if pursued any other way. Likely so, he said. And I imagine, I said, that the whole method covering everything we've gone through, if it arrives at their common bond and kinship with one another, and we work out how they're related to each other, will contribute something toward what we want and the effort won't be wasted;
but if not, it will be wasted. That's my guess too, he said. But this is an enormous undertaking you're describing, Socrates. The prelude to it, I said—or what else do you mean? Or don't we know that all of this is only a prelude to the very law we must learn? Surely you don't think that people skilled in these subjects are dialecticians. No, by Zeus, he said, except for
a very few I've come across. But then, I said, can people who are unable to give and receive an account ever come to know anything of what we say must be known? No, he said, not that either. Well then, Glaucon, I said, isn't this at last the very law that dialectic brings to completion? And though it belongs to the realm of thought, it's imitated by the power of sight,
which we said tries to look at living creatures themselves, and at the stars themselves, and finally at the sun itself. In just the same way, whenever someone tries, through dialectic, using reason alone and setting aside all the senses, to press on toward what each thing is in itself, and doesn't give up until he grasps by thought alone what the good itself is, he arrives
at the very limit of the intelligible, just as the other man, back then, arrived at the limit of the visible. Absolutely, he said. Well then—don't you call this journey dialectic? What else would I call it? And the release from the chains, I said, and the turning away from the shadows toward the images and the light, and the ascent out of the cave into the
sun—and once there, still lacking the strength to gaze on animals or growing things or the sun's own light, seeing instead only those divine reflections in water and shadows cast by real objects, not shadows of images thrown by some other light of that kind judged against the sun—this whole undertaking, comprising the arts we've gone through, has this same power and
leads the best part of the soul upward to the contemplation of what is best among realities, just as before the clearest part of the body was led up to the contemplation of what is brightest in the bodily, visible region. For my part, he said, I accept this account. And yet it seems to me altogether difficult to accept, and, in another way, difficult not to accept. Still—since this isn't something
to be heard just once, right now, but to be returned to again and again—let's take it, for now, that things stand as we've just said, and go on to the law itself, and go through it the way we went through the prelude. Tell me, then, what is the nature of the power of dialectic, into what kinds does it divide, and what, in turn, are its paths? For these, it seems, would be the very paths
leading to that goal itself, where, once arrived, one would find, as at the end of a journey, both rest and completion. No longer, I said, dear Glaucon, will you be able to follow—though on my side there'd be no lack of eagerness—nor would you any longer be seeing an image of what we're speaking of, but the truth itself, at least as it appears to me. Whether it really is so or not is no longer something worth
insisting on firmly. But that there is something of this kind to be seen, that much must be insisted on. Isn't that so? Of course. And also that the power of dialectic alone could reveal it, to someone experienced in what we've just gone through, and in no other way is this possible? That too, he said, is worth insisting on firmly. This much, at any rate, I said, no one will dispute when we say that some other
method attempts systematically to grasp, concerning each thing itself, what each thing is. All the other arts are directed either toward human opinions and desires, or toward coming-into-being and composition, or are wholly devoted to the care of things that grow and are put together; while the rest, the ones we said do lay hold of something of what is—geometry and the studies that follow it—we see how they dream
about what is, but are incapable of seeing it in a waking state, so long as they make use of hypotheses and leave these undisturbed, unable to give any account of them. For when the starting point is something one doesn't know, and the conclusion and the steps in between are woven together out of what one doesn't know, what means is there for such mere agreement ever to become knowledge? None, he said. Then, I said, dialectic
—this is the only method that proceeds in this way, doing away with hypotheses and going up to the very first principle itself, so as to make itself secure there, and it gently draws and leads upward the eye of the soul that is literally buried in a kind of barbarian mud, using as helpers and fellow-travelers the arts we went through—arts we often called sciences out of habit, though they need some other name, one clearer than opinion but
dimmer than science—we defined that, I think, earlier as thinking. But it seems to me that this isn't a dispute about a name, for those whose inquiry concerns matters as important as the ones now before us. — No indeed, he said. — But will it be enough if the name just somehow indicates the condition, expressed clearly in the soul? — Yes. — Then will it be enough, I said, as before, to call the first part
knowledge, the second thinking, the third belief, and the fourth imagining; and to call the last two together opinion, and the first two together intellection; and opinion concerned with becoming, intellection with being; and as being is to becoming, so intellection is to opinion; and as intellection is to opinion, so knowledge is to belief and thinking is to imagining—the proportion among the things these apply to,
and the twofold division of each—of the opinable and the intelligible—let's leave aside, Glaucon, so it doesn't fill us with a great many more arguments than the ones we've already gone through. — Well, for my part, he said, as far as I can follow, I agree with the rest. — And do you call the account of each thing's being, when someone can grasp it, dialectical? And the one who cannot give an account—to himself or to another—
to that extent you'll say he has no understanding of the matter? — How could I say otherwise? he said. — And it's the same with the good: whoever cannot mark it off by argument from everything else, distinguishing the form of the good, and cannot, as though in battle, fight his way through every refutation, striving to test things not by opinion but by being, and come through all this
with his argument unshaken—you'll say that a person in that condition neither knows the good itself nor any other good, but if he ever lays hold of some image of it, he does so by opinion, not by knowledge, and that he dreams and slumbers away his present life, and before he can wake up here he arrives first in Hades and falls completely asleep there? — By Zeus, he said, yes,
I'll say all that. — But surely your own children, whom you're rearing and educating in speech—if you were ever to rear them in fact—you wouldn't allow them, being as irrational as lines, to become rulers in the city with authority over the most important matters, would you? — No indeed, he said. — So you will legislate that they above all take hold of this education, out of which they will be most capable of asking questions and answering them
in the most scientific way? — I will legislate it, he said, together with you. — Does it seem to you, then, I said, that dialectic lies as a kind of coping-stone set above our studies, and that no other study could rightly be placed higher than this one, but that the arrangement of studies now has its completion? — It does to me, he said. — Then what remains for you, I said, is the distribution: to whom shall we give these studies,
and in what manner? — Clearly, he said. — Do you remember, then, the earlier selection of rulers, the sort we chose? — How could I not? he said. — Well, as for the rest, I said, you should suppose we need to choose those same natures: we must prefer the steadiest and most courageous, and, as far as possible, the best-looking; but besides these we must also look not only for people noble and stern in character, but also
who have qualities suited by nature to this kind of education. — What sort of thing are you distinguishing? — They need to have sharpness, my good man, I said, toward their studies, and not learn with difficulty. For souls shrink back far more in the face of demanding studies than in gymnastic exercises; the labor is more properly their own there, being private to them and not shared with
the body. — True, he said. — And we must look for someone with memory, and endurance, and thorough love of labor. Or how else do you suppose anyone will be willing both to work hard at bodily exercises and to carry through so much learning and study? — No one, he said, unless he's altogether well-endowed by nature. — The mistake made now, I said, and the dishonor that has befallen philosophy because of it,
is what we said before—that people take hold of it who aren't worthy of it; for it wasn't the illegitimate who should have taken hold of it, but the legitimate. — How so? he said. — First, I said, the one who is to take hold of it must not be lame in his love of labor—half industrious, half idle. This happens whenever someone loves gymnastics and hunting and is industrious in everything done through the body,
but is not fond of learning, nor of listening, nor inquiring, but is idle in all these; and he is likewise lame whose love of labor has shifted to the opposite of this. — What you say is very true, he said. — And with regard to truth as well, I said, we will call a soul crippled in just the same way if it hates the willing falsehood, and bears it badly itself, and is greatly indignant when others lie, but readily
accepts the unwilling falsehood, and is not indignant when caught out in ignorance, but wallows easily in ignorance like a pig? — Absolutely, he said. — And with regard to temperance, I said, and courage, and magnificence, and all the parts of virtue, we must watch no less carefully for the illegitimate as against the legitimate. For whenever a private person or a city does not know how to examine such things thoroughly
in every respect, they unknowingly make use of lame and illegitimate people for whatever purpose arises—some as friends, others as rulers. — Yes, he said, that's exactly how it is. — We, then, I said, must guard against all such things: for if we bring people sound of limb and sound of mind to so great a course of learning and so great an exercise, and educate them so, justice itself will
not blame us, and we will save the city and its constitution; but if we bring people of a different sort to this task, we will do the exact opposite in everything, and we will pour still more ridicule on philosophy. — That would indeed be shameful, he said. — Quite so, I said; but I seem to have suffered something ridiculous myself just now. — What is that? he said. — I forgot, I said, that we were playing, and I spoke
with too much intensity. For as I was speaking I glanced at philosophy, and seeing her so unworthily disgraced, I seem to have grown indignant, and, as if angry at those responsible, to have spoken what I said too seriously. — No, by Zeus, he said, not as far as I, your listener, am concerned. — Well, as far as I, the speaker, am concerned, I did. But let's not forget this: in the earlier selection we chose older people, whereas in this one
that won't be possible; for we mustn't trust Solon, who said that as a person grows old he's able to learn many things—less able, rather, than to run; all great and numerous labors belong to the young. — Necessarily, he said. — So calculation and geometry and all the preliminary education that must be taught before dialectic must be presented to them while they are children, though not in a form that makes learning compulsory
in its manner of teaching. — Why is that? — Because, I said, no free person ought to learn any subject like a slave. Bodily labors performed under compulsion do the body no harm, but no forced study stays fixed in a soul. — True, he said. — So don't raise the children in their studies by force, my excellent friend, but through play, so that you'll also be better able
to see what each is naturally suited for. — What you say makes sense, he said. — Then do you remember, I said, that we also said the children should be taken to war as spectators on horseback, and, wherever it's safe, brought close and given a taste of blood, like puppies? — I remember, he said. — In all these things, then, I said—labors,
studies, and fears—whoever always shows himself the most adept must be enrolled on a certain list. — At what age? he said. — When, I said, they are released from the compulsory gymnastic exercises; for this period, whether it lasts two or three years, makes it impossible to do anything else, since fatigue and sleep are hostile to studies. And at the same time this is itself one of the most important tests—
how each of them shows up in the gymnastic exercises. — Of course, he said. — After this period, I said, from among the twenty-year-olds those who are singled out will receive greater honors than the rest, and the subjects they learned piecemeal as children in their education must be brought together for them into a synoptic view of the kinship of the studies with one another and with the nature of what is. — That, at any rate, he said, is the only
kind of learning that is secure, in whoever it takes root. — And it is also, I said, the greatest test of a dialectical nature and its absence; for whoever can take the synoptic view is dialectical, and whoever cannot, is not. — I agree, he said. — This, then, I said, you will need to watch for—who among them proves most of this sort, and steady in their studies, steady in war
and in the other lawful pursuits—and these in turn, once they pass the age of thirty, must be selected from among the previously selected and set up in still greater honors, and tested by the power of dialectic to see who is able, releasing himself from eyes and the rest of sense-perception, to go on together with truth to being itself. And here indeed, my friend, is a task requiring great watchfulness. — In what respect especially? he said.
Don't you notice, I said, how great an evil now arises around the practice of dialectic? — What sort? he said. — Its practitioners, I said, become filled with lawlessness. — Very much so, he said. — Do you think, I said, they suffer anything strange, and do you not forgive them? — In what way especially? he said. — For example, I said, if someone were raised as a supposititious child amid great wealth, and in a large and eminent family,
and among many flatterers, and on becoming a man perceived that he was not the child of those who claimed to be his parents, and could not find those who had actually begotten him—can you divine how he would be disposed toward the flatterers and toward those who had passed him off, both in the time when he did not know about the substitution, and in the time when he did know? Or would you rather hear
my divination? — I would, he said. — I divine, then, I said, that he would honor his supposed father and mother and other relations more than the flatterers, and would be less willing to let them go without anything they needed, and less inclined to do or say anything unlawful against them, and less disobedient to them in important matters than to the flatterers, during the time when he did not
know the truth. — That's likely, he said. — But once he perceived the truth, I divine in turn that he would relax his honoring and attentiveness toward those, and intensify it toward the flatterers, and obey them far more than before, and would now actually live by their standard, associating with them openly, and would care nothing for that supposed father and the other supposed relations, unless he were altogether decent by nature.
"—nothing at all." "Everything you say," he said, "is just as it would happen. But how does this image apply to people who engage in arguments?" "Like this. We have, I suppose, beliefs from childhood about just and beautiful things, in which we were raised as if by parents, obeying them and honoring them." "We do." "And aren't there also other practices, opposite to these, that carry pleasures, which flatter"
our soul and drag it toward themselves, but do not persuade anyone who is at all moderate—people who instead honor those ancestral beliefs and obey them." "That's so." "Well then," I said, "when a question comes along to someone in that condition and asks him, 'What is the beautiful?'—and when he answers with what he heard from the lawgiver, the argument refutes him, and by refuting him again and again, in many ways, casts him down into"
the opinion that this is no more beautiful than ugly—and the same about the just and the good and whatever he held most in honor—after this, what do you think he'll do about honoring and obeying them?" "He's bound," he said, "no longer to honor them the same way, nor to obey them." "So when," I said, "he no longer regards these things as honorable and as his own, the way he did before,
and he doesn't find what's true either, is there any other life he'll turn to besides the one that flatters him? There isn't, is there?" "There isn't," he said. "He'll seem, I think, to have become lawless from having been law-abiding." "He must." "So isn't it likely," I said, "that this is what happens to people who take up arguments in that way, and, as I just said, deserves a great deal of allowance?" "Yes, and pity too," he said. "So to keep this pity from arising over
your thirty-year-olds, arguments must be handled with every kind of caution, mustn't they?" "Very much so," he said. "Now isn't this one major precaution—that they not taste arguments while young? For I don't think it's escaped you that when young men get their first taste of arguments, they misuse them as a kind of game, always using them for contradiction, and imitating those who refute, they themselves go around refuting others,
delighting like puppies in dragging and tearing at anyone nearby with argument." "Tremendously so," he said. "So when they've refuted many themselves and been refuted by many, don't they fall hard and fast into believing nothing at all of what they held before? And from this, both they themselves and the whole business of philosophy come to be discredited in the eyes of others." "Very true,"
he said. "But the older man," I said, "wouldn't want any part of that kind of madness—he'll imitate someone willing to converse and look at the truth, rather than someone playing at contradiction for the sake of a game—and he himself will become more measured, and will make the pursuit more honored instead of more dishonored." "Correct," he said. "And weren't all the things said earlier also said as a precaution about this—
that the natures to whom one gives a share in arguments should be orderly and steady, and not, as happens now, that just anyone, with no qualification at all, comes to it?" "Quite so," he said. "So is it enough to remain continuously and intensively engaged in taking up arguments, doing nothing else, but training in the opposite way from bodily exercises, for twice as many years as before?" "Do you mean six," he said, "or"
four?" "Never mind," I said, "put it at five. After this they'll have to be sent back down by you into that cave again, and compelled to hold command in matters of war and in whatever offices belong to the young, so that they aren't left behind the others in experience either. And in these posts too they must still be tested, to see whether they'll hold firm when dragged every which way, or whether they'll shift somewhat." "And how much time," he said,
are you setting for this?" "Fifteen years," I said. "And once they've turned fifty, those who have come through safely and excelled in every way, in both deeds and studies, must at last be led to the goal, and compelled to lift up the beam of the soul and look toward that very thing which gives light to all, and once they've seen the good itself, using it as a pattern, they must, each in turn, order the city and private citizens and themselves for the
remainder of their lives, each in his turn, spending the greater part of their time on philosophy, but when their turn comes, toiling in politics and ruling, each for the sake of the city, treating it not as something fine but as something necessary—and so, having always trained others of this same kind to succeed them, leaving them behind as guardians of the city, they will depart to live on the isles of the blessed. And the city will make memorials and sacrifices
for them at public expense—as to divine spirits, if the Pythia concurs, and if not, as to men blessed and godlike." "You've fashioned the rulers all beautiful, Socrates," he said, "like a sculptor." "And the female rulers too, Glaucon," I said. "Don't imagine that I've said what I've said about men any more than about women—whichever of them are born with natures"
adequate to it." "That's right," he said, "if indeed they're going to share equally in everything with the men, as we went through." "Well then," I said, "do you agree that, concerning the city and its constitution, we haven't spoken purely in the form of wishes—that these things are difficult, but possible in some way, and in no other way than as we've stated: when true philosophers, either several or one, become rulers in a city, and hold in contempt the honors now
prevailing—regarding them as unfree and worthless—and set the greatest store by what is right and the honors that come from it, and, as the greatest and most necessary thing, by justice, and serving this and increasing it, they set their own city in order?" "How?" he said. "All those in the city," I said, "who happen to be older than ten, they will send out to the countryside,
and taking charge of the children, apart from the present customs which their parents also have, they will raise them in their own ways and laws, the ones we've gone through. And in this way the city and constitution we've described will be established most quickly and most easily, and will itself be happy, and will most benefit whatever people it comes to be among." "Very much so," he said, "and as for
how it might come about, if it ever does come about, you seem to me to have put it well, Socrates." "Well then," I said, "have we now said enough about this city and about the man who resembles it? For surely it's clear what sort of man we'll say he must be." "It's clear," he said, "and as for what you're asking, it seems to me this brings it to completion."
Very well. These points, then, have been agreed, Glaucon, for the city that is to be governed supremely well: women in common, children in common, and all education in common; likewise the pursuits common in war and in peace; and their kings to be those who have proved best in philosophy and in war. —Agreed, he said. —And we also conceded this: that when
the rulers are installed, they will lead the soldiers and settle them in dwellings of the kind we described earlier, with nothing private to anyone, but common to all. And besides such dwellings, we also agreed, if you remember, what sort of possessions they will have. —I do remember, he said: we thought that none of them should own any of the things others now own, but that as athletes of war and
guardians they should receive from the others, as a wage for their guarding, their yearly maintenance for these duties, and should care for themselves and for the rest of the city. —You put it correctly, I said. But come, since we have finished with that, let us recall where we turned aside to get here, so that we may go back the same way. —Not hard, he said. You were speaking, much as you are now, as though you had completed your account of the city, saying
that you would rank as good a city of the kind you had then described, and the man resembling it — and this even though, as it seems, you had a still finer city and man to tell of. But in any case, you were saying that the others are mistaken, if this one is right. Of the remaining constitutions, as I remember, you said there were four kinds worth having an account of and
seeing their errors — and likewise the men resembling them — so that having viewed them all, and agreed on who is the best man and who the worst, we might examine whether supreme happiness belongs to the best of them and utter misery to the worst, or whether it stands otherwise. And when I was asking which four constitutions you meant, at that point Polemarchus and Adeimantus broke in, and that is how you took up the argument
and arrived here. —You've remembered it exactly right, I said. —Well then, give me that same grip once more, the way a wrestler does, and when I ask the same question, try to say what you were about to say then. —If indeed I can, I said. —And in fact, he said, I am myself eager to hear which four constitutions you meant. —You will hear them without difficulty, I said. The ones I mean are those that
actually have names: first, the one praised by most people, this Cretan and Laconian constitution; second, and second in the praise it gets, the one called oligarchy, a constitution teeming with many evils; then its adversary, arising next in order, democracy; and then the noble tyranny, surpassing them all — the fourth and final disease of a city. Or have you some other idea of a
constitution that stands in some distinct class of its own? For hereditary lordships and purchased kingships and constitutions of that sort lie somewhere between these, and one would find them no less common among the barbarians than among the Greeks. —Many strange ones are indeed reported, he said. —Then do you know, I said, that there must also be as many kinds of human character as there are kinds
of constitutions? Or do you suppose constitutions spring from oak or rock somewhere, and not from the characters of the people in the cities, which tip the scale, as it were, and drag everything else after them? —From nowhere else, he said, than from there. —Then if the kinds of city are five, the arrangements of soul in individual men will also be five. —Certainly. —Now the man
resembling aristocracy we have already gone through — the man we rightly call good and just. —We have. —Must we next go through the worse ones: the lover of victory and of honor, corresponding to the Laconian constitution; then in turn the oligarchic, the democratic, and the tyrannical man — so that having seen the most unjust we may set him against the most just, and our inquiry may be complete: how
unmixed justice stands to unmixed injustice as regards the happiness or misery of the man who has it, so that we may either follow Thrasymachus and pursue injustice, or follow the argument now coming to light and pursue justice? —By all means, he said, that is what must be done. —Then, just as we began by examining characters in constitutions before examining them in individuals, as being the plainer course, shall we now likewise first
examine the honor-loving constitution — I have no other name in common use for it; it should be called timocracy or timarchy — and alongside it consider the corresponding man; then oligarchy and the oligarchic man; then, turning our gaze to democracy, view the democratic man; and fourth, going to the city ruled by a tyrant and seeing it, and looking in turn into the tyrannical soul, try to become adequate judges of what we
proposed? —That way, at least, he said, the viewing and the judging would proceed according to reason. —Come then, I said, let us try to say in what way timocracy would arise out of aristocracy. Or is this much simple: that every constitution changes from within the very group that holds the offices, when faction arises within it; but while that group is of one mind, even if it is very small,
the constitution cannot be shaken? —That is so. —How then, Glaucon, I said, will our city be shaken, and in what way will the auxiliaries and the rulers fall into faction against each other and among themselves? Or would you like us, like Homer, to pray to the Muses to tell us how faction first fell upon them, and say that they speak to us in high tragic style, as though playing with us as with children and
teasing us, while in fact speaking in earnest? —How? —Something like this. Hard it is for a city so constituted to be shaken; but since for everything that has come to be there is decay, not even a constitution such as this will endure for all time, but it will be dissolved. And its dissolution is this: not only for plants in the earth but also for animals upon it there come fertility and barrenness of soul and of body, whenever the revolutions
of their several kinds complete the circuits of their orbits — short circuits for the short-lived, the opposite for their opposites. As for your race, the men you have educated to be leaders of the city, wise though they are, will nonetheless fail to hit, by calculation joined with perception, the times of good birth and of barrenness for your kind; these will escape them, and they will beget children at the wrong season. For a divine begotten thing there is a period which a perfect number comprehends; but for a human one, the first number in which increases, dominating and
dominated, taking three intervals and four terms of likening and unlikening, of waxing and waning, render everything conversable and rational with one another. Of these the base four-thirds, wedded to the five, thrice increased, yields two harmonies: one equal an equal number of times, so many times a hundred; the other of equal length one way but oblong — one side of a hundred numbers from the rational diameters of five, each diminished
by one, or from the irrational diameters, diminished by two; the other side of a hundred cubes of three. This whole number is geometrical, sovereign over such things — over better and worse births; and when your guardians, in ignorance of these, join brides to bridegrooms out of season, the children will be neither well-natured nor fortunate. The best of them the predecessors will install in office, but being unworthy nonetheless, once they come into their fathers' powers,
they will begin, guardians though they are, to neglect us Muses — first by valuing the arts of music less than they should, and second the arts of gymnastic — so that your young men will become less musical. And from these will be installed rulers not very capable of guarding, when it comes to testing Hesiod's races and yours — the golden and silver and bronze and iron. And when iron is mingled with
silver and bronze with gold, unlikeness will arise, and inharmonious irregularity; and wherever these arise, they always breed war and hatred. Of such descent, one must declare, is faction, wherever it arises. —And we shall say, he said, that they answer rightly. —They must, I said, being Muses. —And what, he said, do the Muses say next?
—Once faction had arisen, I said, the two pairs of races began pulling apart: the iron and the bronze toward money-making and the acquisition of land and houses and gold and silver; the other two, the gold and the silver, being not poor but rich by nature, led souls toward virtue and the ancient order. Struggling and straining
against one another, they compromised on a middle course: to distribute land and houses to be held privately; and those whom they had formerly guarded as free men, friends, and providers, they then enslaved and held as serfs and servants, while they themselves attended to war and to guarding against the enslaved. —It seems to me, he said, that this transformation begins from just there. —Then, I said, would this constitution not be
midway between aristocracy and oligarchy? —Very much so. —This, then, is how the change will come. But once changed, how will it be governed? Isn't it plain that in some things it will imitate the earlier constitution, in others oligarchy, being midway between them, and will also have something of its own? —So it will, he said. —In honoring the rulers, then, and in its fighting class abstaining from farming
and handicrafts and money-making generally; in maintaining common messes and attending to gymnastic and the contest of war — in all such things it will imitate the earlier one? —Yes. —But in fearing to bring the wise into office — since it no longer possesses men of that sort who are simple and earnest, but mixed ones — and in inclining toward spirited and simpler men,
born for war rather than for peace; in holding the tricks and stratagems of war in honor; and in spending all its time making war — in most of these features it will have traits of its own? —Yes. —And such men, I said, will be desirous of money, like those in oligarchies, fiercely honoring gold
and silver in the dark — since they possess storehouses and private treasuries where they can stash and hide it, and walled enclosures round their dwellings, veritable private nests, where they can lavish great expense on women and on whomever else they please. —Very true, he said. —And they will be stingy with money, since they honor it and do not acquire it openly, yet fond of spending other people's through desire, and reaping their pleasures in secret,
running away from the law like boys from a father — for they were educated not by persuasion but by force, because they neglected the true Muse, the companion of discussion and philosophy, and honored gymnastic above music. —You describe, he said, a constitution thoroughly mixed of bad and good. —It is mixed indeed, I said. But one thing alone stands out most conspicuous in it, from the dominance of the
spirited element: love of victory and love of honor. —Very much so, he said. —Well then, I said, this is how this constitution would come to be, and this is what it would be like — sketching the outline of a constitution in speech without working it out exactly, since even from the sketch it is enough to see the most just man and the most unjust; and it would be an impossibly long task to go through all
—constitution, and leave out none of the characters as we go through them. —That's right, he said. —Then who is the man who corresponds to this constitution? How does he come to be, and what sort of man is he? —I think, said Adeimantus, that as far as love of victory goes he comes pretty close to Glaucon here. —Perhaps in that respect, I said, but it seems to me these other traits don't belong to him the way they belong to Glaucon. —Which traits?
He has to be more self-willed, I said, and less cultivated—though still a lover of the arts—and fond of listening to things, but by no means a gifted speaker. Toward slaves a man like this would be harsh, not from the contempt a properly educated man feels, but gentle toward free men, thoroughly obedient to those in authority, and himself a lover of rule and honor—claiming the right to rule not on the grounds of speaking well or anything of that kind,
but on the grounds of deeds done in war and things connected with war, being a lover of gymnastics and of hunting. —Yes, he said, that is the character of that constitution. —And such a young man, I said, would despise money while young, but the older he grew the more he'd come to embrace it, since he shares in the moneyloving nature and
is not pure in his devotion to virtue, having been left without the best guardian. —Guardian of what? said Adeimantus. —Of reason, I said, blended with music—which alone, once it takes root, lives on as the savior of virtue throughout a man's life for whoever has it. —Well put, he said. —And such, I said, is the timocratic young man, resembling that kind of city. —Quite so. —And he comes
to be, I said, more or less in this way: sometimes he is the young son of a good father living in a city that is not well governed, a father who avoids honors and offices and lawsuits and all that kind of officious meddling, and is willing to accept a lesser position so as not to have troubles— —How does this come about? he asked. —It happens, I said, when the boy first listens to his mother grumbling that the man she married is not one of
the rulers, and that she is looked down on for it among the other women; and then she sees that he isn't very eager about money, and doesn't fight and hurl abuse in the courts, private or public, but bears all such things easily, and always seems to have his mind on himself, while toward her he is neither excessively respectful nor disrespectful; and out of all this she is upset
and says that his father is unmanly and far too easygoing, and all the other things that women love to sing about on such subjects. —Yes indeed, said Adeimantus, plenty of it, and all of a kind. —Now you know, I said, that the household slaves of such men sometimes say similar things privately to the sons, those who seem to be
well-disposed, and if they see someone who owes money and whom the father doesn't pursue, or someone else doing wrong, they urge the boy that when he becomes a man he will punish all such people and prove himself manlier than his father was. And going out he hears and sees other such things, seeing that people who attend quietly to their own affairs get labeled simpletons in the city and held
in small regard, while those who don't mind their own business are honored and praised. Then the young man, hearing and seeing all this, and on the other hand hearing his father's words and seeing his father's pursuits close up, in contrast to those of others, is pulled by both of these forces—his father watering and cultivating
the rational part of his soul, while the others cultivate the appetitive and the spirited parts; and because he is not by nature a bad man, but has been exposed to the bad company of others, he is pulled by both these forces and comes to a middle point, and hands over the rule within himself to the middle part, the part that loves victory and is spirited, and he becomes a haughty and honor-loving man. —You seem to me
to have described his origin exactly, he said. —So now we have, I said, both the second constitution and the second man. —We have them, he said. —Then after this, shall we speak, in the words of Aeschylus, of "another man arrayed against another city"—or rather, following our plan, of the city first? —Certainly, he said. —It would be, I think, oligarchy that comes after
this kind of constitution. —What kind of arrangement do you mean by oligarchy? he said. —The constitution based on property assessments, I said, in which the rich rule and the poor man has no share in office. —I understand, he said. —Then should we first explain how it changes from timarchy into oligarchy? —Yes. —Well, I said,
even a blind man could see how the change occurs. —How? —That treasury, I said, which each man fills up with gold, is what destroys that kind of constitution. First they invent expenditures for themselves, and twist the laws to permit this, disobeying them themselves, they and their wives. —Likely enough, he said. —Then, I think, each man watching another and rivaling him, they make the majority like themselves. —Likely. —And from there,
I said, as they advance further in moneymaking, the more they honor that, the less they honor virtue. Or isn't it the case that wealth and virtue stand opposed like weights lying in the two pans of a scale, always tilting in opposite directions? —Quite so, he said. —So when wealth is honored in a city, and the wealthy, virtue and the good become less honored. —Clearly. —And whatever is always honored is practiced, while what is
dishonored is neglected. —So it is. —So in place of lovers of victory and honor, they end up becoming lovers of money and moneymaking, and they praise and admire the rich man and put him into office, while they dishonor the poor man. —Quite so. —Then don't they at that point pass a law, marking out the boundary of an oligarchic constitution, setting an amount of property—more where the oligarchy is more pronounced, less where it is less—and declaring that no one whose property does not
reach the appointed assessment may share in ruling? And they carry this through either by force of arms, or even before resorting to that they establish such a constitution by intimidation. Isn't that so? —Yes, that's how it is. —This, then, roughly speaking, is how it is established. But, he said, what is the manner of life under this constitution? And what are the flaws we said it
has? —First, I said, this very thing—the nature of its boundary. Consider: if someone were to appoint ship's captains this way, by property assessment, and refuse the office to a poorer man even if he were more skilled at piloting— —They would make a wretched business, he said, of their seafaring. —And isn't it the same with anything else, any other kind of rule? I think so myself. —Except when it comes to the city? I said—or
does it apply to the city too? —Most of all there, he said, since ruling a city is the hardest and greatest kind of rule. —This, then, is one flaw as great as this that oligarchy would have. —So it appears. —And what of this—is it any less than that? —What is it? —That such a city is necessarily not one but two, one of the poor and one of the rich, living in the same place, always plotting against each other.
—That's no less a flaw, by Zeus, he said. —And surely this isn't good either—that they should be unable perhaps to wage any war, because they're forced either, if they use the armed masses, to fear them more than the enemy, or, if they don't use them, to show themselves truly oligarchic in the very moment of battle, and at the same time to be unwilling to contribute money, being lovers of money. —Not good. —And what of what we
criticized long ago—the meddling of the same people farming, moneymaking, and fighting wars all at once in such a constitution—does that seem right to you? —Not in the least. —Consider now whether of all these evils this is not the greatest that this constitution is the first to admit. —What is it? —That it is possible for a man to sell off all he owns, and for another to acquire it, and having sold it, for him to live in the city being none of
the parts of the city—neither a moneymaker nor a craftsman nor a horseman nor a hoplite, but called poor and destitute. —The first, he said, to allow this. —Indeed such a thing is not prevented in oligarchic cities; otherwise some would not be extremely rich while others are utterly poor. —Right. —Now consider this: when such a man was rich and was spending, was he then any more useful to the city
in the ways we were just speaking of? Or did he only seem to be one of the rulers, while in truth he was neither a ruler nor a servant of the city, but merely a consumer of what lay ready at hand? —So it was, he said; he seemed to be, but was nothing else than a consumer. —Shall we say then, I said, that as a drone arises in a honeycomb, a disease of the hive, so such a man arises in a household, a disease
of the city? —Quite so, Socrates, he said. —Now, Adeimantus, hasn't the god made all the winged drones stingless, while among these wingless ones some are stingless but others carry terrible stings? And from the stingless ones come beggars in their old age, while from the stinged ones come all who are called wrongdoers? —Most true, he said. —It's clear, then,
I said, that in any city where you see beggars, there are, hidden somewhere in that same place, thieves and cutpurses and temple-robbers and craftsmen of all such evils. —Clear, he said. —Well then? In oligarchic cities don't you see beggars present? —Nearly, he said, all who are outside the ruling class. —Then shouldn't we suppose, I said, that there are many wrongdoers too
in these cities, men carrying stings, whom the rulers hold in check by force, with careful watching? —We should suppose so, he said. —Then shall we not say that it is through lack of education and bad upbringing and the arrangement of the constitution that such men come to be there? —We shall say so. —Well then, such is roughly what the oligarchic city would be, and such are the evils it has, and perhaps even more.
he said. —Let us consider this constitution, then, finished, I said—the one they call oligarchy, which draws its rulers from property assessments—and after this let us examine the man who resembles it, both how he comes to be and what sort of man he is once he has come to be. —Quite so, he said. —Does he change into the oligarchic type out of that timocratic one chiefly in this way? —How? —When a son is born to such a man, at
first he emulates his father and follows in his footsteps, but then he sees him suddenly stumble against the city as against a reef, spilling out both his own possessions and himself—having perhaps served as a general or held some other great office, and then having fallen into court, injured by false accusers, either put to death or exiled or disenfranchised and stripped of his whole estate. —Likely enough,
he said. —And seeing this, my friend, and suffering it, and having lost his property, in fear, I think, he immediately thrusts headlong from the throne in his own soul that love of honor and that spirited part, and humbled by poverty he turns to moneymaking, and little by little, scraping and saving and working, he gathers wealth together. Don't you think that such a man
—So then he seats desire—the money-loving part—on that throne, and makes it the great king within himself, girding it with tiaras and collars and daggers. —I do, he said. —And the rational and spirited parts he sits on the ground on either side, enslaved beneath it, and allows the one no other business than to calculate and consider only how
more money can come from less, and the other he allows to admire and honor nothing but wealth and the wealthy, and to be ambitious for nothing except the acquisition of money and whatever leads to it. —There's no other change, he said, so swift and forceful as that from an ambitious young man into a money-loving one. —Is this man, then, I said,
oligarchic? —At least the change in him parallels the change in the constitution from which oligarchy arose. —Let's look and see whether he's similar. —Let's. —First, then, wouldn't he be similar in valuing money above everything? —Of course. —And also in being stingy and hard-working, satisfying only the necessary desires within himself,
and not providing for other expenditures, but enslaving his other desires as pointless. —Quite so. —A rather dry sort, I said, squeezing a surplus out of everything, a hoarder of treasure—the kind the crowd praises—wouldn't this be the man similar to that kind of constitution? —It seems so to me at least, he said; money is certainly most honored, both
by the city and by such a man. —Because, I said, I don't think such a man has paid attention to education. —I don't think so, he said; otherwise he wouldn't have set a blind guide over his chorus and honored it most. —Well put, I said. Now consider this: shall we not say that drone-like desires arise in him because of his lack of education—some beggarly, some criminal—held in check by force by
the rest of his vigilance? —Certainly, he said. —Do you know, I said, where you'll have to look to observe their criminality? —Where? he said. —In his trusteeships over orphans, and any situation of that kind where he gets a good deal of license to act unjustly. —True. —Isn't it clear from this that in his other dealings, where he has a good reputation and is thought to be just, he restrains
by some decent force of his own certain other bad desires present in him—not persuading them that it's not better, nor gentling them with argument, but through compulsion and fear, trembling for the rest of his property? —Quite so, he said. —And, by Zeus, my friend, I said, in most of them you'll find, whenever they have to spend someone else's money, desires akin to the drone's present within them. —Yes indeed,
he said, very much so. —Such a man, then, could not be free of internal faction, nor a single unity but somehow double, though for the most part his better desires would prevail over his worse. —That's so. —For this reason, I think, such a man would be more presentable than many others, but the true virtue of a soul in harmony and concord would escape him by a long way. —So it seems to me.
—And indeed as a private competitor in the city, the stingy man is a poor contender for any victory or other honorable ambition—unwilling to spend money for reputation and such contests, fearing to arouse the spendthrift desires and call them in as allies for the sake of rivalry and ambition—fighting his own private oligarchic war with only a few of his resources, he's mostly defeated, but he stays rich. —Very much so, he said.
—Do we still doubt, then, I said, that by analogy to the oligarchically-run city, the stingy money-maker has been correctly placed? —Not at all, he said. —Democracy, it seems, is what we must examine next—how it comes about, and what character it has once it exists—so that, knowing in turn the character of such a man, we may bring him forward for judgment. —That way, at least, he said, we'd be proceeding consistently with our own method.
—Well then, I said, doesn't it change in some such way from oligarchy to democracy, through insatiable desire for the proposed good—the need to become as rich as possible? —How so? —Because, I think, since the rulers in it rule on account of possessing much property, they're unwilling to restrain by law those of the young who become unrestrained, forbidding them to spend and squander their own property,
so that by buying up such men's property and lending against it they themselves become still richer and more honored. —Nothing more certain. —Isn't it clear by now in the city that honoring wealth and acquiring adequate self-control at the same time is impossible for the citizens, but one or the other must be neglected? —That's fairly clear, he said. —By neglecting this in oligarchies and permitting unrestraint, they've sometimes forced people not of low birth
into poverty. —Very much so. —And these men sit, I think, in the city armed with stings and weapons, some owing debts, others disfranchised, others both, hating and plotting against those who've acquired their property and against everyone else, longing for revolution. —That is so. —But the money-makers, bent over their own affairs, not even appearing to notice these men, wound whoever among the rest
submits by injecting money, and collecting many times the parent sum in interest, they breed a great number of drones and beggars in the city. —How could they not breed many? he said. —And they're unwilling either to quench such an evil once it's blazing up, in that way—by restraining people from disposing of their own property however they wish—or in this other way, by which such things
are resolved by a different law. —Which one is that? —The one that comes after that first one, and compels the citizens to care about virtue. For if one required that most voluntary contracts be entered at one's own risk, people would transact business less shamelessly in the city, and fewer of the evils we've just mentioned would grow in it. —Much fewer, he said. —But as it is,
I said, for all these reasons the rulers put those they rule in such a condition in the city; and as for themselves and their own people—aren't the young among them made soft, unused to labor, both in body and in soul, weak in the face of pleasures and pains, and idle? —Certainly. —And do they
neglect everything except money-making, and take no more care for virtue than the poor do? —No indeed. —So prepared, whenever they come into contact with one another—rulers and ruled—whether on journeys, or in other shared undertakings, at festivals or on campaigns, sailing together or serving as fellow soldiers, or even in the midst of
dangers, observing one another—do you think the poor are in any way looked down upon by the rich in such moments? Isn't it rather that often a lean, sun-tanned poor man, standing in battle beside a rich man raised in the shade, carrying much borrowed flesh, sees him gasping and helpless—don't you think he'd conclude that it's through their own cowardice that such men are rich, and would pass the word to another, when they're alone together, that 'our men are',
for there's nothing to them? —I know very well, he said, that that's what they do. —So just as a diseased body needs only a small push from outside to fall ill, and sometimes, even without external causes, is at war within itself, so too a city in the same condition, from a small pretext—when one faction brings in an alliance from an oligarchically run city outside, or the other faction
from a democratically run one—falls sick and fights against itself, and sometimes even without any outside involvement is torn by internal strife? —Very much so. —Democracy, I think, comes about whenever the poor, having won, kill some of the other side, banish others, and grant the rest an equal share in the constitution and offices, and for the most part offices in it are assigned by lot.
—Yes, he said, that is the establishment of democracy, whether it comes about by arms or by the other side withdrawing out of fear. —In what manner, then, I said, do these people live? And what sort of constitution is this in turn? For clearly such a man will turn out to be democratic. —Clearly, he said. —So first of all, they're free, and the city is full of freedom
and free speech, and there's license in it to do whatever one wants? —So it's said, at any rate, he said. —And where there's license, clearly each person would arrange his own manner of life privately in it, however each pleases. —Clearly. —All sorts and conditions of men would come into being most of all, I think, in this constitution. —Of course. —This constitution risks being the most beautiful
of all the constitutions; just as an embroidered cloak decorated with every kind of flower, so too this city, embroidered with every kind of character, might appear most beautiful. And perhaps, I said, many would judge this one too the most beautiful, just as children and women judge embroidered things when they look at them. —Very much so, he said. —And it is, you blessed man, I said, a convenient place to look for
a constitution in it. —Why so? —Because it has every kind of constitution within it on account of its license, and it risks being necessary, for anyone who wants to found a city—as we ourselves were just doing—to go into a democratically run city, as into a general store of constitutions, and pick out whichever type pleases him, and having chosen, to found his city that way. —Perhaps, he said, he wouldn't lack for models at any rate. —And the fact that there's no compulsion
to rule in this city, I said, even if you're capable of ruling, nor again to be ruled, if you don't wish to be, nor to make war when others are making war, nor to keep peace when others keep it, if you don't desire peace, nor again, if some law prevents you from ruling or judging cases, no less to rule and to judge if it occurs to you to do so—isn't this a divine and
pleasant way to pass one's time, at least for the moment? —Perhaps, he said, at least for that moment. —And what about this? Isn't the mildness of some of those condemned rather charming? Or haven't you yet seen, in such a constitution, men condemned to death or exile nonetheless remaining and walking about in the midst of things, and as if no one cared or noticed, the man struts about like a hero? —Yes, and many of them, he said.
—And its forgiveness, and its utter lack of pettiness about any of it, but rather its contempt for the things we were solemnly saying, when we were founding our city, that unless someone had an exceptional nature he could never become a good man, if he didn't play as a child amid fine things and pursue all such practices—how magnificently it tramples all that underfoot, caring nothing about what sort of pursuits
a man engaged in before he goes into politics, but honoring him if only he says he's well disposed toward the masses? —Quite noble, he said. —These traits, then, I said, and others akin to them, democracy would have, and it would be, it seems, a pleasant constitution, without rule, and full of variety, dispensing a kind of equality to equals and unequals alike. —Yes, he said, what you're describing is quite familiar. —Now consider, I said
—said I—who is such a man, taken individually? Or should we first consider, just as we considered the constitution, how he comes to be? Yes, he said. Isn't it like this? A son might be born to that stingy, oligarchic man, and raised under his father in the father's own habits. Why not? And this son too rules by force the pleasures within himself—all those that spend money but don't make it, the ones called unnecessary—
—clearly, he said. Do you want us, then, said I, so that we don't argue in the dark, first to define the necessary desires and the unnecessary ones? I do, he said. Well then, wouldn't we rightly call necessary those desires we're unable to turn aside, and those whose fulfillment benefits us? Because our nature is compelled to pursue both of these—
—isn't that so? Very much so. So we'd rightly apply the word "necessary" to those. Rightly. And what about desires a person could get rid of, if he practiced from youth, and which do no good by being present—indeed some do the opposite—if we said all these were not necessary, wouldn't we be speaking correctly? Correctly indeed. Let's pick out some example of each kind—
—so we can grasp them in outline. We should. Isn't the desire to eat, up to the point of health and good condition, and for plain bread and relish, necessary? I think so. The desire for bread, at least, is necessary on both counts—both because it's beneficial and because it's capable of sustaining life. Yes. And the desire for relish, insofar as it provides some
benefit toward good condition—yes, certainly. But what about the desire that goes beyond these, for different and fancier foods—one that can, if disciplined from youth and properly trained, be gotten rid of in most people, and is harmful to the body, and harmful to the soul as regards both wisdom and self-control? Wouldn't that rightly be called unnecessary? Most rightly. And shouldn't we also say these desires are
spendthrift, while the others are money-making, because they're useful for productive work? Of course. And shall we say the same about sexual desires and the rest? The same. And didn't we say that the one we just now called the drone is the man crammed full of such pleasures and desires, ruled by the unnecessary ones, while the man ruled by the necessary ones is the stingy,
oligarchic type? Well, of course. Let's go back, then, said I, and discuss how the democratic man comes to be out of the oligarchic one. It seems to me it happens, for the most part, like this. How? When a young man, raised as we just described—without education, and stingily—gets a taste of the drones' honey, and falls in with fierce and clever creatures capable of concocting pleasures of every sort, all kinds and varieties, there, I think, you should
suppose is the beginning of his transformation from an oligarchic to a democratic character. It's bound to happen, he said. Then, just as the city changed when one faction was helped by an outside alliance, like joining like, doesn't the young man change too, when a kindred, similar kind of desire from outside comes to the aid of the desires he already has within him? Absolutely. And if, I suppose, some counter-alliance
comes to the aid of the oligarchic element within him—whether from his father, or from other relatives admonishing and reproaching him—then faction and counter-faction and battle arise within him, against himself. Of course. And sometimes, I think, the democratic element yields to the oligarchic, and some of the desires are destroyed, others driven out, as a certain sense of shame
arises within the youth's soul, and things are set in order again. That does sometimes happen, he said. But then again, I think, other desires akin to the ones expelled are secretly nourished, and because of the father's ignorance of how to raise him, they grow numerous and strong. Yes, that's the usual way it happens, he said. And these draw him back to the same company, and, meeting secretly, breed a whole multitude. Of course. And in the end, I think, they seize the
citadel of the young man's soul, finding it empty of knowledge and fine practices and true accounts—which are in fact the best guards and sentinels in the minds of men beloved by the gods. Yes, quite empty, he said. Then false and boastful accounts and opinions, I think, rush up and take that same place instead of the true ones. Very much so, he said. Doesn't he then
go back again and openly settle among those Lotus-Eaters, and if some aid comes from his household to the stingy element in his soul, those boastful accounts shut the gates of the royal fortress within him—they let neither the alliance itself pass, nor accept as ambassadors the words of older, private citizens—but themselves fight and prevail, and they call shame foolishness and thrust it
out shamefully into exile, and calling moderation cowardice, they abuse it and cast it out; and persuading him that measured, orderly spending is boorish and unfree, they banish it beyond the border along with a crowd of useless desires. Very much so. And once they've emptied and purged the soul of the one possessed and initiated by them with these great rites, next they lead in, with great pomp and a large chorus, insolence
and anarchy and prodigality and shamelessness, crowned and radiant, singing their praises and calling them by flattering names—calling insolence good breeding, anarchy freedom, prodigality magnificence, and shamelessness courage. Isn't it in some such way, said I, that a young man changes, from one raised amid necessary desires, into the liberation and release of unnecessary and useless pleasures? Yes, very
clearly so, he said. After this, I think, such a man lives spending no more on necessary than on unnecessary pleasures—money, effort, and time alike. But if he's lucky and doesn't get carried away too far into frenzy, and if, once he's a bit older and the great tumult has passed, he takes back some part of what was banished and doesn't give himself over entirely to the newcomers, he lives
settling his pleasures into some kind of equality, always handing over the rule of himself to whichever pleasure happens along, as if it had won the lot, until it's satisfied, and then to another, dishonoring none but nourishing them all equally. Quite so. And, said I, he doesn't admit any true account into his fortress, or let it in, if someone says that some pleasures belong to
desires that are fine and good, and others to base ones, and that we should cultivate and honor the former, and discipline and enslave the latter—no, he shakes his head at all this, and says all pleasures are alike and equally worthy of honor. Yes indeed, he said, that's what a man in that condition does. So, said I, he lives out each day
gratifying whatever desire comes upon him—now drinking and listening to the flute, then again drinking only water and slimming down; now exercising, then idle and neglecting everything, then again spending time as if in philosophy. Often he goes into politics, and jumping up he says and does whatever occurs to him; and if he happens to admire some military men, he's carried in that direction, or if businessmen, in that one instead.
And neither order nor necessity governs his life, but calling this life pleasant, free, and blessed, he lives by it throughout. You've certainly, he said, described the life of a man devoted to equality. And I think, said I, he's also a man of every sort, full of the most character types—the fine and many-colored one, just like
that city was, this man is too; many men and women would admire his life, since it contains within it the most models of constitutions and characters. Yes, that's him, he said. Well then? Shall we set this man down as the democratic type, correctly so called? Let's set him down so, he said. The finest constitution, then, said I, and the finest
man remain for us to go through—tyranny, and the tyrant. Quite so, he said. Come then, my dear friend, in what way does tyranny arise? That it changes from democracy is pretty clear. Clear. And doesn't tyranny come from democracy in somewhat the same way democracy came from oligarchy? How so? The good, said I, which oligarchy set before itself, and through which
oligarchy was established—this was excessive wealth, wasn't it? Yes. Well then, the insatiable desire for wealth, and neglect of everything else for the sake of money-making, destroyed it. True, he said. And doesn't the same happen to democracy—doesn't the insatiable desire for the good it defines destroy it too? What do you say it defines as its good? Freedom, I said. For that, you'd hear, in a city governed democratically,
said to be its finest possession, and that for this reason it alone is worth living in, for anyone free by nature. Yes, that phrase is certainly said often, he said. Then, said I, as I was just about to say, doesn't the insatiable desire for this very thing, and neglect of everything else, transform this constitution too, and bring it to need a tyranny? How? he said. When
a city governed democratically, thirsting for freedom, happens to have bad cupbearers presiding over it, and gets drunk on unmixed freedom beyond what's fitting, then it punishes its rulers—unless they're very gentle and allow plenty of freedom—accusing them of being contemptible oligarchs. Yes, that's what they do, he said. And those who obey the rulers, said I, it abuses as willing slaves and nobodies, while those
rulers who behave like the ruled, and the ruled who behave like rulers, it praises and honors, both privately and publicly. Isn't it necessary that in such a city freedom extends to everything? Of course. And it seeps down, my friend, said I, into private households, and ends up with anarchy growing even among the animals. What, he said, do we mean by such a thing? For instance, said I, a father grows accustomed to behaving like his child and fearing his sons, and a son like his father, neither respecting nor fearing his parents, so as to be free; the resident alien becomes equal to the citizen and the citizen to the resident alien, and likewise the foreigner. Yes, that's how it happens, he said. These things, said I, and other small things like them happen too: a teacher
in such a city fears his students and flatters them, and students think little of their teachers, and likewise of their tutors; and generally the young make themselves equal to their elders and compete with them in both word and deed, while the old, lowering themselves to the level of the young, are filled with playfulness and wit, imitating the young, so as not to seem unpleasant or overbearing.
Quite so,
he said. And the ultimate, said I, my friend, extreme of the people's freedom, the kind that occurs in such a city—when those who've been bought, both men and women, are no less free than those who bought them. And as for the equality and freedom of women in relation to men, and men in relation to women, we almost forgot to mention it. Well then, in the words of Aeschylus,
he said, shall we say whatever comes to our lips? —Certainly, I said; and this is how I put it. No one who had not experienced it would believe how much freer the very animals under human ownership are here than anywhere else. The dogs, quite literally, become just like their mistresses, as the proverb has it; and so do the horses and donkeys, accustomed to march along with perfect freedom
and dignity, barging into anyone they meet on the roads who does not stand aside; and everything else likewise becomes bursting with freedom. —You are telling me my own dream, he said; it happens to me often when I go out to the country. —And the sum of all these things together, I said — do you notice how tender it makes the souls of the citizens, so that
if anyone brings anything that smacks of slavery near them, they are indignant and cannot bear it? For in the end, you know, they take no notice even of the laws, written or unwritten, so that no one may in any way be master over them. —I know it very well, he said. —This, then, my friend, I said, is the beginning — so fine and vigorous — from which tyranny grows, in my opinion. —Vigorous indeed, he said;
but what comes after it? —The same disease, I said, that broke out in oligarchy and destroyed it — this same disease, arising here in greater strength and force out of the general license, enslaves democracy. And in truth, doing anything to excess is apt to repay us with a great change to the opposite — in seasons, in plants, in bodies, and
not least in constitutions. —Likely enough, he said. —For excessive freedom seems to change into nothing else but excessive slavery, for individual and city alike. —That is likely. —Likely, then, I said, that tyranny is established out of no other constitution than democracy — out of extreme freedom, I suppose, the greatest and most savage slavery. —That makes sense, he said. —But that,
I think, I said, was not what you were asking; rather, what disease, growing in oligarchy and the same in democracy, enslaves it. —True, he said. —Well, I said, I meant that class of idle and extravagant men, the most courageous part leading, the less manly part following. We compared them, you recall, to drones — some with stings, some stingless. —And
rightly so, he said. —These two kinds, then, I said, arising in any constitution, throw it into turmoil, as phlegm and bile do in a body. Against them the good physician and lawgiver of a city must take precautions from afar, no less than a skilled beekeeper — best of all so that they never arise; but if they do arise, to see them cut out as quickly as possible, honeycombs and all. —Yes,
by Zeus, he said, absolutely. —Then let us take it this way, I said, so that we may see more distinctly what we are after. —How? —Let us in speech divide the democratic city into three parts, as indeed it actually is divided. One part, I take it, is this class of drones, which springs up in it through the general license no less than in the oligarchic city. —So it is. —But it is much fiercer in this one
than in that. —How so? —There, because it is held in no honor and is kept out of office, it goes untrained and never grows strong. But in a democracy this class is, with few exceptions, the very leadership of the city: its fiercest part does the talking and the acting, while the rest settle buzzing around the speakers' platforms and will not tolerate anyone saying anything different; so that
everything in such a constitution, apart from a few matters, is managed by this class. —Quite so, he said. —Then there is a second group that keeps separating itself out of the mass. —Which one? —When everyone is out making money, those who are by nature most orderly generally become the richest. —Likely. —And from them, I think, the drones can squeeze the most honey, and most easily. —How indeed, he said, could anyone squeeze it
out of those who have little? —So these rich men, I think, are called the drones' pasture. —Pretty much, he said. —And the third class would be the people: all those who work with their own hands, keep clear of public affairs, and own very little — the largest and most sovereign class in a democracy, whenever it assembles. —So it is, he said; but it is not often willing to do that unless it gets some share of the honey.
—And it always does get a share, I said, insofar as the leaders are able: stripping property from those who have it and distributing it to the people, they keep the greater part for themselves. —Yes, he said, that is how it shares. —Then those who are stripped are compelled, I suppose, to defend themselves, speaking before the people and acting as they can. —Of course. —And so they are accused by the others,
even if they have no desire for revolution, of plotting against the people and being oligarchs. —Naturally. —And in the end, when they see the people trying to wrong them — not willingly, but out of ignorance, deceived by the slanderers — then at last, whether they wish it or not, they become genuine oligarchs, not willingly, but this evil too is bred by that drone stinging
them. —Precisely. —Then come impeachments and trials and lawsuits against one another. —Yes indeed. —And is it not always the people's habit to set up some one man as their special champion, and to nurture him and make him great? —It is their habit. —This much, then, is clear, I said: whenever a tyrant grows, it is from the root of championship and from nowhere else that he shoots up. —Very clear. —What,
then, is the beginning of the change from champion to tyrant? Isn't it clear that it comes when the champion begins to do the same thing as the man in the tale told about the temple of Lycaean Zeus in Arcadia? —What tale? he said. —That whoever tastes the one bit of human entrails minced in among the entrails of other victims must necessarily become a wolf. Haven't you heard
the story? —I have. —Isn't it the same, then, with a champion of the people? Once he has an obedient mob well in hand, and does not hold back from the blood of his own tribe, but with unjust accusations — as such men love to do — hales a man into court and stains himself with murder, blotting out a human life, tasting kindred blood with unholy tongue and mouth; and banishes and kills, and hints at cancellations of debts and redistribution of land — is it not thereafter necessity for such a man,
and fated, either to be destroyed by his enemies or to be tyrant, and to become a wolf instead of a man? —Great necessity, he said. —This, then, I said, is the man who raises faction against those who have property. —The very one. —And if he is driven out and comes back in despite of his enemies, does he not return a finished tyrant? —Clearly. —But if they lack the power to cast him out or to put him to death
by setting the city against him, they plot to kill him secretly by violent death. —That, at least, he said, is what tends to happen. —And thereupon comes that notorious tyrant's request which everyone who has advanced to this stage discovers: to ask the people for a bodyguard, so that the people's helper may be kept safe for them. —Exactly, he said. —And they grant it, I suppose, fearing for him
and confident about themselves. —Quite so. —And when a man with money sees this — a man who along with his money bears the charge of hating the people — then, my friend, in the words of the oracle given to Croesus, he flees along the pebble-strewn Hermus, will not stand his ground, and blushes not at cowardice. —No, he said, for he would never get a second chance to be ashamed. —And whoever is caught, I said,
is delivered to death. —Necessarily. —As for that champion himself, plainly he does not lie mighty in his mightiness, but having brought down many others he stands in the chariot of the city, a finished tyrant instead of a champion. —What else would he be? he said. —Shall we then go through, I said, the happiness of the man and of the city in which such a mortal arises?
—By all means, he said, let us go through it. —Well, I said, in the first days and the first season doesn't he smile at everyone and greet whomever he meets, denying that he is a tyrant, promising much in private and in public, freeing men from debts, distributing land to the people and to his circle, and pretending to be gracious and gentle
to all? —Necessarily, he said. —But when, I suppose, he has settled with some of his enemies abroad and destroyed others, and there is quiet on that front, he first keeps stirring up wars, so that the people may be in need of a leader. —Likely enough. —And also so that, made poor by paying war-taxes, they may be forced to attend to their daily bread and plot less against him? —Clearly.
—And if, I think, he suspects some of harboring free thoughts and of being unwilling to leave him in power — so that he may destroy them on some pretext by handing them to the enemy? For all these reasons must a tyrant always be stirring up war? —He must. —And by doing this he is the readier to be hated by the citizens? —Of course. —And won't some of those who helped set him up, men who hold power, speak frankly to him
and to one another, criticizing what happens — the boldest among them at least? —Likely. —Then the tyrant must quietly do away with all of these, if he means to rule, until he has left not one of his friends or enemies who is worth anything. —Clearly. —He must keep a sharp eye, then, for who is courageous, who high-minded, who wise, who rich; and so happy is his lot that, whether he wishes it or not,
he is forced to be the enemy of all these and to plot against them until he has purged the city. —A fine purge, he said. —Yes, I said, the opposite of what physicians do with bodies: they remove the worst and leave the best; he does the reverse. —It seems, he said, that he must, if he is going to rule. —A blessed necessity binds him, then, I said,
which commands him either to live with a crowd of worthless men, hated by them at that, or not to live at all. —Blessed indeed, he said. —And the more he is hated by the citizens for doing these things, won't he need more bodyguards, and more trustworthy ones? —Of course. —Who, then, are the trustworthy? And where will he send for them? —They will come flying of their own accord, he said, in swarms,
if he pays the wage. —Drones again, I said — by the Dog, I think you mean drones of some foreign and motley sort. —You think truly, he said. —But what about recruits from the city itself? Wouldn't he be willing— —To do what? —To take the slaves away from the citizens, free them, and make them part of his bodyguard. —Very much so, he said; for these are indeed the most trustworthy men he has.
—What a blessed thing, I said, this tyrant business is, by your account, if such are the friends and trusty men he employs after destroying those earlier ones. —Well, he said, such are certainly the ones he employs. —And these companions admire him, I said, and the new citizens keep his company, while the decent people hate him and shun him? —How could they not? —It is not for nothing, I said,
"Tragedy in general is thought to be a wise thing, and Euripides outstanding in it." Why is that? "Because this too was a saying steeped in dense thought — that tyrants are wise through their association with the wise. And he clearly meant that those they keep company with are the wise ones." "And he praises tyranny," he said, "as being equal to a god, and many other things too — he and the other poets as well."
So then, I said, since the poets of tragedy are wise, they will forgive us and forgive those who govern along lines close to ours, for not admitting them into our constitution, since they are hymn-singers of tyranny. "I think they will forgive us," he said, "at least those of them who are sophisticated. But going around to the other cities, I imagine, gathering the crowds, and hiring beautiful, loud, persuasive voices,"
they drag the constitutions toward tyrannies and democracies. "Quite so." And besides this they also receive wages for it, and are honored — most of all, as one would expect, by tyrants, and second by democracies. But the further up they go, toward the steeper places among the constitutions, the more their honor gives out, as though unable to go on, out of breath. "Certainly." But well then, I said,
here we've made a digression — let's go back to speaking of that army of the tyrant, the fine and numerous and multifarious army, never the same, and ask where it will be fed from. "Clearly," he said, "if there are sacred funds in the city, he will spend these, for as long as the property of those selling off their goods holds out, forcing the people to pay in smaller contributions." "And what, when"
these run short? "Clearly," he said, "then he himself, and his fellow drinkers and companions, male and female, will be fed from his father's estate." I understand, I said — that the people who begot the tyrant will feed him and his companions. "That's a great necessity for it," he said. What do you mean? I said. "If the people get indignant and say that it isn't right for a grown son to be fed"
by his father — rather the opposite, the father by the son — nor did they beget him and set him up for this purpose, so that once he grew great, he himself, enslaved to his own slaves, should feed both him and the slaves along with a rabble of others, but rather so that, with him standing at their head, they might be freed from the rich and those called fine and good in the city — and now he orders
him and his companions to leave the city, just as a father drives a son out of the house along with his troublesome drinking-companions? "By Zeus, he'll come to know then," he said, "the people will, what sort of creature it was that it begot and cherished and made great, and that being weaker, it is driving out the stronger." What do you mean? I said. Will the tyrant dare to use force against his father, and beat him, if he doesn't obey?
"Yes," he said, "once he's taken away his weapons." You mean, I said, that the tyrant is a father-beater, and a harsh nurse of his own old age, and, it seems, this at last would be tyranny openly acknowledged, and, as the saying goes, the people, fleeing the smoke of slavery to free men, would have fallen into the fire of despotism by slaves — exchanging that excessive and untimely freedom for the harshest and bitterest
slavery of slaves. "Yes indeed," he said, "that's just how it happens." Well then, I said, wouldn't it be fitting for us to say that we have adequately gone through how tyranny changes over from democracy, and what it is like once it has come to be? "Quite adequately indeed," he said.
— It remains, then, I said, to examine the tyrannical man himself: how he emerges out of the democratic man, and once he has come to be, what sort of man he is, and how he lives — miserably or happily. Yes, he said, that one's still left. Do you know, I said, what I still miss? What's that? We haven't, I think, adequately distinguished the desires — what kinds there are and how many.
— we haven't finished that. And as long as that's lacking, our inquiry will be less clear than it should be. Well, he said, isn't it still a good time for it? Certainly — and consider what I want to see in them. It's this. Among the unnecessary pleasures and desires there seem to me to be some that are lawless — ones that are liable to arise in everyone, but which are held in check by the laws
and by the better desires, in alliance with reason; in some people they're altogether gotten rid of, or only a few weak ones remain, while in others they remain stronger and more numerous. Which ones do you mean? he asked. The ones, I said, that are stirred awake in sleep — when the rest of the soul, the rational, gentle, ruling part, is asleep, but the beastly and savage part,
gorged with food or drink, bucks and, having shaken off sleep, tries to go out and satisfy its own impulses. You know that in such a state it dares to do anything at all, as though it had been released and freed from all shame and reason. It doesn't hesitate to imagine having intercourse with its mother, or with anyone else at all — man, god, or beast — or to commit any bloody act,
or to refrain from any food whatever; in a word, it falls short of no folly and no shamelessness. Very true, he said. But whenever, I suppose, a man is in sound health and self-control, and goes to sleep having first awakened his rational part and feasted it on fine arguments and inquiries, arriving at communion with himself, while his appetitive part he has neither starved
nor overfed, so that it settles down and doesn't trouble the best part with its joy or its grief, but lets it alone to search out and reach for a perception, all by itself and undisturbed, of something it does not know — something of the past, present, or future — and likewise has soothed his spirited part too, and doesn't go to sleep with his temper stirred up from having gotten angry at someone,
but rather, having quieted these two parts and stirred up the third, in which understanding arises, so rests — you know that in such a state he grasps truth most nearly, and the visions that appear in his dreams are then least lawless. Entirely so, I think, he said. Well, we've been carried rather far afield in saying all this; but what we want to establish is this:
that there exists in each of us, even in those of us who seem quite moderate, some terrible, savage, and lawless species of desire — and this becomes evident in sleep. See whether I seem to be saying something and whether you agree. I do agree. Recall, then, what sort of man we said the democratic man was. He was, I believe, someone raised from youth by a stingy father who honored only the money-making desires,
and despised the unnecessary ones, the ones pursued for play and display. Isn't that so? Yes. Then he fell in with more sophisticated men, full of the desires we just went through, and, out of hatred for his father's stinginess, rushed toward every kind of arrogance and their way of life — but having a better nature than his corrupters, he was pulled in both directions and settled into a middle position between the two ways of life,
and, enjoying each in what he thought was a moderate measure, lives a life that is neither servile nor lawless — having become democratic out of oligarchic. That was, he said, and still is, the common opinion about such a man. Now suppose, I said, that this man, grown older in turn, has a young son raised in these same habits of his. I suppose it. Then suppose also happening to him
the same things that happened to his father — that he's led into every kind of lawlessness, which those leading him call total freedom, while his father and the rest of his household come to the aid of the middling desires, and others come to the aid of the opposite ones. And when these terrible sorcerers and tyrant-makers despair of holding the young man by any other means, they contrive to plant in him some love,
a kind of great winged drone, to preside over his idle desires, the ones that distribute what's readily available — or what else do you suppose the love felt by such people is? Nothing else, he said, than that. Then, whenever the other desires come buzzing around him, laden with incense and myrrh and garlands and wine and all the loosened pleasures found in
such company, feeding and swelling to the utmost the sting of longing they implant in the drone — then indeed this presiding power of the soul is escorted by madness as its bodyguard, and rages; and if it catches hold of any opinions or desires in him that are still decent and still capable of shame, it kills them and thrusts them out of doors, until it has purged him of moderation
and filled him with imported madness. You're describing exactly the birth of a tyrannical man. Then is it, I said, for some such reason that Eros has long been called a tyrant? It looks like it, he said. And isn't it true, my friend, I said, that a man who is drunk also has something of a tyrannical cast of mind? He does. And surely the man who is mad and deranged not only attempts
but expects to be able to rule not just men but gods as well. Very much so, he said. A man becomes tyrannical in the precise sense, I said, my good fellow, whenever, whether by nature or by habits or by both, he becomes drunken, erotic, and melancholic. Entirely so. Such a man comes to be this way, it seems; but how does he live? That, he said, is something for you — as they say in the game —
to tell me. I'll tell you, then, I said. I think that after this, feasts arise among such men, and revels, and banquets, and courtesans, and everything of that sort, wherever Eros the tyrant, dwelling within, governs the whole of the soul's affairs. That's inevitable, he said. So don't many terrible desires spring up alongside, day and night, each demanding much? Many indeed. So quickly
whatever resources there are get consumed. How could they not? And after that come borrowings and the whittling away of one's estate. Of course. And when everything runs out, isn't it inevitable that the desires, packed thick and urgent, cry out like nestlings, and the man, driven as if by goads — by the rest of his desires, and especially by Eros himself, who marshals all the others
like a bodyguard around him — rages and looks about to see who has anything that can be taken from him by deceit or by force? Very much so, he said. It's necessary, then, for him to plunder from every side, or else be held fast in great throes and pains. Necessary. And just as the pleasures that arose later in him got the better of the older ones and took what belonged to them, won't he too, being younger,
claim to deserve more than his father and mother, and take it, once he's spent his own share, by carving off a portion of his parents' property? Well, what else? he said. And if they don't yield it to him, won't he first try to steal from and deceive his parents? Absolutely. And when he can't manage that, won't he then seize it by force? I suppose so, he said. And if the old man and old woman resist and fight back,
will he, wondrous fellow, be careful and hold back from doing anything tyrannical? I'm not at all confident, he said, about the safety of such a man's parents. But, Adeimantus, by Zeus — for the sake of some newly beloved and unnecessary mistress, would he strike his long-beloved and necessary mother? Or for the sake of a newly beloved and unnecessary boy in his prime, would he strike his aged
and necessary father, the oldest of his friends — do you think such a man would go so far as to beat them and enslave them to those others, if he brought them into the same household? Yes, by Zeus, he said. It seems, I said, a truly blessed thing to father a tyrannical son! Quite so, he said. And what happens when the resources of father and mother
run out for such a man, and the swarm of pleasures gathered within him is already large — won't he first lay hold of someone's house wall, or the cloak of someone walking late at night, and after that rob some temple? And in all this, the opinions he held from childhood about what is fine and shameful, opinions accounted just,
are overpowered, along with Eros, by those newly released from slavery, who act as Eros's bodyguard — opinions that formerly were released only in dreams, during sleep, back when he was still under the rule of law and father, democratically governed within himself. But now, tyrannized by Eros, he becomes permanently what he rarely became before, only in dreams; he'll refrain from no dreadful murder, no food, no deed, but with Eros
ruling tyrannically within him, in complete anarchy and lawlessness, since Eros himself is sole monarch, he will drive the man who harbors him, as if he were a city, to every act of daring, so as to feed himself and the turmoil around him — partly imported from outside through bad company, partly from within, released and set free by his own character and habits. Isn't this
the life of such a man? That's the one, he said. Now if such men are few in a city, I said, and the rest of the people are moderate, they go abroad and serve as bodyguard to some other tyrant, or hire themselves out as mercenaries if there happens to be a war; but if they find themselves at peace and quiet, they do a great many small evils right there in the city. What kind
do you mean? he asked. The kind where they steal, break into houses, cut purses, strip men of their cloaks, rob temples, kidnap people into slavery; sometimes they act as informers, if they're capable speakers, and give false testimony and take bribes. Small evils indeed, he said, if only a few such men exist. Small things, I said, are small in relation to great things, and all of these, compared to a tyrant, in wickedness and misery for a city,
as the saying goes, don't even come close. For whenever many such men arise in a city, along with others who follow after them, and they become aware of their own numbers, then it is these very men, together with the folly of the populace, who beget the tyrant — that one among them who has, most of all, the greatest and most tyrannical power within his own soul. Naturally, he said — he would be the most tyrannical of all.
— and this happens if the people yield willingly; but if the city does not permit it, then just as that man once punished his mother and father, so again he will punish his fatherland, if he's able, by bringing in new companions, and it is under these men that he will keep and maintain his once-beloved motherland — as the Cretans call it — and fatherland, now enslaved. And this, indeed, would be the end of the
—the desires of such a man. "That's exactly right," he said. "So," I said, "aren't people like this already this way in private life, even before they rule? First, whoever they spend time with—either they keep company with flatterers of themselves, ready to serve their every whim, or, if they need something from someone, they grovel themselves, willing to strike any pose to seem like intimate friends—until they get what they want, at which point they become strangers again." "Very much so."
"So throughout their whole life they're never a friend to anyone—always either mastering someone or slave to someone else, and the tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or true friendship." "Quite so." "So wouldn't we be right to call such men untrustworthy?" "Of course." "And as unjust as it's possible to be, if we were right earlier in what we agreed about the nature of justice."
"Yes indeed," he said, "we were right." "Let's sum up, then," I said, "the worst man. He is, I think, the one who—awake—is what we described as a dream. And this is what happens to whoever, being tyrannical by nature in the highest degree, becomes sole ruler—and the longer he lives as a tyrant, the more he becomes this." "That must be so," said Glaucon, taking up the argument.
"So," I said, "whoever proves most wicked will also appear most wretched? And whoever is tyrant longest and most thoroughly, will in truth have become most wicked for the longest time—even if the majority think many things otherwise?" "That must be so," he said, "at any rate." "Isn't it the case, then," I said, "that the tyrannical man corresponds—
by resemblance—to the tyrannized city, and the democratic man to the democratic city, and so on for the others?" "Of course." "And as city stands to city in virtue and happiness, so does man to man?" "Naturally." "So how does the tyrannized city compare in virtue to the kingly city we described first?" "Exact opposites," he said, "the one is best, the other worst." "I won't ask," I said,
"which is which—that's obvious. But do you judge happiness and wretchedness the same way, or differently? And let's not be dazzled by staring at the single tyrant, or at the few around him, but let's actually enter the whole city and look at it, plunging in and seeing everything, and only then declare our judgment." "That's the right challenge," he said, "and it's clear to everyone that no city is more wretched than one under tyranny,
and none happier than one under kingship." "So," I said, "if I issued the same challenge regarding the men, wouldn't I be right to demand that the judge be someone able, in thought, to enter a man's character and see it through, not like a child looking from outside and being dazzled by the tyrannical façade that tyrants put on for outsiders, but
someone who sees clearly enough? If I thought we should all listen to that person—someone capable of judging, who has lived in the same house and been present at the man's private dealings with each member of his household, where he'd be seen most stripped of his tragic costume, and also present in public dangers—and having seen all this, we should tell him to report how
the tyrant compares to others in happiness and wretchedness?" "That would be the most correct challenge of all," he said. "Do you want us, then," I said, "to pretend to be among those capable of judging, who have already met such men, so we have someone to answer our questions?" "By all means." "Come then," I said, "consider it this way. Recalling the resemblance between the city and the man, examine them
one point at a time in turn, and describe the condition of each. What points?" he said. "First," I said, "speaking of the city, will you call the tyrannized city free or enslaved?" "As enslaved as possible," he said. "And yet you do see masters and free people in it." "I see that," he said, "a small part of it—but the whole, so to speak, in it
—and the most decent part—is dishonorably and wretchedly enslaved." "If, then," I said, "the man resembles the city, mustn't the same arrangement exist in him too—mustn't his soul be full of much slavery and unfreedom, with the most decent parts of it enslaved, while a small, most depraved and maddest part rules?" "Necessarily," he said. "Well then,
will you say such a soul is slave or free?" "Slave, I'd say, of course." "And doesn't the enslaved, tyrannized city do least of all what it wants?" "Very much so." "So the tyrannized soul too will do least of all what it wishes—speaking of the soul as a whole—but, dragged always by force by its gadfly, will be full of confusion and regret." "Of course."
"And must the tyrannized city be wealthy or poor?" "Poor." "So the tyrannical soul too must always be poor and insatiable." "So it is," he said. "And what about this—mustn't such a city, and such a man, be full of fear?" "Very much so." "And do you think you'll find more wailing, groaning, lamenting, and pain in any other city?"
"By no means." "And do you think a man has more of these things in anyone else than in this tyrannical man, maddened by desires and lusts?" "How could he?" he said. "Looking at all this and other such things, then, I think you were right to judge this city the most wretched of cities." "Wasn't I right?" he said. "Quite so," I said. "But about
the tyrannical man himself, looking at these same points, what do you say?" "By far," he said, "the most wretched of all others." "That," I said, "you're no longer right to say." "How so?" he said. "I don't think," I said, "that this one is yet the most wretched." "Then who is?" "This one, perhaps, will still seem to you more wretched than him." "Which one?" "Whoever," I said, "being tyrannical
in nature, doesn't live out his life as a private citizen, but is unlucky enough that some misfortune arranges for him to actually become a tyrant." "I gather from what's been said," he said, "that you're telling the truth." "Yes," I said, "but we shouldn't merely suppose such things—we should examine them thoroughly by this kind of argument, since the inquiry concerns the greatest matter: a good life versus a bad one." "Quite right,"
he said. "Consider, then, whether I'm making sense. It seems to me we need to think about him by starting from the following. From what?" "From each private individual—all those who are rich in the cities and own many slaves. These men have this much in common with tyrants: ruling over many. But the number differs." "Yes, it differs." "Do you know, then, that these men
live without fear and aren't afraid of their household slaves?" "Why would they be afraid?" "They wouldn't," I said—"but do you understand the reason?" "Yes—because the whole city comes to the aid of each individual." "Well put," I said. "But what if some god took one man who owns fifty or more slaves, and lifted him out of the city, him and his wife
and children, along with the rest of his property and his slaves, and set him down in a wilderness, where none of the free would be there to help him—in what sort of fear, and how much of it, do you think he'd find himself, for himself and his children and wife, that they might be destroyed by the slaves?" "In every kind," he said, "I'd think." "So wouldn't he be forced to start flattering some
of these very slaves, and promising them much, freeing them without needing to, and would he himself turn out to be a flatterer of his own servants?" "He'd be utterly compelled to," he said, "or else be destroyed." "And what if the god also settled around him many other neighbors who would not tolerate anyone claiming mastery over another, but if they caught anyone doing so, would punish him with the harshest penalties?"
"He'd be, I think, even worse off then, surrounded on all sides by enemies keeping watch." "So isn't the tyrant bound in just such a prison—being by nature what we've described, full of many and manifold fears and desires? And being greedy in soul, he alone of everyone in the city is unable to travel anywhere, nor to see the sights
that other free people desire to see, but stays shut up in his house for the most part, living like a woman, envying even the other citizens if any of them travels abroad and sees something good." "Absolutely so," he said. "So doesn't the man reap a greater harvest of such evils, the one who—governing himself badly, whom you just now judged most wretched, the tyrannical man—doesn't live as a private citizen
but is forced by some misfortune to become an actual tyrant, and, being unable to master himself, undertakes to rule others—just as if someone with a sick body, unable to master himself, were forced to spend his life not in private retirement but competing and fighting against other bodies." "You're speaking most fittingly and truly, Socrates," he said. "So," I said, "dear Glaucon, isn't this condition utterly wretched,
and doesn't the tyrant live a life even harder than the one you judged hardest?" "Absolutely," he said. "So it's true in reality, even if some don't think so, that the real tyrant is in truth a real slave, subject to the greatest flatteries and servilities, a flatterer of the worst people, and, far from satisfying his desires in any way at all, he appears most in need of the most things and truly poor, if
one knows how to look at his whole soul—and full of fear his whole life through, full of convulsions and pains, if indeed he resembles the condition of the city he rules. And he does resemble it, doesn't he?" "Very much so," he said. "And besides this, shall we also credit the man with what we said before—that he must be, and must become even more so through his rule,
than before, envious, untrustworthy, unjust, friendless, unholy, host and nurse to every vice, and as a result of all this, above all, wretched himself, and then also making those near him just as wretched." "No one with sense," he said, "will contradict you." "Come then," I said, "now, like the judge who decides over all, so too you—
judge in this way who is first in your opinion in happiness, and who is second, and rank the rest in order, all five: the kingly man, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, the tyrannical." "But the judgment is easy," he said. "For just as they entered, I judge them like choruses, by virtue and vice, happiness and its opposite." "Shall we hire a herald, then," I said, "or shall I myself proclaim that the son of Ariston
judged the best and most just man to be the happiest, and that this is the most kingly man, the one who rules himself, while the worst and most unjust man is the most wretched, and that this one turns out to be whoever, being most tyrannical, tyrannizes himself as much as possible and the city too?" "Consider it proclaimed," he said. "Shall I add, then," I said, "whether they escape notice as being such or not, to all mankind—"
"—and the gods too," he said, "add that." "Very well," I said. "That would be one proof for us. But look at this second one, and see if it seems to be anything. What is it? Since the city, as I said, has been divided into three classes, so too the soul of each individual is threefold, and it will admit, I think, of another proof as well." "What proof is that?" "This one. There being three parts—"
"—there also seem to me to be three kinds of pleasure, one proper to each of the three, and likewise three appetites and three ruling principles." "What do you mean?" he said. "One, we say, is that by which a person learns; another is that by which he feels anger; the third, because of its many forms, we could not address by any single name proper to it, but we named it after whatever was greatest and strongest in it—we have called it the appetitive part, because of its"
vehemence in the appetites concerned with food, drink, and sex, and all that follows in their train; and 'money-loving' too, because it is chiefly through money that such appetites are fulfilled." "And rightly so," he said. "So if we were to say that its pleasure and its affection are for gain, wouldn't we be pinning it down most accurately in speech to a single heading, one that would make something"
clear to us, whenever we spoke of this part of the soul—and wouldn't we be right to call it money-loving and gain-loving?" "That's how it seems to me, at least," he said. "Now what about the spirited part—don't we say that it is wholly bent, always, on mastery and victory and good reputation?" "Very much so." "So if we called it victory-loving and honor-loving, wouldn't that be fitting?" "Most fitting indeed."
"But surely, as for that by which we learn, it's clear to everyone that it is always stretched wholly toward knowing the truth, whatever that may be, and that of money and reputation this part cares least of all." "Very much so." "So if we called it learning-loving and philosophic, wouldn't we be calling it fittingly?" "Of course." "And does this part rule in some people's souls,"
"while in others one of the other two rules, whichever happens to?" "Just so," he said. "For this reason, then, do we say that there are three primary kinds of human beings—the philosophic, the victory-loving, and the gain-loving?" "Precisely." "And also three forms of pleasure, one underlying each of these?" "Certainly." "Do you know, then," I said, "that if you wanted to ask three such people, each in turn, which of these lives"
is the most pleasant, each will praise his own most highly? The moneymaker will say that the pleasure of being honored, or that of learning, is worth nothing compared to gain, unless it can be turned into money." "True," he said. "And what of the honor-lover? Doesn't he think the pleasure that comes from money is something vulgar, and again the pleasure that comes from"
learning—unless the learning brings honor—mere smoke and nonsense?" "That's how it is," he said. "And the philosopher—what do we suppose he thinks of the other pleasures compared to that of knowing the truth, whatever it may be, and of always being engaged in learning something of that kind? Isn't he pretty far from that pleasure of theirs? And doesn't he call the others truly necessary, since he would have no need of them at all if he"
weren't compelled to?" "He needs to know that clearly," he said. "Well then," I said, "since the pleasures of each kind, and the life itself, are disputed—not just which is nobler or baser, or worse or better, but which is actually more pleasant and less painful—how could we know which of them speaks most truly?" "I really can't say," he said. "But consider it"
this way. By what should things that are going to be well judged be judged? Isn't it by experience, understanding, and reasoned argument? Or could someone have a better criterion than these?" "How could he?" he said. "Consider then: of the three men, which is most experienced in all the pleasures we have named? Does the gain-lover seem to you, in learning the very truth of what it is, to be more experienced in the pleasure of"
knowing, than the philosopher is in the pleasure of gaining?" "There's a great difference," he said. "For the one, having begun from childhood, must taste of the other pleasures; but the gain-lover is not compelled to taste of this pleasure—of knowing how the things that are are by nature, and how sweet it is—nor to become experienced in it; rather, even if he were eager to, it would not be easy." "So the philosopher," I said, "differs greatly from"
the gain-lover in his experience of both pleasures." "Very much so." "And what of the honor-lover? Is he more inexperienced in the pleasure of understanding than the philosopher is in that of being honored?" "But honor," he said, "follows all of them alike, provided each accomplishes what he set out to do—for the rich man too is honored by many, and so is the brave man, and the wise man—so that"
as far as the pleasure of being honored goes, what it is like, all are experienced; but as for the pleasure in the contemplation of what truly is, no one but the philosopher can possibly have tasted it." "As far as experience goes, then," I said, "this man judges best among the three." "By far." "And moreover he alone has become experienced along with understanding." "Of course." "And further, the instrument by which judgment must be made is not"
an instrument belonging to the gain-lover, nor to the honor-lover, but to the philosopher." "Which one is that?" "We said, didn't we, that judgment must be made through argument?" "Yes." "And argument is above all his instrument." "Of course." "Now if what is judged were best judged by wealth and gain, then whatever the gain-lover praised and blamed would necessarily be truest." "Quite necessarily." "But if"
it were judged by honor, victory, and courage, wouldn't it be whatever the honor-lover and the victory-lover praised?" "Clearly." "But since it is judged by experience, understanding, and argument—" "Then necessarily," he said, "whatever the philosopher and the lover of argument praises is truest." "So of the three pleasures, the one belonging to that part of the soul by which we learn would be the most pleasant, and wherever this part rules within us,"
the life of that part is the most pleasant?" "How could it be otherwise?" he said. "For the understanding one, being the authoritative judge, praises his own life as its rightful praiser." "And what life, and what pleasure, does the judge say ranks second?" I said. "Clearly that of the warlike and honor-loving man, since it is nearer to his own than the moneymaker's is." "So last comes that of the gain-lover, it"
seems." "Of course," he said. "So that would make two wins in a row for the just man over the unjust—two falls out of three. But the third, in Olympic fashion, is dedicated to Zeus the Savior and Zeus of Olympia: notice that the pleasure of the others is not even wholly true, nor pure, but a kind of painted shadow, as I believe I have heard from one of the"
wise. And yet this would be the greatest and most decisive of the falls." "By far. But how do you mean?" "I shall work it out this way," I said, "seeking as you answer along with me. Ask, then," he said. "Tell me," I said, "don't we say that pain is the opposite of pleasure?" "Very much so." "And also that there is such a thing as feeling neither joy nor pain?" "There is." "A state in between the two, in"
the middle, a kind of stillness of the soul with respect to these things? Or is that not how you would put it?" "That's how it is," he said. "Now do you remember," I said, "the things sick people say, the things they say when they are ill?" "Which things?" "That nothing, after all, is more pleasant than being healthy—but it had escaped their notice, before they fell ill, that this was the most pleasant thing of all." "I remember," he said. "And don't you also hear people gripped by some great pain"
saying that nothing is more pleasant than the ceasing of the pain?" "I hear that." "And in many other such cases too, I think, you notice people saying that, when they are in pain, it is the not being in pain, and the stillness of that state, that they praise as the most pleasant thing—not the feeling of joy." "Yes," he said, "for at that time stillness becomes pleasant, and something to be content with, I suppose." "And so, when someone stops feeling joy," I said, "then the"
stillness of that pleasure will be painful." "Perhaps," he said. "So the thing we just said lay in between the two, this stillness, will sometimes be both—both pain and pleasure." "So it seems." "But is it really possible for a thing that is neither of two things to become both?" "That doesn't seem right to me." "And yet what arises in the soul as pleasant, and what arises as painful, are both a kind of motion, aren't they?" "Yes." "Whereas"
what is neither painful nor pleasant just now appeared to be stillness, and in between these two?" "Yes, it did." "How, then, can it be right to think that not being in pain is pleasant, or that not feeling joy is painful?" "In no way." "So this is not really so, but only appears so—it appears, I said, that stillness is pleasant alongside what is painful, and painful alongside what is pleasant, and there is nothing sound"
in these appearances, as measured against the truth of pleasure—it's a kind of sorcery." "That's certainly what the argument shows," he said. "Look, then," I said, "at pleasures that do not arise out of pains, so that you won't often think, on the strength of the present case, that this is the nature of the thing—that pleasure is just the cessation of pain, and pain the cessation of pleasure." "Where, then," he said, "and which pleasures do you mean?" "There are many others," I said, "but consider especially,"
if you're willing, the pleasures connected with smell. These, without any prior pain, suddenly become extraordinary in their intensity, and when they cease they leave no pain behind." "Very true," he said. "So let's not be persuaded that pure pleasure is relief from pain, or that pain is the loss of pleasure." "No, let's not." "And yet," I said, "the pleasures that reach the soul through the body—the ones called pleasures, that is—"
most of them, and the greatest, are of this kind: certain reliefs from pains." "Yes, they are." "And don't the anticipatory pleasures and pains that arise beforehand, from expecting such things to come, work the same way?" "The same way." "Do you know, then," I said, "what kind they are, and what they most resemble?" "What?" he said. "Do you think," I said, "that there is in nature such a thing as up, down, and"
middle?" "I do." "Do you suppose, then, that someone being carried from below toward the middle would think anything other than that he is being carried upward? And standing in the middle, looking back at where he had come from, would he think himself anywhere other than above, not having seen what is truly above?" "By Zeus, no," he said, "I don't think such a person could think anything else."
"But if he were carried back again, wouldn't he think he was being carried downward, and think it truly?" "Of course." "And wouldn't all this happen to him because he has no experience of what is truly above, and in the middle, and below?" "Clearly." "Would you be surprised, then, if people inexperienced in truth hold unsound opinions about many other things as well, and"
are disposed toward pleasure and pain and what lies between them in such a way that, when they are carried toward the painful, they think truly and are really in pain, but when they move from pain toward the middle, they strongly believe they are approaching fullness and pleasure—just as someone comparing gray to black, for lack of experience with white, mistakes it for white—so too, comparing painlessness to pain, they mistake it for"
—looking at things through their inexperience of pleasure, are they deceived? By Zeus, he said, I wouldn't be surprised—rather I'd be far more surprised if it weren't so. Well then, I said, consider it this way. Aren't hunger and thirst and things like that certain emptyings of the body's condition? Of course. And isn't ignorance and folly an emptiness of the soul's condition in turn? Very much so.
Yes. And wouldn't both the one who takes a share of food and the one who gets some understanding be filled? Of course. And is the fuller filling that of the less real thing or the more real thing? Clearly of the more real. Which class, then, do you think partakes more of pure being—the kind that consists of bread and drink and relish and food in general, or the form of true opinion and
of knowledge and understanding and, in sum, of all excellence? Judge it this way: does what clings always to the same, and to the immortal, and to truth, and is itself of that sort and comes to be in something of that sort, seem to you to have more being than what never clings to the same, and is mortal, and is itself of that sort and comes to be in something of that sort? It differs greatly, he said—the thing that clings always to the same.
Does the being of what is always the same partake of being any more than of knowledge? By no means. What then, of truth? Not that either. And if it partakes less of truth, doesn't it also partake less of being? Necessarily. So on the whole, then, the classes concerned with the care of the body partake less of truth and being than the classes concerned with the care of the soul? Very much so. And don't you think the body itself is so compared to the soul?
I do. And isn't what is filled with things that have more being, and is itself more real, more really filled than what is filled with things that have less being and is itself less real? Of course. So if being filled with what is naturally fitting is pleasant, then what is filled, in truth, with things that have more being would make one rejoice more really and more truly with a true pleasure, while what
partakes of things that have less being would be filled less truly and less securely, and would partake of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure. Most necessarily so, he said. So those who have no experience of wisdom and excellence, but are always occupied with feasting and things of that sort, are carried, it seems, downward and back again as far as the middle, and wander about in this way through their whole life, never going beyond this to
what is truly above—they have never looked up to it nor been carried there, nor have they ever been filled with what really has being, nor tasted a secure and pure pleasure, but like cattle, always looking down and bent toward the ground and toward their tables, they graze, fattening themselves and mating; and for the sake of getting more of these things they kick and butt one another with iron horns and hooves, killing each other out of insatiable greed, since
they are filling not with things that are, nor with what really is, nor with what can hold themselves. Entirely, said Glaucon, Socrates, you're speaking as an oracle about the life of the many. Isn't it necessary, then, that they also have pleasures mixed with pains, mere images of the true pleasure, and shadow-painted, colored by their juxtaposition with one another so that each appears intense, and engender in the foolish mad longings for themselves, and
make them worth fighting over—just as the phantom of Helen, Stesichorus says, became, through ignorance of the truth, the object over which the men at Troy fought? A great necessity, he said, that it should be something of that sort. And what about the spirited part—isn't it necessary that other such things happen there too, for whoever pursues that same thing either through envy from love of honor, or through violence from love of victory, or through anger from ill temper, pursuing satiety of honor and
victory and spirit without reasoning and understanding? Such things, he said, must necessarily happen there too. What then, I said—shall we confidently say that concerning the love of gain and the love of victory too, whichever desires follow knowledge and reason, and pursue with these the pleasures which the wise part
guides them to and takes, will get the truest pleasures, so far as it is possible for them to get true ones, since they follow truth, and will get their own proper pleasures, if indeed what is best for each thing is also most proper to it? Yes, he said, it is most proper indeed. So then, with the whole soul following the philosophic part and not being in faction, it is possible for each part to do its own work in other respects and to be just, and
in particular for each part to enjoy its own pleasures, and the best pleasures, and, as far as possible, the truest. Quite so indeed. But whenever one of the other parts gets the upper hand, it happens that it neither finds its own pleasure, and it also forces the others to pursue a pleasure that is alien and not true. So it is, he said. So then, don't the things that stand furthest from philosophy and reason produce most
such effects? Very much so. And doesn't what stands furthest from reason stand furthest also from law and order? Clearly so. And weren't the erotic and tyrannical desires shown to stand furthest away? Very much so. And the kingly and orderly desires the least? Yes. So then the tyrant, I suppose, will stand furthest of all from true and proper pleasure, and the king the least. Necessarily. And so the tyrant
will live most unpleasantly, I said, and the king most pleasantly. Quite necessarily. Do you know, then, I said, by how much more unpleasantly the tyrant lives than the king? I will if you tell me, he said. There being, it seems, three pleasures, one genuine and two bastard, the tyrant, going beyond even the bastard ones to the far side, fleeing law and reason, dwells with certain slavish bodyguard pleasures, and by how much he falls short
—it's not entirely easy to say, except perhaps this way. How? he said. From the oligarchic man the tyrant stood, I think, third in distance—for the democratic man was between them. Yes. So then he would dwell with a pleasure that is a third image removed from truth, counting from that one, if what was said before is true? So it is. And the oligarchic man in turn stands third from the kingly man, if we set the aristocratic and
kingly together as one. He's third, then. So the tyrant, I said, stands at three times three—a threefold multiple—in number, removed from true pleasure. So it appears. Then the phantom, it seems, would be a plane figure according to the number of the tyrant's pleasure taken lengthwise. Quite so. But taken as a power and to the third increase, it's clear how great a distance results, once it is worked out. Clear, he said, to one skilled in reckoning. So then if someone, turning it around,
tells in truth how far removed the king is from the tyrant in pleasure, he will find, once the multiplication is completed, that the king lives 729 times more pleasantly, and the tyrant that much more painfully by this same measure of distance. An extraordinary calculation, he said, you have brought down upon the difference between the two men, the just and the unjust, in respect of pleasure and pain. And yet a true one, I said, and one fitting
to their lives, if indeed days and nights and months and years fit them. Well, they do fit them, he said. So then if the good and just man beats the bad and unjust man by so much in pleasure, won't he beat him by an extraordinary amount in decency of life, and in beauty, and in excellence? An extraordinary amount indeed, by Zeus, he said. Well then, I said, since we have arrived at this point in the argument,
let us take up again the first things that were said, on account of which we came here. It was said, I believe, that it profits the completely unjust man who has a reputation for justice to do wrong—or wasn't it said that way? That's how it was said. Well now, I said, let us discuss it with him, since we have agreed on what power each of doing wrong and doing what is just has. How? he said. By fashioning an image of the soul in words, so that the one who was saying those things may know
what sort of things he was saying. What sort of image? he said. One of those, I said, of the kind that ancient mythical natures are said to have been—that of the Chimaera, and Scylla, and Cerberus, and quite a few others are said to have grown together, many forms into one. Yes, they are said to, he said. Fashion, then, one form of a many-colored, many-headed beast, having heads of tame beasts
in a circle and wild ones too, able to change and to grow all these out of itself. That's the work of a clever molder, he said—but since speech is easier to mold than wax and such materials, let it be molded. Now then, mold one other form, of a lion, and one of a man; and let the first be by far the largest, and the second, the second largest. These, he said, are easier, and they're molded. Now join
these three into one, so that they somehow grow together with one another. Joined, he said. Now mold around them, on the outside, the image of one thing, that of the man, so that to one who cannot see what's inside, but sees only the outer shell, it appears to be one living creature, a man. Molded around, he said. Now let us say to the one who claims that it profits this man to do wrong, but that acting justly is not to his advantage, that
he is saying nothing other than this: that it profits him to make the many-formed beast strong by feasting it well, and the lion too, and what belongs to the lion, but to starve the man and make him weak, so that he is dragged wherever either of those two leads him, and to accustom neither of them to the other nor make them friends, but to let them bite each other and, fighting, devour one another. Yes indeed,
he said, that is what the one praising injustice would say. And in turn, wouldn't the one who says that just actions are profitable claim that one must do and say those things by which the inner man within the man will be most in control, and will care for the many-headed creature like a farmer, nourishing and taming the tame parts, and preventing the wild ones from growing, making the lion's nature his ally,
and caring for all things in common, making them friends with each other and with himself, and raising them in this way? Quite so, in turn, that is exactly what the one who praises justice says. In every way, then, the one who praises just things would speak the truth, while the one who praises unjust things would lie. For with a view to pleasure and reputation and benefit alike, the praiser of justice speaks the truth, while
the blamer has no soundness and doesn't even know what he is blaming when he blames it. It doesn't seem so to me, he said, not in any way. Let us then persuade him gently—for he errs unwillingly—by asking: my good man, wouldn't we say that the customs of what is fine and what is shameful have come about for reasons like these—the fine things being those that subject the beastly parts of our nature to the man, or rather perhaps to the
divine, and the shameful things being those that enslave the tame part to the wild? He will agree—or how else? If he's persuaded by me, he said. Is there anyone, then, I said, for whom it profits, by this argument, to take gold unjustly, if it turns out to be something like this—that in taking the gold he simultaneously enslaves the best part of himself to the most vicious part? Or if, having taken gold, he were to enslave a son or a daughter,
and that to wild and evil men, it would not profit him, not even if he received a very great amount for it—but if he enslaves the most divine part of himself to the most godless and polluted part, and shows it no pity, isn't he then wretched, and does he not accept gold as a bribe toward a far more terrible ruin than Eriphyle did in accepting the necklace in exchange for her husband's life? Far more,
"Of course," said Glaucon. "I'll answer on his behalf. Don't you think that self-indulgence has always been blamed for exactly this reason—that in the self-indulgent person that terrible, huge, many-formed creature is let loose beyond what it should be?" "Clearly," he said. "And stubbornness and bad temper are blamed whenever the lion-like and snake-like part grows and stretches
out of tune?" "Certainly." "And luxury and softness are blamed for the slackening and loosening of that same part, when it produces cowardice in a person?" "Of course." "And flattery and servility are blamed whenever someone puts this same spirited part under the unruly beast, and for the sake of money and its insatiable greed accustoms it from youth to being kicked around, turning it, instead of a lion, into
an ape?" "Very much so," he said. "And why do you suppose menial labor and handicraft carry disgrace? Shall we say it's for any reason other than this—that when someone has by nature a weak form of the best part, so that it cannot rule the creatures within him but instead serves them, and can only learn how to flatter them?" "It seems so," he said. "So that such a person too
may be ruled by something similar to what rules the best sort of person, we say he ought to be a slave to that best person, the one who has the divine element ruling within him—not because we think it's for the slave's harm that he should be ruled, as Thrasymachus supposed about the ruled, but because it's better for everyone to be ruled by what is divine and wise, ideally having it as one's own within oneself, but if not,
having it set over one from outside, so that as far as possible we may all be alike and friends, steered by the same thing." "And rightly so," he said. "And law makes clear," I said, "that it wants exactly this, being an ally to everyone in the city. So does our rule over children—not letting them be free until we establish in them, as in a city, a constitution,
and by cultivating their best part, set up in its stead a guardian and ruler like our own within them—and only then do we release them into freedom." "Yes, that's clear," he said. "In what way, then, Glaucon, and on what reasoning shall we say it profits someone to act unjustly, or to be self-indulgent, or to do something shameful, from which he will become worse, even if he acquires more money or some other power?"
"In no way," he said. "And how does it profit the wrongdoer to escape detection and avoid paying the penalty? Doesn't the one who escapes notice become even worse, while for the one who doesn't escape notice and is punished, the beastly part is lulled and tamed, and the gentle part is set free, and the whole soul, settling into its best nature, takes on a more valuable condition, acquiring temperance and justice along with
wisdom—more valuable than the body's acquiring strength and beauty along with health, by exactly as much as the soul is more valuable than the body?" "Absolutely," he said. "So won't the person of sense direct his whole life toward this goal—honoring first the studies that will produce such a state in his soul, and holding the rest in low regard?" "Clearly," he said. "And next," I said, "as for the condition and nurture
of his body, he will not live directed toward giving in to the beastly and irrational pleasure, turned that way, nor even, for that matter, looking to health, nor holding it as most important that he be strong or healthy or handsome, unless he's also going to gain temperance from these things—but he will always be found tuning the harmony in his body for the sake of the concord in his soul." "Absolutely," he said,
"if he really means to be a person of harmony." "And won't he do the same," I said, "in the arrangement and harmony of his acquisition of wealth? Won't he refuse to be dazzled by the mass of the crowd's admiration into piling up wealth without limit, and so having endless troubles?" "I don't think so," he said. "But rather," I said, "keeping his eye on the constitution within himself, and guarding against upsetting any of its parts
either through too much property or too little, he will steer accordingly, adding to and spending from his wealth as far as he is able." "Quite so," he said. "And as for honors too, looking to the same thing, he will willingly share in and taste those he thinks will make him better, but will avoid, both privately and publicly, those that would undo his established condition."
"Then," he said, "he won't be willing to take part in politics, if he cares about this." "By the dog," I said, "he certainly will, in his own city at least—though perhaps not in his native land, unless some divine chance happens to befall him." "I understand," he said. "You mean the city we've just been founding as we went through our discussion, the one that exists in words—since I don't think it exists anywhere
on earth." "But," I said, "perhaps a model of it is laid up in heaven for the one who wishes to see it, and seeing it, to found himself accordingly. It makes no difference whether it exists anywhere or ever will exist; for he would take part in the affairs of this city alone, and no other." "That seems likely," he said.
"Indeed," I said, "there's a good deal else about this city of ours that makes me think we were right to found it exactly as we did — but nothing more than what I'm about to say about poetry." "What about it?" he said. "That we should admit none of it that is imitative — none at all. That now seems to me even clearer than before, now that we've distinguished the parts of the soul separately."
"What do you mean?" "Just between us — you won't repeat this to the tragic poets and all the other imitators — all poetry of that kind seems to be a kind of mutilation of the mind of anyone who hears it, unless he has the antidote of knowing what it actually is." "What exactly do you mean by that?" he asked. "I must say it," I replied, "though a certain affection—"
"—and a reverence I've felt for Homer since I was a boy holds me back from saying it. He seems to have been the first teacher and leader of all these fine tragic poets. But no man is to be honored above the truth, and so, as I say, it must be said." "It must indeed," he said. "Listen, then — or rather, answer me. Can you tell me, generally, what imitation is?
For I myself don't quite grasp what it's meant to be." "Then I suppose I'll grasp it!" he said. "That wouldn't be strange," I said, "since often people who see less sharply have caught sight of things before those with keener eyes." "That's true," he said, "but with you here I couldn't even bring myself to try to say what occurs to me — you look for it yourself." "Shall we begin, then,
examining it by our usual method? We're in the habit of positing some one form for each set of many particulars to which we apply the same name. Or don't you follow?" "I follow." "Let's take, then, any of the many particulars you like. For instance, if you wish, there are many beds and many tables." "Of course." "But there are only two forms for these pieces of furniture —
one of a bed, one of a table." "Yes." "And we're also in the habit of saying that the craftsman who makes each of these — one making beds, the other tables, the ones we use — looks to the form as he makes them, and likewise for everything else? Because surely no craftsman makes the form itself." "How could he?" "He couldn't. But now look
at this — what would you call this other craftsman?" "Which one?" "The one who makes everything — everything that each of the individual craftsmen makes." "That's some clever and remarkable man you're describing." "Not yet — but you'll soon say so all the more. For this same craftsman is able not only to make every kind of furniture, but also everything that grows from the earth,
and he produces all the animals, including himself, and besides these, earth and sky and the gods and everything in heaven and everything in Hades under the earth." "That's a truly remarkable sophist you're describing!" "You don't believe me? Tell me — does it seem to you altogether impossible that such a craftsman could exist, or that in some sense he could be the maker of all these things, and in another sense
not? Or don't you see that you yourself could produce all these things, in a certain way?" "And what way is that?" he asked. "Not difficult," I said, "in fact accomplished quickly and in many ways — most quickly, I suppose, if you're willing to take a mirror and carry it around everywhere. You'll quickly make the sun and everything in the sky, quickly the earth,
quickly yourself and the other animals and furniture and plants and everything else just mentioned." "Yes," he said, "in appearance — but not really existing in truth." "Good," I said, "you've come right to the point of the argument. For I think the painter too is one of these craftsmen." "Isn't he?" "He is. But you'll say, I think, that what he makes isn't real,
even though in a way the painter too makes a bed, doesn't he?" "Yes," he said, "he too makes what appears to be one." "And what about the bed-maker? Didn't you just say that he doesn't make the form — what we call the thing itself, that which is bed — but merely a certain bed?" "So I did say." "So if he doesn't make what really is,
he wouldn't be making that which is, but something that resembles that which is without actually being it. And if anyone claimed that the product of the bed-maker, or of any other craftsman, is fully real, he'd probably be speaking falsely — wouldn't he?" "At least," he said, "that's how it would seem to those engaged in discussions of this kind." "Then let's not be surprised if this too turns out to be somewhat dim compared to truth."
"No, let's not." "Shall we, then," I said, "use these very examples to look for what this imitator is?" "If you like," he said. "Well then, these beds turn out to be of three kinds: one that exists in nature, which we would say, I think, is made by god. Or by whom else?" "No one, I think." "And one that the carpenter makes." "Yes," he said. "And one that the
painter makes. Isn't that so?" "Granted." "Painter, bed-maker, god — these three preside over three kinds of beds." "Yes, three." "Now god — whether he didn't wish it, or some necessity was on him not to make more than one bed in nature — in any case made only that one bed which is really bed; but two or more of that kind were never brought into being by
god, and never will be." "How is that?" he asked. "Because," I said, "if he made even just two, one would again come to light of which those two would in turn possess the form, and that would be what is really bed, not the two." "Rightly said," he replied. "Knowing this, I think, god — wishing to be in truth the maker of a bed that truly is, and not
just a maker of some particular bed, nor merely a bed-maker among others — made it single by nature." "So it seems." "Shall we, then, call him the natural author of this, or something of that sort?" "That would be fitting," he said, "since it's by nature that he's made this and everything else as well." "And what about the carpenter? Isn't he the maker of a bed?" "Yes." "And is the painter too a maker and craftsman of such a thing?" "Not at all." "Then what would you say he is, in relation to the bed?"
"This," he said, "seems to me the most fitting way to describe him: an imitator of that which the others make." "Very well," I said. "So the one whose product stands at third remove from nature — him you call an imitator?" "Exactly so," he said. "Then this is also what the tragic poet will be, if indeed he is an imitator — someone third from the king and from truth by nature, as are all the other imitators."
"It seems so." "We're agreed, then, about the imitator. Now tell me this about the painter: does he seem to you to attempt to imitate, in each case, the thing itself as it exists in nature, or the works of the craftsmen?" "The works of the craftsmen," he said. "As they are, or as they appear? That distinction still needs to be drawn." "What do you mean?" he said. "This: a bed, whether you view it from the side or
from straight in front or from any other angle, does it differ at all from itself, or does it not differ at all, though it appears different? And the same for everything else?" "That's how it is," he said — "it appears different, though it doesn't differ at all." "Then consider this very point: toward which of these two is painting directed in each case? Toward imitating that which is, as it really is, or toward the appearance, as it appears — is it an imitation of an illusion, or of the truth?" "Of an illusion," he said.
"Then imitation is a long way from the truth, and it seems, this is why it can produce everything — because it touches only a small part of each thing, and that part is a mere image. For instance, we say the painter will paint us a shoemaker, a carpenter, and the other craftsmen, though he understands nothing about any of these crafts; and yet, if he's a good painter, by painting a carpenter and
displaying him from a distance, he could deceive children and foolish people into thinking he's really a carpenter." "Why not?" "But I think, my friend, this is what we must bear in mind about all such matters: whenever someone reports to us about a person who has mastered every craft, and everything else that each individual expert knows, in more precise detail than anyone — we should assume of such a person
that he's a rather simple man, and that, it seems, having met some wizard and imitator, he was deceived into thinking the man all-wise, because he himself was incapable of distinguishing knowledge from ignorance and from imitation." "Very true," he said. "Well then," I said, "after this we must examine tragedy and its leader, Homer, since we hear some people say that these poets know all the
crafts, and all human affairs relating to virtue and vice, and even divine matters; for, they say, the good poet, if he's to compose well about the things he composes about, must compose with knowledge, or else he wouldn't be able to compose at all. So we must examine whether those who say this have simply encountered these imitators and been deceived, and, looking at their works, fail to notice that they are three steps removed
from what really is, and easy to produce without knowledge of the truth — since they produce illusions, not realities — or whether there's something to what they say, and good poets genuinely know, in truth, the subjects on which the crowd takes them to speak well." "That certainly must be examined," he said. "Do you think, then, that if someone were able to make both things — the thing to be imitated and the image of it — he would be eager to devote himself
to producing images, and set that up as the best thing in his life?" "I wouldn't think so." "But if he really had knowledge of the truth about the very things he imitates, I think he would be far more devoted to real deeds than to imitations, and would try to leave behind many fine achievements as monuments to himself, and would be more eager to be the one praised
than the one who praises." "I think so," he said, "since the honor and the benefit are not equal." "Then let's not demand an account from Homer, or from any other poet, about other matters — asking whether any of them was actually skilled in medicine rather than merely an imitator of medical talk — which of the poets, old or new, is said to have healed people the way Asclepius did, or
which pupils in medicine he left behind, as Asclepius left his descendants; and let's not question them about the other crafts either — let's leave those aside. But concerning the greatest and finest matters that Homer undertakes to speak about — wars, and generalship, and the governance of cities, and the education of human beings — surely it's fair to question him and ask: dear Homer, if you aren't third from the truth
in matters of virtue — a maker of images, which is what we defined an imitator to be — but are even second, and were capable of knowing what practices make men better or worse in private and in public life, tell us which city was governed better because of you, as Sparta was because of Lycurgus, and as many others, both great cities and small ones, were because of many other men? What city credits you with being a good lawgiver
—and benefited them? Italy and Sicily credit Charondas, we credit Solon—but whom will they name for you? Will anyone be able to say? I don't think so, said Glaucon—not even the Homeridae themselves claim one. But is any war of Homer's time remembered as having been well fought under his command or on his advice? None. Well, but the many practical inventions and useful devices that get attributed to a wise man's work in the arts or other undertakings—like those told of Thales of Miletus or Anacharsis the Scythian?
Nothing of that kind at all. Well then, if not in public life, is Homer said, at least privately, to have been a guide in education for people during his lifetime, people who loved his company and passed on to those after them a 'Homeric way of life,' the way Pythagoras himself was—
—loved exceptionally for this, and his followers even now still call their way of life 'Pythagorean' and seem in some way distinguished from everyone else? No, nothing like that is said of Homer either, he said. In fact, Socrates, Creophylus, Homer's companion—if we go by his name—would look even more ridiculous as an educator than the name suggests, if what's said about Homer is true.
For it's said that there was a great deal of neglect toward him on the part of that very companion, while Homer was alive. Yes, so it's said, I said. But do you think, Glaucon, that had Homer truly possessed the power to educate people and make them better—since he had genuine knowledge of these matters, not mere imitation—he wouldn't have gathered many companions and been honored and loved by them? Instead, Protagoras
of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and countless others are able to convince their contemporaries, in private conversation, that they'll never be capable of managing their own household or city unless those men personally oversee their education—and for this wisdom they're loved so intensely that their companions all but carry them around on their shoulders. But Homer—
—if he had really been capable of helping people toward virtue, would his contemporaries have let him or Hesiod wander about reciting verses? Wouldn't they have clung to them more tightly than to gold, and forced them to live at home with them, or, failing persuasion, followed them around wherever they went until they'd gotten a proper share of education from them? You seem to me to be telling the complete truth, Socrates, he said.
Then shall we conclude that, starting with Homer, all the poets are imitators of images of virtue and of the other things they compose about, and never grasp the truth itself—but that, as we said just now, the painter will make what looks like a shoemaker to those who understand nothing of shoemaking themselves and judge only by colors and shapes, and will convince others equally ignorant? Certainly. In just this way, I think,
we'll say the poet too applies certain colors of each craft with his words and phrases—without understanding anything himself, but only imitating—so that to others like himself, who judge by words alone, he seems to speak very well indeed, whether the subject is shoemaking, expressed in meter and rhythm and harmony, or generalship, or anything else whatever. Such is the natural power these things themselves possess
to cast a kind of spell. Since when you strip away the poets' words of their musical coloring and say them plainly by themselves, I think you know what they look like. You've seen this, surely. I have, he said. Doesn't it resemble, I said, the faces of people in their youthful bloom, though not truly beautiful, once the flower of youth has left them? Exactly so, he said. Now consider this next point.
The maker of the image, the imitator we're speaking of, understands nothing, we say, of what truly is, only of what appears—isn't that so? Yes. Then let's not leave the matter half stated, but examine it fully. Go on, he said. A painter, we say, will paint reins and a bit? Yes. And a shoemaker and a bronzesmith will make them? Certainly. So does the painter understand what the reins
and the bit ought to be like? Or does not even the maker understand this—the bronzesmith and the leatherworker—but only the one who knows how to use them, the horseman alone? Very true. And isn't this true of everything in the same way? How so? That for each thing there are these three arts—one that uses it, one that makes it, one that imitates it? Yes. And isn't the excellence, beauty, and rightness of each implement, living thing, and
action determined by nothing other than the use for which each was made or naturally suited? Just so. Then it follows necessarily that the one who uses each thing has the most experience of it, and reports to its maker what is good or bad about it in actual use. A flute player, for instance, reports to the flute-maker about the flutes that serve him well
in playing, and instructs him what kind to make, and the maker will comply. Of course. So the one who has knowledge reports on flutes good and bad, and the other, trusting him, makes accordingly? Yes. Then regarding the same implement, the maker will have correct belief about its quality and flaws, from associating with the one who knows and being obliged to listen to him, while the user has knowledge itself.
Certainly. But the imitator—will he, from using the thing, have knowledge of whether what he depicts is beautiful and right, or not, or will he have correct opinion, from being forced to associate with the one who knows and being told what he ought to depict? Neither. So the imitator will have neither knowledge nor correct opinion about whatever he imitates, as regards its beauty or its badness. It seems not.
So the imitative artist in poetry would be a charming fellow indeed when it comes to wisdom about the things he composes on. Not at all. And yet he'll go on imitating all the same, without knowing in what way each thing is bad or good—but, it seems, he'll imitate whatever appears beautiful to the many, who know nothing themselves. What else could he do? These points, then, as it appears,
we have agreed on well enough: that the imitative artist knows nothing worth mentioning about the things he imitates, that imitation is a kind of game and not something to be taken seriously, and that all who take up tragic poetry, whether in iambics or in epic verse, are imitators in the fullest possible sense. Certainly. Now, by Zeus, I said, this imitation—isn't it concerned with something that stands third
from the truth? Isn't that so? Yes. And with what part of a human being does it have this power that it has? What sort of thing do you mean? This: the same magnitude, seen from near and from far through sight, doesn't appear equal to us. No, it doesn't. And the same things appear bent or straight when viewed in water
and out of water, and also concave or convex, owing to the same visual confusion regarding colors—clearly there is every kind of disturbance present in our soul. It's to this weakness of our nature that scene-painting attaches itself and works its sorcery, leaving nothing undone, and so does conjuring and many other such devices. True. Then isn't it
the case that measuring and counting and weighing have shown themselves to be the most welcome aids here, so that what rules within us is not the apparent greater or smaller, more or heavier, but rather the calculated, measured, or weighed? Of course. And this, surely, would be the work of the reasoning part of the soul. Yes, of that part. And yet often, when this part has measured
and indicated that certain things are larger or smaller than others, or equal, the opposite appears at the same time about the same things. Yes. And didn't we say it's impossible for the same thing to hold contrary beliefs at the same time about the same things? And we were right to say so. So the part of the soul that forms judgment contrary to the measurements cannot be the same as the part that judges according to the measurements. No, it cannot. But surely the part that trusts
measurement and calculation would be the best part of the soul. Of course. So the part that opposes it would be one of the inferior elements in us. Necessarily. This is the point I wanted us to agree on when I said that painting, and imitation generally, produces its work far removed from the truth, and also keeps company with that part in us which is far removed from
wisdom, being its companion and friend for no sound or true purpose. Exactly so, he said. So imitation, being a lowly thing, consorting with what is lowly, breeds lowly offspring. So it seems. But is this true only of the imitation that works through sight, I said, or also through hearing—the kind we call poetry? It's likely true of this one too, he said. Then let's not trust likelihood alone,
based on the case of painting, but let's go directly to that very part of the mind with which poetic imitation keeps company, and see whether it is lowly or worthy. We must, he said. Let's set it out this way: imitation, we say, represents human beings engaged in actions, whether forced or voluntary, and as a result of acting believing themselves to have fared well or badly, and in all this feeling either grief
or joy. Was there anything else besides these? No. Now, in all these circumstances, is a person of one mind throughout? Or, just as with sight he was at war with himself, simultaneously holding opposed judgments about the very same things, does he likewise, in actions, stand divided and fight against himself? But I recall that we don't need to settle this point again now—
for in our earlier discussions we agreed sufficiently on all this, that our soul is full of countless such contradictions occurring at the same time. Rightly so, he said. Rightly indeed, I said—but what we left out then, I think it's now necessary to go through. What was that? he said. A decent man, I said, who has suffered some such misfortune—the loss of a son, say, or anything else he values most—
we said even then that he will bear it more easily than others. Certainly. But now let's examine this: will he feel no distress at all, or is that impossible, and will he rather show some moderation toward his grief? That's closer to the truth, he said. Now tell me this about him: do you think he'll be more inclined to struggle against his grief and resist it when he's seen by his equals,
or when he's alone by himself, in solitude? He'll behave very differently, I imagine, when he's being watched, he said. Left alone, I think, he'll dare to say many things he'd be ashamed to have overheard, and do many things he wouldn't want anyone to see him doing. That's how it is, he said. Now isn't it reason and law that urge him to resist, while it's the suffering itself
that drags him toward his grief? True. And when two opposite impulses arise in a person simultaneously concerning one and the same object, we say there must necessarily be two elements in him. Of course. And isn't one of them ready to obey the law, wherever the law leads? How so? The law says that it is best to remain as calm as possible in misfortunes, and not to give way to distress,
—since neither good nor bad in such matters is clear, and nothing is gained for the person who takes it hard by treating it as a great burden, and none of human affairs is worth taking so seriously, while grief gets in the way of the very thing we need to arrive at as quickly as possible in such circumstances. —What do you mean? he said. —Deliberating, I said, about what has happened,
and, as with a throw of the dice, arranging one's affairs to fit however the roll has fallen, in whatever way reason determines is best—rather than, like children who bang into something and then cling to the hurt spot, spending time wailing over it, but instead always training the soul to move as quickly as possible toward healing and setting right what has fallen and taken sick, making the lament disappear through the healer's art. —That would certainly be the most correct
way, he said, to respond to strokes of fortune. —So then, we say, the best part of us is willing to follow this reasoning. —Clearly. —And the part that drags us toward remembering the suffering and toward lamentation, and can't get enough of it—shall we not say that this is unreasoning, idle, and a friend of cowardice? —We shall say that. —And doesn't the one
have much and varied imitation—the fretful part—while the wise and calm character, being always nearly the same as itself, is neither easy to imitate nor, when imitated, easy for people to grasp—especially not for a crowd assembled in a festival gathering, made up of all sorts of people, since the feeling being imitated is foreign to them? —Absolutely. —So the imitative poet clearly is not naturally suited
to that part of the soul, and his skill isn't fixed on pleasing it, if he means to win a good reputation among the many—rather he is suited to the fretful and varied character, because it's easy to imitate. —Clearly. —So we'd be justified now in laying hold of him, and setting him down as the counterpart of the painter—for he resembles him in that his products are poor things measured against truth, and also in that he
consorts with another such part of the soul rather than with the best part—and in this respect too he is like him. And so we would now be right not to admit him into a city that is going to be well governed, because he stirs up this part of the soul and nurtures it, and by making it strong destroys the reasoning part—just as in a city, when someone puts wicked men in power and hands the city over to them, ruining the more decent people. The same
we shall say of the imitative poet: that he implants a bad constitution in each person's soul privately, by gratifying its unthinking part, which can't distinguish the greater from the lesser but regards the same things now as great, now as small, fashioning images of images, standing very far removed indeed from the truth. —Quite so. —And yet we still haven't brought the gravest charge against it. For the fact
that it is capable of corrupting even decent people—except for a very few—is a truly terrible thing. —Of course it is, if that's really what it does. —Listen and consider. When the best of us hear Homer, or one of the other tragic poets, imitating one of the heroes in grief, drawing out a long speech in his lamentations, or even singing and beating his breast, you know that
we take pleasure in it, and giving ourselves over, we follow along, suffering with him, and in all earnestness we praise as a good poet the one who affects us most powerfully in this way. —I know—of course. —But when a private grief comes to one of us, you notice, don't you, that we pride ourselves on the opposite—on being able to keep quiet and endure—on the grounds that this is what a man does, while that other thing, which we were praising then,
is what a woman does. —I notice that, he said. —Now is this praise a fine thing—when watching a man behave in a way one would be ashamed to behave oneself, one feels not disgust but delight and admiration? —No, by Zeus, he said, that doesn't seem reasonable. —Yes, I said, if you look at it this way. —How? —If you consider that the part
which is forcibly held in check in our own misfortunes, and which hungers to weep and wail its fill and get its satisfaction, since it is by nature the sort of thing that desires these things—this is exactly the part that gets fed and gratified by the poets; while the part of us that is naturally best, since it has not been adequately trained by reason or habit, relaxes its guard over this tearful part, on the ground that it is watching another's sufferings,
and that there's nothing shameful to itself if some other man, claiming to be good, grieves out of season—it thinks it gains by praising and pitying him, rather than losing the pleasure by despising the whole performance. For I think few people are able to reckon that what we absorb from others' sufferings inevitably spills over into our own; once the pitying part has been nourished and made strong on those occasions, it is
not easy to hold in check in one's own sufferings. —Very true, he said. —Doesn't the same argument apply also to the laughable? Namely, that if there are jokes you'd be ashamed to make yourself, but which, when you hear them in a comic imitation—or even in private—delight you enormously instead of your hating them as base, you're doing the very same thing as with the pitiable things: the part which, in reasoned reflection, you were holding back in yourself when it wanted to raise a laugh,
for fear of a reputation for buffoonery, you now let loose again; and by making it bold there, you often find yourself, without realizing it, carried away in your own affairs into becoming something of a comedian yourself. —Very much so, he said. —And the same applies to sex, and to spirited anger, and to all the desires and pains and pleasures in the soul which we say accompany our every action—that poetic imitation produces the same effect in us in these cases too;
for it nurtures these things by watering them, when they ought to be left to dry up, and sets them up as our rulers, when they ought to be ruled, so that we may become better and happier instead of worse and more wretched. —I can't say otherwise, he said. —So then, Glaucon, I said, whenever you come across admirers of Homer who say that this poet has educated Greece, and that for the management and education of human affairs he is
worth taking up so as to learn from, and to arrange one's whole life according to this poet's teaching—you must love and welcome them as being the best people they're capable of being, and agree that Homer is the most poetic of poets and the first of the tragedians; but you must know that only as much poetry as consists of hymns to the gods and hymns of praise to good men should be admitted into a city. If you admit the sweetened Muse
in songs or in epic verse, pleasure and pain will be kings in your city instead of law and that reasoning which is always, by common agreement, held to be best. —Very true, he said. —Let this, then, stand as our defense, now that we have recalled it, concerning poetry: that we were right at that time to send her away from the city, being of such a nature—reason compelled us to it. But let us also say to her, in case she charges us with
a certain harshness and rusticity, that there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry. For there is that yelping bitch snarling at her master, and 'great in the empty babble of fools,' and 'the mob of the overly clever holding sway,' and those 'who worry over fine points because they are poor'—and countless other signs of this ancient opposition between them. Nevertheless let it be said that we, for our part,
if she has any argument to offer for herself—the poetry that aims at pleasure, and imitation—showing that she ought to have a place in a well-governed city, would gladly welcome her back, since we are well aware ourselves that we are charmed by her. But it is not right to betray what seems to be the truth. Isn't that so, my friend? Aren't you yourself charmed by her, especially when you view her through Homer?
—Very much so. —Then it is just for her to return in this way—after she has made her defense in lyric or some other meter. —Certainly. —And we would surely grant to her champions too, those who are not poets themselves but lovers of poetry, to speak on her behalf without meter, showing that she is not only pleasant but also useful both for constitutions and for the life of human beings; and we shall listen
favorably. For we stand to gain, surely, if she should prove to be not only pleasant but beneficial. —How could we fail to gain? he said. —But if not, my dear friend, then just as those who have once fallen in love, if they come to believe the love is not beneficial, hold themselves back from it, even though it costs them effort—so too we, because of the love for this kind of poetry that has grown in us from
our upbringing in these fine constitutions, will be well disposed to have her shown to be the best and truest thing possible; but as long as she is unable to make her defense, we will listen to her while chanting to ourselves this argument we have made, as a kind of incantation, guarding against falling back into that childish love of her which is also the love of the many. We will chant, then, that we must not take
such poetry seriously, as though it laid hold of truth and were something to be taken in earnest; rather, whoever listens to her must be on his guard, fearing for the constitution within himself, and must hold to the views we have stated about poetry. —I agree entirely, he said. —Great, I said, is the contest, dear Glaucon, great—far greater than it seems—this question of becoming good or bad; so that neither honor, nor money,
nor any office, nor even poetry, is worth neglecting justice and the rest of virtue for. —I agree with you, he said, from what we have gone through; and I think anyone else would too. —And yet, I said, we have not yet gone through the greatest rewards and prizes set before virtue. —You must mean something of immense magnitude, he said, if there is anything greater than what has been said. —What indeed, I said,
could become great in so short a time? For this whole span from childhood to old age would be but a small thing compared to all of time. —Nothing at all, he said. —Well then? Do you think an immortal thing ought to be in earnest about so short a span, rather than about the whole of time? —I think so, he said. But what do you mean by this? —Have you not perceived, I said,
that our soul is immortal and never perishes? And he looked at me in wonder and said: No, by Zeus, I have not. Can you say this? —I ought to be able to, I said, if I'm not mistaken—and I think you can too, for it isn't difficult. —It is for me, he said; but I would gladly hear from you this thing that isn't difficult. —You may hear it, I said. —Only speak, he said.
—You call something good, I said, and something bad? —I do. —Do you think about them, then, the same way I do? —How so? —That whatever destroys and corrupts is entirely the bad, and whatever preserves and benefits is the good. —I do, he said. —Well then? Do you say that each thing has its own particular bad and good—for example, ophthalmia for the eyes, and disease for the whole body, blight for grain, rot for
timber, rust for bronze and iron, and, as I say, nearly everything has its own connatural evil and disease? —I do, he said. —So whenever any of these afflicts something, doesn't it make the thing bad, to which it has attached itself, and in the end dissolve and destroy it entirely? —Of course. —So the connatural evil of each thing, and its own particular badness, destroys each thing—or if this does not destroy it, nothing
could destroy it any further. For the good will never destroy anything, ever, and neither will what is neither good nor bad. "How could it?" he said. "So if we find, among existing things, something that has a bad condition that makes it defective, but this bad condition is nevertheless not capable of dissolving it by destroying it, won't we already know that for a thing so constituted
there was no destruction?" "That seems likely," he said. "Well then," I said, "isn't there something that makes the soul itself bad?" "Certainly," he said. "All the things we just went through—injustice, license, cowardice, ignorance." "Does any one of these dissolve it and destroy it? And consider—we mustn't be deceived into thinking that when an unjust and foolish person
is caught doing wrong, he has been destroyed at that moment by his injustice, as if injustice were a disease of the soul. Rather, look at it this way: just as bodily corruption, being a disease, wastes the body away and destroys it and brings it to the point of not being a body at all, so too all the things we just mentioned reach the point of not existing, through their own particular vice, by attaching itself to the soul and dwelling in it and corrupting it—isn't that so?" "Yes." "Come then, and examine the soul
in the same way. Does injustice, when it dwells within it, along with the other vice, destroy it and wither it away by dwelling there and attaching itself, until it leads it to death and separates it from the body?" "No," he said, "not that, certainly." "But surely," I said, "it would be unreasonable for the corruption belonging to one thing to destroy something else, while its own corruption does not destroy itself." "Unreasonable." "Consider, then,"
I said, "Glaucon, that we do not think the body must be destroyed by the badness of food—whatever that badness may be, whether staleness or rottenness or anything else—no, unless the badness of the food itself produces in the body a bodily defect, we will say that the body has perished through that food because of its own vice, which is a disease. But we will never think it right that the body, being one thing, should be destroyed by
the badness of food, which is a different thing, unless that foreign evil produces in it the innate evil." "Quite right again," he said. "By the same reasoning, then," I said, "unless bodily corruption produces in the soul a corruption of the soul, let us never think it right that the soul be destroyed by a foreign evil apart from its own particular vice—one thing by the evil of another."
"Yes, that makes sense," he said. "So either let us refute this and show that we are not speaking well, or, so long as it stands unrefuted, let us never claim that a fever, or some other sickness, or the knife, or even someone chopping the whole body into the tiniest pieces, causes the soul to perish any the more because of these things—not until someone demonstrates that because of these
sufferings of the body, the soul itself becomes more unjust and more impious. But when a foreign evil arises in one thing while its own proper evil does not arise in it, let us not allow anyone to say that the soul, or anything else, perishes." "But surely," he said, "no one will ever show this—that the souls of those who die become more unjust because of death." "But if someone," I said, "dares to meet
the argument head-on and say that a dying person does become more wicked and unjust—precisely so as not to be forced to admit that souls are immortal—we shall demand, if what this person says is true, that injustice be fatal to its possessor, like a disease, and that those who catch it die from it, from the very thing that kills by its own nature, some dying very quickly,
others more slowly—rather than, as is actually the case, dying from having a penalty imposed by others because of it." "By Zeus," he said, "injustice will not, after all, appear so utterly terrible if it is fatal to the one who has it—for that would be a release from evils—but rather I think it will appear quite the opposite: something that kills everyone else, if it can, while making its possessor extremely full of life, and
even, beyond being alive, wide awake. So far, it seems, is it encamped from being fatal." "Well put," I said. "For since its own particular badness and its own evil is not enough to kill and destroy the soul, hardly will an evil appointed for the destruction of something else destroy the soul or anything else, except that for which it is appointed." "Hardly
at all," he said, "as is reasonable." "So then, since it is destroyed by no evil whatsoever, neither its own nor a foreign one, clearly it must always exist; and if it always exists, it is immortal." "Necessarily," he said. "Let this, then," I said, "be settled so. And if it is so, you realize that the souls would always be the same. For they could not become fewer
if none is destroyed, nor again more numerous—for if any of the immortal things were to increase, you know it would have to come from the mortal, and everything would end up immortal." "True," he said. "But," I said, "let us not suppose that—for the argument won't allow it—nor again that the soul, in its truest nature, is such as to be full of great variety and dissimilarity and difference
within itself. "What do you mean?" he said. "It is not easy," I said, "for a thing composed of many parts, and not put together in the finest way, to be eternal, as the soul has now appeared to us to be." "No, that isn't likely." "That the soul is immortal, then, both the argument just given and the others would compel us to accept; but as for what it is like in truth, one must not view it
as damaged by its association with the body and other evils, as we now view it, but rather one must look closely with reasoning at what it is like when it becomes pure, and then one will find it far more beautiful, and one will discern more clearly matters of justice and injustice and everything we have just gone through. As it is, we have spoken truly about it as it now appears; but we have viewed
it in the condition it's in—like those who see the sea-god Glaucus, who could no longer easily make out his original nature, because the old parts of his body have been partly broken off, partly worn smooth, and altogether disfigured by the waves, while other things have grown onto him—shells and seaweed and rocks—so that he resembles any wild creature more than what he was by nature.
That is how we too view the soul, in the condition it's in, afflicted by countless evils. But we must look elsewhere, Glaucon." "Where?" he said. "To its love of wisdom, and consider what it grasps at and what kinds of company it longs for, as being akin to the divine and the immortal and to that which always exists, and what it would become if it followed wholly after such a thing, and were lifted
by that impulse out of the sea in which it now lives, and had knocked off it the rocks and shells—which, since it feasts on earth, have grown around it in great earthy and rocky and wild profusion, from those so-called happy feastings. Then one could see its true nature, whether it is many-formed or single-formed, or however it is and in whatever way. As it is, we
have described fairly adequately, I think, its sufferings and forms in human life." "Quite so," he said. "Have we not, then," I said, "cleared away the other objections in our argument, and not even praised the wages or reputations of justice, as you said Hesiod and Homer do, but found that justice itself is the best thing for the soul itself, and that the soul must do
what is just, whether it possesses the ring of Gyges or not, and, in addition to such a ring, even the cap of Hades?" "Most truly spoken," he said. "Is it not, then," I said, "Glaucon, now free of reproach to also give back to justice and the rest of virtue, in addition to those other things, the wages, however many and of whatever kind, that they provide for the soul from both men and gods, while
the person is still alive and after he dies?" "Quite so," he said. "Will you then give back to me what you borrowed from me in the argument?" "What exactly?" "I granted you that the just man should seem unjust and the unjust man just; for you asked for this, even if it were not possible for these things to escape the notice of both gods and men, still it should be granted for the sake of the argument,
so that justice itself might be judged against injustice itself. Or don't you remember?" "I would be doing wrong," he said, "if I did not." "Well then," I said, "since they have been judged, I now ask back on behalf of justice the reputation it actually has both from gods and from men, and that we agree it is held in such regard, so that it too may carry off the prizes of victory, acquiring, through seeming, the goods it gives to those who possess
it, since it has been shown to give the goods that come from actually being just, and not to deceive those who truly take hold of it." "You ask what is just," he said. "Then," I said, "first of all you will grant this back—that the gods, at least, are not unaware which of the two each of them really is?" "We will grant it," he said. "And if this does not escape their notice, one would be dear to the gods, and the other hateful to the gods, just as we
agreed at the beginning." "That is so." "And shall we not agree that for the one dear to the gods, whatever comes from the gods, all of it comes about in the best possible way, unless there is some necessary evil owed to him from a previous fault?" "Certainly." "So this is how we must think about the just man—if he falls into poverty or into sicknesses or any other of the things thought to be evils—that for him
these things will end in something good, whether he is alive or even dead. For surely he is never neglected by the gods, the man who is willing to strive earnestly to become just and, by practicing virtue, to become as much like god as is possible for a human being." "It is likely," he said, "that such a man would not be neglected by his like." "And must we not think the opposite of these things about the unjust man?" "Very much so." "These, then, would be
the sort of prizes of victory that come from the gods for the just man." "That is my opinion, at any rate," he said. "And what," I said, "from men? Is it not the case, if we must state what actually is, that the clever but unjust act just as runners do who run well from the starting line but not from the finish? At
first they leap off sharply, but in the end they become laughable, running off with their ears drooping on their shoulders and uncrowned; whereas those who are truly good runners reach the end and take the prizes and are crowned. Isn't it the same way, too, with just men in most cases? Toward the end of each action and each dealing and of life itself, they enjoy a good reputation and carry off the prizes from
men?" "Very much so." "Will you then bear with me if I say about them the very things you yourself said about the unjust? For I shall say that just men, once they grow older, rule in their own city, if they wish to hold office, and marry from wherever they wish, and give their daughters in marriage to whomever they choose; and everything you said about those others, I now say of these—
That's what I'm saying now about these men. And again, about the unjust—most of them, even if they get away with it when young, are caught before they reach the end of the race and end up ridiculous, and when they grow old, wretched, they're abused by foreigners and citizens alike, whipped, and subjected to all the things you called crude when you said them—and you were right—and then they'll be racked and branded. Assume you've heard from me everything else that happens to them.
Consider whether you can bear the rest of what I'm about to say. By all means, he said—what you say is fair. Well then, I said, the prizes and wages and gifts that come to the just man from gods and men while he's alive, on top of those good things justice itself provided, would be things of that sort. Yes indeed, he said, fine and secure ones. And yet, I said,
these are nothing in number or size compared to what awaits each of them after death—and we need to hear about that too, so that each of them may receive in full what our argument owes him to hear. Go on, he said, there's nothing I'd rather hear. Well, I said, it's not a tale of Alcinous I'll tell you, but the tale of a brave man, Er,
son of Armenius, by birth a Pamphylian. He once died in battle, and when the bodies were picked up on the tenth day, already decayed, his was found still sound; he was carried home, and on the twelfth day, as he lay on the funeral pyre about to be buried, he came back to life. Having revived, he told what he had seen there. He said that when his soul left his body, it traveled with many others, and they came to a marvelous place where there were, in the earth,
two openings side by side, and in the sky above, opposite them, two others. Between these sat judges who, once they had passed judgment, ordered the just to travel the road to the right and upward through the sky, fastening signs of the judgments on them in front, and ordered the unjust to take the road to the left and downward, and they too wore
signs, on their backs, of everything they had done. When Er himself came forward, they told him he had to become a messenger to human beings about the things there, and they charged him to listen to and observe everything in that place. So he saw there, at each of the two openings of sky and earth, the souls departing once judgment had been passed on them, while at
the other two openings, souls were rising up out of one, caked with dust and grime, while out of the other souls were coming down from the sky, clean. And the souls continually arriving looked as though a long road lay behind them; glad to be there, they turned aside into the meadow and pitched camp the way people do at a great festival, and acquaintances exchanged greetings with one another, and those who came from the earth
asked the others about things up above, and those from the sky asked about things below. They told each other their stories—some weeping and lamenting as they recalled all they had suffered and seen on their journey under the earth (a journey of a thousand years), while the others, in turn, told of the joys they'd known in the sky and sights of inconceivable beauty.
To tell it all, Glaucon, would take a long time; but the main point, he said, was this: for every wrong any of them had ever done, and for everyone they had wronged, they paid the penalty for each in turn, tenfold—once for every hundred years, on the assumption that this is the length of a human life—so that the payment for each wrong would be ten times its worth. And, for instance, if some had been responsible for many deaths,
by betraying cities or armies, or by driving people into slavery, or by complicity in any other wrongdoing, they received tenfold suffering for every one of these; and again, if some had done good deeds and had been just and pious, they were rewarded in the same proportion. Of those who died right after birth or lived only a short time, he said other things not worth recounting. But concerning
impiety and piety toward the gods, toward parents, and murder with one's own hand, he told of still greater penalties and rewards. He said he was present when one soul asked another where the great Ardiaeus was. This Ardiaeus had been tyrant in a certain city of Pamphylia a thousand years before that time, and he had murdered his old father along with an older brother of his, and had done many
other unholy things besides, so the story went. Er said the one who was asked replied, 'He hasn't come, and he never will come here. For we witnessed this too among the terrible sights: when we were near the mouth, about to go up, having endured everything else, we suddenly saw him and others—most of them tyrants, though there were also some private
individuals who had committed great crimes—and just as they thought they were about to go up, the mouth would not admit them, but it bellowed whenever one of those whose wickedness was incurable, or who had not yet paid a sufficient penalty, tried to go up. And there, he said, savage men, fiery to look at, standing by and recognizing the sound, seized some and marched them away; Ardiaeus, though, together with certain others, they trussed hand and foot and
head, threw them down and flayed them, and dragged them along the road outside, tearing them on thorn bushes, and to everyone passing by they explained why this was being done and that they were being carried off to be thrown into Tartarus. And there, he said, of all the many and varied terrors they had faced, this was the worst—the fear that the sound would come for each one as he tried to go up—and each one was overjoyed to go up in silence. Such, then, were the
judgments and punishments, and the rewards were their counterparts. When each group had spent seven days in the meadow, they had to get up and set out on the eighth day, and after four days' travel they arrived at a place from which they could see, stretching from above through the whole of heaven and earth, a straight light, like a pillar, most like a rainbow but brighter and purer. They reached
this after a further day's journey, and there, at the light's midpoint, the ends of its chains could be seen stretched down from the sky—for this light is the bond of heaven, holding its whole circuit together the way the girding-cables hold a trireme together—and from the ends stretched the spindle of Necessity, by which all the revolutions turn. Its shaft and
hook were made of adamant, and its whorl was a mixture of that and other materials. The nature of the whorl was this: in shape it was like the whorls we know, but from what Er said we must imagine it like this—as if within one great hollow whorl, scooped out all the way through, another smaller one of the same kind fit snugly inside, the way
nested bowls fit into one another, and so on with a third and a fourth and four more besides. For there were eight whorls in all, one inside another, showing their rims as circles from above, forming a single continuous back around the shaft, which was driven right through the middle of the eighth. Now the first and outermost whorl had the widest
rim, that of the sixth was second, the fourth's third, the eighth's fourth, the seventh's fifth, the fifth's sixth, the third's seventh, and the second's eighth. And the rim of the largest was spangled, the seventh's was the brightest,
the eighth's got its color by reflecting the seventh's light; the second's and fifth's were similar to each other and more yellow than the others; the third had the whitest color; the fourth was reddish; and the sixth was second in whiteness. The whole spindle turned with a single motion, but within that overall revolution the seven inner circles turned
slowly in the direction opposite to the whole; and of these, the eighth moved fastest, followed—moving together—by the seventh, sixth, and fifth; the third seemed to them to move with a speed third in order, appearing to circle back past the fourth; the fourth came fourth, and the fifth, second. The whole thing turned in the lap of Necessity. On top of each of its circles
stood a Siren, carried round with it, uttering a single sound, one note; and out of all eight a single harmony was formed. And seated round about, at equal distances, were three others, each on a throne, the daughters of Necessity, the Fates—Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos—dressed in white, garlands on their heads, singing to the harmony of the Sirens: Lachesis of things past,
Clotho of things present, and Atropos of things to come. Clotho, with her right hand, touched the outer revolution of the spindle and helped turn it, pausing now and then; Atropos with her left hand did the same for the inner revolutions; and Lachesis touched each in turn with either hand. When the souls arrived there, they had to go at once to Lachesis. A spokesman first
arranged them in order, then took from Lachesis's lap lots and models of lives, and mounting a high platform, said: 'Word of the maiden Lachesis, daughter of Necessity. Souls of a day, here begins another cycle of mortal, death-bearing life. Your guardian spirit will not be assigned to you by lot; you will choose your guardian spirit. Let the one who draws first choose first a life to which he will be bound of
necessity. Virtue has no master; each of you will have more or less of it as he honors or dishonors it. The blame is the chooser's; the god is blameless.' Having said this, he threw the lots among them all, and each picked up the one that fell beside him, except Er, who was not allowed to. To the one who picked it up, it was clear what number he had drawn. After that he set the models of lives
before them on the ground, far more numerous than those present. They were of every kind, for there were lives of all the animals, and certainly of all human beings; among them were tyrannies, some lasting to the end, others cut short midway, ending in poverty and exile and beggary. There were also lives of men well regarded, some
for their looks, their beauty, and the rest of their strength and athletic skill; others for their birth and the virtues of their ancestors; and likewise lives without such regard, and the same for women. But there was no fixed character of soul in them, since a soul necessarily becomes different depending on the life it chooses; but everything else was mixed together, with wealth and poverty, with sickness and
health, and some in between these. Right there, it seems, my dear Glaucon, lies the whole danger for a human being, and because of this we must, above all else, take care that each of us, neglecting all other studies, be a seeker and a student of this one study alone—if he can somehow learn and discover who will make him capable and knowledgeable enough to distinguish the good life from
—able to distinguish good from bad, and always, everywhere, to choose the better from among the possible; reckoning up all that has just been said, and how it combines and separates to bear on a life's excellence—to know what beauty mixed with poverty or with wealth, and joined to what condition of soul, produces evil or good, and what good birth and low birth, private station and rule, strength and
weakness, quickness and slowness of learning, and all such things, whether natural to the soul or acquired, do when blended with one another—so as to be able, reckoning from all of them together, to choose, keeping his eyes on the nature of the soul, between the worse life and the better, calling worse whichever will lead the soul toward becoming more unjust,
and better whichever will lead it toward becoming more just. Everything else he will let go, since we have seen that this is the mightiest choice, both for a man living and for one dead. He must go down to Hades holding to this judgment like adamant, so that there too he may be undismayed by wealth and evils of that sort, and not fall into tyrannies and other such practices and do much
irreparable harm, and himself suffer still worse—but rather know how always to choose the middle life among such things and to flee the extremes on either side, both in this life, so far as possible, and in every life to come; for in this way a human being becomes happiest. And indeed, at that time too the messenger from that other place reported that the prophet had spoken thus—
'For the one who comes last, if he chooses with understanding and lives strenuously, a life lies in store that is welcome, not bad. Let not the one who chooses first be careless, nor the one who chooses last lose heart.' When he had said this, the man to whom the first lot fell, he said, went straight up and chose the greatest tyranny, and through folly and gluttony did not examine everything sufficiently before choosing, but failed to notice that it was fated to include the eating of his own children,
and other evils besides. But when he examined it at leisure, he beat his breast and lamented his choice, not abiding by what the prophet had foretold; for he did not blame himself for these evils, but chance and daemons and everything sooner than himself. This man was among those arriving from heaven, having lived his former life under an ordered government, sharing in virtue by habit
and without philosophy. Indeed, it was said that those who came down from heaven were caught in such traps no less often than the others, being unpracticed in hardship; whereas most of those who came up from the earth, since they had themselves suffered and had seen others suffer, did not rush headlong into their choices. That is why there occurs an exchange of evils and goods for most
souls, and also because of the luck of the lot. For if, every time a soul arrived at life here, it were always to pursue philosophy in a sound way, and if the lot of its choosing did not happen to fall among the last, it seems likely, from what is reported from that other place, that it would not only be happy here, but that its journey from here to there and back again would not be the rough, earthy road, but
smooth and heavenly. This, he said, was the sight most worth seeing—how each of the several souls chose its life; for it was pitiful and laughable and astonishing to behold. For the most part they chose according to the habits of their former life. He said he watched the soul that had belonged to Orpheus take up a swan's existence, because out of hatred for womankind, on account of
his death at their hands, it was unwilling to be conceived and born of a woman. And he saw Thamyras' soul pick out a nightingale's existence; and he saw a swan too changing over to the choice of a human life, and other musical creatures likewise. The soul to whom the twentieth lot fell took up a lion's existence; this was the soul of Ajax son of Telamon, who, shunning becoming a human being, remembered the judgment over the arms. And the one after this
was the soul of Agamemnon; it too, out of hatred for the human race because of its sufferings, exchanged for the life of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta, whose lot fell in the middle, caught sight of the great honors of an athlete and could not pass them by, but took them. After her he saw the soul of Epeius, Panopeus' son, entering the form of a woman skilled in crafts; and far off among the last he saw the soul of Thersites the buffoon putting on the form of a monkey.
And by chance the soul of Odysseus, which had drawn the very last lot of all, came forward to choose; and, remembering its former hardships, with its ambition now abated, it went about for a long time searching for the life of a private man who minds his own business, and with difficulty found one lying somewhere neglected by the others, and on seeing it said that it would have done the same even if it had drawn the first lot, and chose it gladly. And likewise, from among the other animals
souls passed into human beings and into one another, the unjust changing into wild creatures, the just into tame ones, and every kind of mixture occurred. Now when all the souls had chosen their lives, they went up to Lachesis in the order in which they had drawn their lots; and she sent along with each the daemon it had chosen, as guardian of its life and fulfiller of what
had been chosen. This daemon first led the soul to Clotho, under her hand and the turning of the spindle's whorl, to ratify the destiny it had drawn and chosen; and having touched that, he led it next to the spinning of Atropos, making what had been spun irreversible; and from there, without turning back, it passed beneath the throne of Necessity, and having gone through that, when
the others too had passed through, they all journeyed to the plain of Forgetfulness, through terrible, stifling heat; for it was empty of trees and of whatever the earth grows. So then, as evening was already coming on, they camped by the river Ameles—the Careless River—whose water cannot be kept in any container. All of them were required to drink a certain measure of the water, but those
not saved by good sense drank more than the measure; and each one who drank forgot everything. When they had fallen asleep and it was the middle of the night, there came thunder and an earthquake, and from there suddenly they were carried up, this way and that, toward their birth, shooting like stars. He himself was kept from drinking the water; but how and by what way he came into his body, he did not know—
only that, waking suddenly at dawn, he saw himself lying on the funeral pyre. And so, Glaucon, the story was saved and not lost, and it could save us too, if we are persuaded by it; and we shall cross the river of Forgetfulness well, and not defile our souls. But if we are persuaded by me, believing the soul to be immortal and able to endure all evils and all
goods, we shall always hold to the upward road, and shall practice justice together with good sense in every way, so that we may be friends both to ourselves and to the gods, both while we remain here and when we receive its rewards, like victors gathering their prizes—so that both here and on the thousand-year journey we have described, we may fare well.
SOCRATES: One, two, three — and the fourth, dear Timaeus, where has he gone? Yesterday you four were my guests; today you are my hosts. TIMAEUS: Some illness came over him, Socrates — he would never have willingly stayed away from this gathering. SOCRATES: Then it falls to you and these others to fill in his part as well as your own? TIMAEUS: Certainly, and as far as we're able we won't leave anything out. It wouldn't be right, having been so generously entertained by you yesterday, for those of us who remain not to return the hospitality eagerly. SOCRATES: Well then, do you remember all that I asked you to speak about, and on what topics? TIMAEUS: Some of it we remember, and whatever we don't, you're here to remind us. Or rather, if it isn't too much trouble, run through it again briefly from the beginning, so that it will be fixed more firmly in our minds. SOCRATES: I'll do that. Yesterday my speech about the constitution came, I think, to this main point: what sort of city, and made up of what sort of men, seemed to me likely to prove the best. TIMAEUS: Yes indeed, Socrates, and it suited all of us very well. SOCRATES: Didn't we first, in that city, separate off the class of farmers and all the other craftsmen from the class of those who would fight in its defense? TIMAEUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And giving to each, according to nature, the one occupation suited to him alone, one single craft each — those whom it was necessary should fight on behalf of everyone, we said should be only guardians of the city, whether some enemy came from outside or some wrongdoer from within, judging leniently those under their rule who were by nature their friends, but becoming harsh toward the enemies they met in battle.
TIMAEUS: Quite so. SOCRATES: For we said, I believe, that the guardians' souls must have a nature that is at once spirited and, equally, exceptionally philosophic, so that they could rightly be gentle toward the one group and harsh toward the other. TIMAEUS: Yes. SOCRATES: And what about their upbringing? Weren't they to be brought up entirely in gymnastics and music, and whatever other studies were fitting for them? TIMAEUS: Certainly. SOCRATES: And we said that those raised in this way should never consider gold or silver or any other possession as their own private property, but rather, as auxiliaries receiving pay for their guardianship from those they protect — pay proportionate to what temperate people need — they should spend it in common and live together sharing their daily life, devoting themselves at all times to the care of virtue, and keeping free from all other occupations. TIMAEUS: Yes, that too was said in just that way. SOCRATES: And indeed we also spoke about the women — how their natures should be matched to be similar to the men's, and that all occupations should be shared in common between them, both in war and in the rest of life. TIMAEUS: That too was said in just that way. SOCRATES: And what about the matter of childbearing? Or is this, because of how unfamiliar the proposals were, easy to remember — that we made marriages and children common to all, arranging things so that no one would ever privately know which child was his own, and that all would consider all the rest to be their kin: brothers and sisters, those within the proper age range; and those older, going further back, parents and the ancestors of parents; and those younger, descendants and the children of descendants? TIMAEUS: Yes, and that too is easy to remember, just as you put it. SOCRATES: And in order that, as far as possible, they might be born with the best natures right away, don't we recall that we said the rulers, both men and women, must secretly arrange by a kind of lottery for the joining together in marriage, so that the bad would be paired off separately from the good, each with their like, and so that no hostility would arise among them over this, since they would believe chance was responsible for the pairing? TIMAEUS: We remember.
SOCRATES: And further, that the children of the good were to be reared, while those of the bad were to be secretly distributed among the rest of the city; and that as they grew, those overseeing them should always watch and bring back up again any who proved worthy, while those among the upper class who proved unworthy should be exchanged into the place of those coming up? TIMAEUS: Just so. SOCRATES: Have we, then, already gone through everything, as we did yesterday, summing it up again in outline, or is there something still missing that we long to hear, my dear Timaeus? TIMAEUS: Not at all — this was exactly what was said, Socrates. SOCRATES: Then you may now hear what comes next, concerning the constitution we've described, and the sort of feeling I happen to have about it. My feeling toward it is rather like this: as if someone, having seen beautiful animals somewhere, whether rendered in a painting or truly alive but at rest, should fall into a desire to see them in motion, actually doing something athletic that seemed to suit their bodies — that is just what I feel toward the city we've described. I would gladly listen to someone recounting the contests that a city like this engages in, competing against other cities — how fittingly it goes to war, and in fighting renders what is due to the education and upbringing it has given, both in its actual deeds and in its negotiations in speech with each of the other cities. Now, on this score, Critias and Hermocrates, I have judged myself incapable of ever adequately praising such men and such a city. And it's no wonder in my own case — but I have formed the same opinion about the poets, both those of former times and those living now; not that I disparage the poetic race, but it is plain to everyone that the imitative kind will most easily and best imitate whatever it has been raised among, while whatever lies outside a person's upbringing is hard to imitate well in deeds, and harder still to imitate well in words. As for the sophists' class, I consider them well versed in many fine speeches and other things, but I fear that, being wanderers from city to city and never having settled in homes of their own, they may miss the mark when it comes to the sort of things that philosophic and political men would do and say, in dealing with each other in the actual business of war and battle, whether in action or in negotiation.
SOCRATES: There remains, then, only your class — men who by both nature and upbringing partake of both qualities. For here is Timaeus, from Locri in Italy, a city with excellent laws, a man second to none there in wealth and lineage, who has held the highest offices and honors in his city, and who has, in my opinion, reached the very summit of philosophy. And Critias — all of us here know he is no amateur in any of the matters we're discussing. As for Hermocrates' nature and upbringing, we must trust, on the testimony of many, that he is equal to all of this. That is why yesterday, when you asked me to go through the account of the constitution, I gladly obliged, knowing that none of you, if willing, could give the speech that follows more adequately than you three — for you alone among people today could, having set the city on a proper footing for war, render everything fitting to it. So, having given what was asked of me, I in turn imposed upon you what I am now asking for. And you agreed among yourselves, after consulting together, that you would today repay me the hospitality of your speeches; and here I am, ready and prepared for it, most eager of all to receive it. HERMOCRATES: Indeed, Socrates, as Timaeus here said, we will not fall short in eagerness, nor is there any excuse for us not to do this. So yesterday, as soon as we left here and reached Critias' guest-house where we are staying — and even before that, along the way — we were considering just this. And Critias here introduced an account to us drawn from ancient hearsay. Tell it now to Socrates too, Critias, so he can join in judging whether or not it fits what has been asked of us. CRITIAS: We must do that, if it also seems good to our third partner, Timaeus. TIMAEUS: It does indeed. CRITIAS: Listen, then, Socrates, to an account that is quite strange, yet wholly true, as Solon, the wisest of the seven sages, once said. He was, in fact, a close kinsman and dear friend of Dropides, our great-grandfather — a fact Solon himself mentions at many points in his poetry —
CRITIAS: — and he told our grandfather Critias, as the old man in turn recounted to us, that this city had performed great and wonderful deeds long ago, which had been forgotten through time and the destruction of those who did them; and one deed above all was the greatest, which it would now be fitting for us to recall, both to repay you for your account and, at the same time, at the festival, to praise the goddess truly and justly, as if singing a hymn in her honor. SOCRATES: Well said. But what was this deed, Critias — not merely spoken of, but which Critias related, on Solon's testimony, as having actually been performed by this city long ago? CRITIAS: I will tell it — an ancient account I heard from a man who was himself not young. For at that time Critias was, as he said, close to ninety years old already, and I was about ten. It happened to be the Kourotis day of the Apatouria festival for us. The customary event of the festival took place for the children as always: our fathers set prizes for us in recitation. Many poems by many poets were recited, and since Solon's verses were still new at that time, many of us boys sang them. Then one of our clan-members — whether he really thought so at the time or wished to do Critias a favor — said that he considered Solon not only the wisest of men in other respects but also, in his poetry, the most nobly free of all poets. The old man — I remember it well — was greatly pleased and said with a smile: 'If only, Amynander, he had not treated poetry as a mere pastime but had taken it seriously, as others do, and had completed the account he brought back here from Egypt, instead of being forced to neglect it because of the civil strife and other troubles he found here upon his return — in my opinion, neither Hesiod nor Homer nor any other poet would ever have become more celebrated than he.' 'And what was this account?' the man asked. 'It concerned,' he said, 'what would most justly be called the greatest and most renowned of all deeds, one which this city actually performed, but which, through time and the destruction of those who did it, has not survived down to us.' 'Tell it from the beginning,' the man said, 'what it was, and how, and from whom Solon heard it as true.' 'There is a place in Egypt,' he said, 'in the Delta, where the stream of the Nile splits at its head, called the Saitic district. The greatest city of this district is Sais — the home, too, of King Amasis — whose city has a goddess as its founder, called in Egyptian Neith, and in Greek, as they themselves say, Athena. They are great lovers of Athens and claim to be in some way akin to us.'
CRITIAS: Solon said that when he arrived there he was held in the highest honor among them, and that once, when he was questioning the priests most versed in such matters about antiquity, he discovered that neither he himself nor any other Greek, so to speak, knew anything at all about these things. And once, wanting to draw them into discussion of ancient times, he tried to tell them the oldest stories we have here—about Phoroneus, said to be the first man, and Niobe, and how, after the flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha survived, weaving in their genealogy, and trying to reckon the years of all he mentioned by counting up the generations. Then one of the priests, a very old man, said: 'Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children—there is no such thing as an old Greek.' Hearing this, Solon asked, 'What do you mean by that?' 'You are all young in your souls,' the priest said, 'for you have in them no belief grown old through ancient tradition, no learning hoary with time. And the reason is this: humanity has perished many times over, in many different fashions, and will perish again—the greatest by fire and water, but others, lesser ones, by countless other means. For even the story told among you, that Phaethon, son of Helios, once yoked his father's chariot and, being unable to drive it along his father's course, scorched everything upon the earth before a thunderbolt struck him down and killed him—this is told in the form of a myth, but the truth behind it is a shifting of the bodies that move around the earth in the heavens, and a destruction, occurring at long intervals, of the things on earth by a great fire. At such times all those who live in the mountains and in high, dry places perish more than those who dwell near rivers or the sea; but for us the Nile is our savior in this as in other respects, since it releases us from this very difficulty by its flooding. But whenever the gods cleanse the earth by drowning it under water, those in the mountains—herdsmen and shepherds—survive, while those in your cities are swept down to the sea by the rivers. But here in our country, water never streams down onto the fields from above, not on those occasions nor on any other; on the contrary, everything here naturally rises up from below.'
CRITIAS: 'This is the reason, and the cause, why what is preserved here is said to be the oldest. The truth is that in all places where excessive cold or heat does not prevent it, there is always a race of human beings, now more, now fewer. And whatever notable or great deeds have occurred, whether among you or here or in any other place we have heard of, all of these have been written down here in our temples from of old and preserved, whereas among you and the others, records have only just been put together each time, using writing and all the other things cities need, and then again, after the usual cycle of years, a flood from heaven comes upon them like a plague, and leaves only the illiterate and uncultured among you, so that you become young again, as it were, from the beginning, ignorant of all that took place in ancient days, whether here or in your own land. Certainly, Solon, the genealogies you just recounted about your own people differ little from children's tales—first, because you remember only one flood of the earth, though there were many before it; and second, because you do not know that the finest and best race of all mankind once lived in your land, from whom you yourself and your whole present city are descended, a small seed having been left over; but this has escaped you, because for many generations the survivors passed away without setting anything down in writing. There was once an age, Solon — prior to the greatest of the destructions by water — when the city that is now Athens was the best in war and in every way surpassingly well-governed; it is said to have accomplished the finest deeds and had the finest constitutions of any we have heard report of under heaven.' Hearing this, Solon said he was astonished, and was altogether eager to ask the priests to relate to him in full detail, in order, everything about the ancient citizens. The priest said: 'I begrudge you nothing, Solon; I will tell it for your sake and your city's, but chiefly to honor the goddess who received both your land and this one as her portion and reared and educated them—yours a thousand years earlier, when she received the seed of you from Earth and Hephaestus, and this one later. The number of years since the establishment of order here is written in our sacred records as eight thousand. I will show you briefly the laws of the citizens who lived nine thousand years ago, and the finest of their deeds.'
CRITIAS: 'The exact details of all of it, in order, we will go through another time at leisure, taking up the actual writings themselves. For now, consider the laws in comparison with those here; for you will find many examples here now of things that existed among you then—first, the class of priests, set apart from the others; then, next, the class of craftsmen, each working at its own trade without mixing with another—the herdsmen, the hunters, and the farmers. And you have surely noticed that the warrior class here is kept separate from all the other classes, forbidden by law to concern themselves with anything except matters of war. Consider too the style of their armament, shields and spears, with which we were the first in Asia to arm ourselves, the goddess having shown this to us just as she did to you first in those regions. As for wisdom, you see how much care the law here took from the very beginning, concerning the ordering of the cosmos, discovering all the way down to divination and medicine for the sake of health—deriving human arts from these divine things—and acquiring all the other branches of learning that follow from them. This whole system and order the goddess established when she founded you first, choosing the place in which you were born, having observed the temperate climate there, that it would produce the wisest men; being herself a lover of both war and wisdom, the goddess chose the region likely to produce men most like herself, and settled it first. So you lived under such laws, and governed even better, surpassing all mankind in every virtue, as befits those who are the offspring and pupils of gods. Many great deeds of your city are recorded here and admired, but one surpasses all others in greatness and excellence: the records tell how great a power your city once halted as it marched in insolence against the whole of Europe and Asia at once, setting out from beyond, from the Atlantic Ocean.'
CRITIAS: 'For at that time that ocean was navigable, since it had an island in front of the mouth which you call, as you say, the Pillars of Heracles; and this island exceeded Libya and Asia together in size, and from it travelers of that time could pass to the other islands, and from the islands to the whole opposite continent that surrounds that true sea. For what lies within the mouth we speak of appears to be a harbor with a narrow entrance, but that other is truly a sea, and the land surrounding it may most rightly be called a continent in the full sense. On this island of Atlantis there arose a great and marvelous power of kings, ruling the whole island and many other islands as well as parts of the mainland; and besides this, of the lands within our region, they ruled Libya as far as Egypt, and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This entire power, gathered into one, once attempted to enslave in a single assault the whole region within the strait, both yours and ours. It was then, Solon, that the power of your city became manifest to all mankind for its excellence and its strength; for surpassing all others in courage of spirit and in the arts of war, leading the Greeks at one point, and at another standing alone of necessity when the others withdrew, having come to the utmost dangers, it overcame the invaders and set up a trophy, prevented those not yet enslaved from being enslaved, and ungrudgingly set free everyone else living inside the boundaries of Heracles. But in later time there came earthquakes of extraordinary violence, and floods with them; one terrible day and night arrived, and the whole of your warrior class was swallowed beneath the ground, while the island of Atlantis went down in the same way under the sea and vanished. That is why even now that sea is impassable and unexplored, blocked by a great quantity of shoal mud which the island left as it settled. You have now heard, Socrates, in brief, what was told by old Critias on the report of Solon; and when you were speaking yesterday about the constitution and the men you described, I was amazed, recalling to myself these very things I am telling now, realizing how by some marvelous chance, not at all by accident, you had matched much of what Solon said.'
CRITIAS: 'I did not want to say so at once, however, for after so long a time my memory of it was not sufficient. So I thought that I ought first to recall everything to myself thoroughly before speaking. That is why I so quickly agreed yesterday to what you asked, thinking that, as is the greatest task in all such matters, we would be reasonably well supplied with an account suited to your intentions. And so, as this man said, as soon as I left here yesterday I began recalling it and going over it with these two, and after I left I went over nearly everything again in my mind during the night. How true it is, as they say, that what we learn as children makes a marvelous impression! For as for what I heard yesterday, I do not know whether I could recover all of it again in memory; but as for these things I heard so very long ago, I would be altogether astonished if any of them has slipped away from me. It was heard then with great pleasure and as a kind of game, with the old man teaching me eagerly, since I kept asking him questions again and again, so that it has stayed with me like an indelible dye burned into a picture; and indeed I told these very things to our friends here first thing this morning, so that they might be well supplied with material along with me. Now then, Socrates, for the very purpose all this has been said, I am ready to tell it, not merely in outline but in every detail, just as I heard it; and the citizens and the city which you described to us yesterday as if in a myth, we shall now transfer here and set down as being this very city, and we shall say that the citizens you had in mind are those true ancestors of ours whom the priest spoke of. They will fit perfectly, and we shall not be out of tune in saying they are the very people who lived at that time. Working together, all of us will try to render, as far as we can, what is fitting to the task you set us. So we must consider, Socrates, whether this account is to our mind, or whether we should look for some other in its place.'
SOCRATES: And what could we take up instead of that, Critias, that would suit the goddess's present festival better, given its kinship to it, and would also have the immense merit of being a true account rather than an invented myth? How and where could we find others, if we let this one go? There's no way—no, with good luck on our side, you three should speak, and I, in return for yesterday's speeches, should now sit quietly and listen in turn. CRITIAS: Well, consider, Socrates, the arrangement of hospitality we've made for you. We decided that Timaeus, since he's the most versed in astronomy among us and has made it his particular business to know about the nature of the universe, should speak first, beginning from the birth of the cosmos and ending with the nature of man. I should come after him, taking over from him human beings already brought into existence by his account, and some of them, in your account, given an outstanding education; and then, bringing them in according to Solon's story and law, I should make them citizens of this city here before us as judges, treating them as those Athenians of old whose existence, though hidden from us, was revealed by the report in the sacred writings—and from there on I should speak of them as citizens, as actual Athenians already. SOCRATES: It seems I'm going to receive a complete and splendid feast of speeches in return. So it would be your task now, Timaeus, to speak next, it seems—once you've called on the gods as custom requires. TIMAEUS: Well, Socrates, that much at least everyone does who has even a small share of good sense: at the outset of any undertaking, small or great, they always call upon a god. And we, who are about to give an account of the universe—how it came to be, or perhaps has no becoming at all—must, unless we're altogether off course, invoke gods and goddesses and pray that everything we say will be above all to their liking, and follow from that to ours as well. So much, then, for the invocation of the gods; but we must also invoke what belongs to us, so that you may most easily learn, and I may best set forth what I have in mind concerning the matters before us.
TIMAEUS: In my view, then, we must begin by distinguishing this: what is the thing that exists forever and never comes to be, and what is the thing forever coming to be yet never truly existing? The one is grasped by understanding, with the aid of reasoning, since it is always the same; the other is the object of opinion, aided by unreasoning perception, since it comes to be and passes away and never really is at all. Now everything that comes to be must of necessity come to be through some cause; for it is impossible for anything to come into being without a cause. So whenever the craftsman, in fashioning something's look and character, keeps his gaze fixed on what is always the same, using a model of that kind, the result must of necessity turn out beautiful; but whenever he looks instead to something that has come to be, using a generated model, the result is not beautiful. As for the whole heaven—or cosmos, or whatever other name it would most readily accept, let it be called by that name for us—we must first examine concerning it what one is supposed to examine first about anything: whether it has always existed, having no beginning of its becoming, or whether it has come to be, starting from some beginning. It has come to be; for it is visible and tangible and has a body, and all things of that kind are perceptible, and perceptible things, grasped by opinion together with perception, have shown themselves to be things that come to be and are generated. And of that which has come to be, we say it is necessary that it came to be through some cause.
TIMAEUS: Now to discover the maker and father of this universe is a task, and having discovered him, to speak of him to everyone is impossible. But we must go back and examine this further question about him: after which of the two models did the builder construct it—the one that is always the same and unchanging, or the one that has come to be? Well, if this cosmos is beautiful and its craftsman good, clearly he looked to the eternal model; but if what cannot even be said without impiety were the case, he looked to the one that has come to be. It is clear to everyone that he looked to the eternal one; for the cosmos is the most beautiful of things that have come to be, and he is the best of causes. Having come to be in this way, it has been fashioned after the model graspable by reason and understanding, the one that is always the same. Given this, it follows of necessity that this cosmos is an image of something. Now it is of the greatest importance, in every matter, to begin at the point nature intends. So concerning both the image and its model, we must make this distinction: that accounts are akin to the very things they set forth. Accounts of what is stable and secure and evident to understanding should themselves be stable and unshifting—so far as it is possible and fitting for accounts to be irrefutable and unassailable, nothing of that should be lacking; but accounts of what is merely made in the likeness of that other, being itself only an image, should be merely likely, standing in the same proportion to the former as becoming stands to being. So if, Socrates, in speaking about many things concerning gods and the coming-to-be of the universe, we turn out unable to give an account in every way consistent with itself and exact, do not be surprised. Rather, if we furnish an account no less likely than anyone else's, we should be content, remembering that both I who speak and you who judge are only human by nature, so that it is fitting to accept the likely story about these things and not search further beyond it. SOCRATES: Excellent, Timaeus—we must accept it entirely on your own terms. We have received your prelude admirably; go on now and complete the main performance for us. TIMAEUS: Let us then say for what reason the one who framed becoming and this universe framed them. He was good, and in one who is good no envy of anything ever arises. Being free of envy, he wished all things to come to be as much like himself as possible.
TIMAEUS: This principle, above all, one would be most right to accept from wise men as the most authoritative source of becoming and of the cosmos. For the god, wishing that all things should be good and, so far as possible, nothing bad, took over all that was visible—not at rest, but moving in a discordant and disorderly way—and brought it from disorder into order, judging that order was in every way better than disorder. It neither was nor is permissible for the best to do anything other than what is most beautiful. So, reasoning it out, he found that among things visible by nature, no work devoid of intelligence could ever, as a whole, be more beautiful than one endowed with intelligence, taken as a whole; and further, that intelligence could not come to be present in anything apart from soul. For this reason, reasoning thus, he constructed the whole by placing intelligence in soul and soul in body, so as to bring to completion a work that would be by nature as beautiful and as good as possible. In this way, then, following the likely account, we must say that this cosmos came to be, through the god's providence, a living creature possessing soul and intelligence in very truth. Given this, we must next say to which of the living creatures he made it resemble when he framed it. Let us not judge it worthy to resemble any of those creatures that exist as parts—for nothing resembling something incomplete could ever come to be beautiful—but let us posit that it resembles, more than anything, that of which the other living creatures, individually and by kind, are parts. For that living creature contains within itself all the intelligible living creatures, just as this cosmos contains us and all the other creatures that have been formed and are visible.
TIMAEUS: For the god, wishing to make it resemble as closely as possible the most beautiful of intelligible things and the most complete in every way, constructed it as a single visible living creature, containing within itself all the living creatures that are by nature akin to it. Have we then been right to speak of a single heaven, or would it have been more correct to speak of many, indeed infinitely many? It must be one, if it is to have been fashioned after its model. For that which encompasses all the intelligible living creatures there are could never be one of a pair together with another; for then there would have to be yet another living creature encompassing those two, of which they would be parts, and it would then be more correct to say that this world was made in the likeness not of those two but of that encompassing third. So, in order that this world should resemble the all-complete living creature in respect of its uniqueness, the maker made not two worlds, nor an infinite number, but this single, uniquely-begotten heaven has come to be and continues to exist. Now what has come to be must be bodily, and so visible and tangible; and yet nothing could ever become visible apart from fire, nor tangible without something solid, nor solid without earth. Hence the god, beginning to construct the body of the universe, made it out of fire and earth. But two things by themselves cannot be beautifully joined in the absence of a third; some bond has to stand between them, drawing the pair together. And the most beautiful of bonds is one that makes itself and the things it binds as fully one as possible—and this is naturally best accomplished by proportion.
TIMAEUS: For whenever, among three numbers—whether they are volumes or powers of any kind—the middle one stands to the last as the first stands to it, and again the last stands to the middle as the middle stands to the first, then, since the middle becomes both first and last, and the last and the first in turn both become middles, all of them will, of necessity, turn out to be the same in relation to one another; and being the same relative to one another, they will all be one. Now if the body of the universe had needed to be a plane surface, with no depth at all, one mean alone would have been enough to link it with its companion terms; but as it is, it was fitting for it to be solid in form, and solids are never joined by one mean alone, but always require two means working together. So the god set water and air between fire and earth, and made them, so far as possible, proportionate to one another—so that fire stands to air as air stands to water, and air stands to water as water stands to earth; binding them in this way, he framed the heaven, visible and tangible. On this account the body of the cosmos was generated out of elements of this kind, four in number, brought into harmony by proportion, and from this it acquired friendship, so that, having come together into unity with itself, it is indissoluble by anything other than the one who bound it. And of the four elements, the constitution of the cosmos has taken up each one whole. For the one who constructed it made it out of all the fire, water, air, and earth there is, leaving no part or power of any of them outside, with this intention: first, that it might be as complete a living whole as possible, made of complete parts,
TIMAEUS: and further, one—since nothing was left over from which another such creature might come to be—and moreover, so that it might be free from old age and disease, observing how heat and cold and all things that have strong powers, when they surround a compound body and fall upon it out of season, dissolve it, and bring on diseases and old age, causing it to waste away. For this reason and by this reasoning, he fashioned it as a single whole, made of all wholes, complete, free from old age and disease. And he gave it the shape that was fitting and akin to it. For a living creature meant to contain within itself all living creatures, the fitting shape would be the one that encompasses within itself all the shapes there are; therefore he turned it, spherical in form, equidistant in every direction from the center to the extremities—a round shape, the most complete of all shapes and the most like itself, since he judged the like unimaginably more beautiful than the unlike. And all around, on the outside, he made it smooth all over, for many reasons. It had no need of eyes, since nothing visible was left outside it; nor of hearing, since there was nothing to be heard either; there was no air surrounding it requiring breath, nor again did it need any organ by which to take in nourishment into itself and afterward expel what had already been drained of its use. For nothing departed from it and nothing came to it from anywhere—there was nowhere for anything to come from—since it was made by design to furnish its own waste as its own nourishment, and to act and be acted upon entirely within and by itself; for its maker judged that it would be better self-sufficient than dependent on anything else. And since it had no need to grasp anything with hands, nor to fend anything off, he thought it pointless to attach hands to it in vain, or feet either, or any other apparatus for standing and walking.
TIMAEUS — He assigned to it the motion proper to its body, that one of the seven motions which belongs most to intellect and understanding. So he turned it about uniformly in the same place and within itself, and made it revolve in a circle, and took away from it all the other six motions, so that it would not wander through any of them. And since this revolution needed no feet, he brought it into being without legs and without feet. This whole plan, then—conceived by a god who always is, concerning a god who was to be—produced a body smooth and even all over, equal from the center in every direction, whole and complete, made of complete bodies. And placing soul in its center, he stretched it through the whole and further wrapped the body round with it on the outside; and so he set it revolving in a circle, a single heaven, alone, capable through its own excellence of keeping company with itself and needing nothing else, sufficiently acquainted with and friendly to itself. On all these accounts he begot it a blessed god. As for the soul, he did not, as we are now attempting to describe, contrive it later than the body—we speak of it that way largely because we share so much in what is haphazard and random—but the god constructed the soul prior to the body and older than it, both in birth and in excellence, to be the body's mistress and ruler, its ruler-to-be, and he put it together out of the following materials and in the following way.
Out of the indivisible substance that is always the same, and the substance that becomes divided among bodies, he blended a third form of substance, in between the two, from both of them—concerned with the nature of the Same, and again with that of the Different—and he set it in composition midway between their undivided element and that which is divided among bodies. Taking these three, he blended them all into a single form, forcing the nature of the Different, which resisted mixing, into union with the Same. Having mixed these together with substance and made one out of three, he then cut the whole up into however many portions were appropriate, every one of them a blend of the Same, the Different, and substance. He began the division this way. First he took away one portion from the whole; after this he took away a portion double that; a third, one and a half times the second and three times the first; a fourth, double the second; a fifth, three times the third; a sixth, eight times the first; and a seventh, twenty-seven times the first.
After this he filled up the double and triple intervals, cutting off further portions from the original mixture and placing them in between, so that within each interval there were two means, one exceeding and being exceeded by the same fraction of the extremes, the other exceeding and being exceeded by an equal number. These bonds produced intervals of three-halves, four-thirds, and nine-eighths within the previous intervals, and he filled up all the four-thirds intervals with the nine-eighths interval, leaving over in each case a fraction, the interval of this leftover fraction having its terms in the ratio of 256 to 243. And by this point the mixture from which he was cutting these portions was completely used up. He then split this whole compound lengthwise into two, and joining the two halves to each other at their middles like the letter X, he bent them round into a circle, joining each to itself and to the other at the point opposite the original juncture, and he set them revolving together in the motion that turns uniformly in the same place, making one circle the outer, the other the inner. The outer revolution he named the motion of the Same, the inner that of the Different. The circle of the Same he made revolve to the right along its side, that of the Different to the left along its diagonal, and he gave dominance to the revolution of the Same and the uniform, for he left it single and undivided, while the inner circle he split six times, making seven unequal circles, following the intervals of the double and the triple—three of each—and he directed the circles to travel counter to one another, assigning three of them an equal speed, the other four at speeds unequal both to one another and to the first three, but all moving in due proportion. Now when the whole composition of the soul had come to be according to the mind of its composer, after this he built within it the whole corporeal frame, and fitted the two together, center to center. And the soul, woven throughout from the center to the outermost heaven and enveloping it all round from outside, itself revolving within itself, began a divine, unceasing, intelligent life lasting through all time.
So the body of the heavens came to be visible, but the soul itself is invisible, sharing in reasoning and harmony, the best of things brought into being, made by the best of causes, among things that are perceptible by intellect and are always the same. Since it is blended out of the natures of the Same and of the Different, and of substance, these three ingredients, and divided and bound together in due proportion, and since it circles back upon itself, whenever it comes into contact with something whose substance is scattered, or with something undivided, it speaks, moving through the whole of itself, telling what a thing is the same as and what it is different from, and in what relation especially, and where and how and when it happens that each thing stands to each in the realm of becoming, both in being acted on and in acting, and in relation to what remains always the same. And when this account comes to be equally true both about the Different and about the Same, moving voicelessly and soundlessly within the self-moved, whenever it concerns the perceptible and the circle of the Different runs true and reports it to the whole soul, then firm and true opinions and beliefs arise; and whenever, again, its object is rational and it is the circle of the Same that runs smoothly and discloses it, then understanding and knowledge are necessarily brought to completion. And should anyone ever call the thing in which these two arise anything other than soul, he will be saying anything rather than the truth. Now when the father who had begotten it saw it set in motion and alive, a shrine brought into being for the everlasting gods, he was well pleased, and in his delight he took thought to make it still more like its model. So, just as that model happens to be an everlasting living being, he undertook to make this universe, too, so far as possible, of that same character. Now the nature of the living being was in fact eternal, and this could not be fully attached to what is generated; so he took thought to make a kind of moving image of eternity, and in the very act of ordering the heaven he made, of eternity abiding in unity, an image moving according to number—that to which we have given the name time. For days and nights and months and years did not exist before the heaven came to be; but he devised their coming-into-being together with the heaven's own composition. All these are parts of time, and 'was' and 'will be' are forms of time that have come to be, which we mistakenly, without noticing, apply to the everlasting substance.
For we say that it was, is, and will be, but strictly speaking only 'is' truly belongs to it, while 'was' and 'will be' are properly said of the becoming that proceeds in time—for these are motions—whereas that which is always the same, unmoving, is not fitting to become either older or younger through time, nor ever to have become so, nor to be now become, nor to be about to become hereafter, nor in general to be subject to anything which becoming has attached to things that move in the realm of sense; rather, these are forms of time that have come to be in imitation of eternity and circling according to number. And besides these there are further expressions of the same kind, such as that what has become is what has become, and what is becoming is what is becoming, and again that what is to become is what is to become, and that what is not is what is not—none of which we speak with any precision. But perhaps this is not the proper occasion to go into these matters with exactness. Time, then, came into being together with the heaven, so that, having been generated together, they might also be dissolved together, should a dissolution of them ever come to pass; and it was made after the pattern of the eternal nature, so that it might be as like that pattern as possible. For the pattern is a being for all eternity, while the heaven, throughout the whole of time, has been and is and will be. Out of this reasoning and design of god for the generation of time, in order that time might be born, the sun, the moon, and five further stars — the ones nicknamed wanderers — came into being for marking and preserving the numbers of time; and having made bodies for each of them, the god set them into the orbits along which the revolution of the Different was passing, seven bodies in seven orbits: the moon in the one nearest the earth, the sun in the second above the earth; the morning star and the one called sacred to Hermes he set moving in the circle that keeps pace in speed with the sun's, though endowed with a power opposite to it—which is why the sun and the star of Hermes and the morning star overtake and are overtaken by one another in turn. As for the rest, where and for what reasons he set each one, were one to go through them all, the account, being a digression, would give more trouble than the matters for whose sake it is told; these things may perhaps later, at leisure, receive the treatment they deserve.
But when each of the bodies that needed to work together to produce time had come to the motion proper to it, and, their bodies bound by living bonds, had been born as living creatures and learned their appointed task—then, following the motion of the Different, which is oblique, and is carried through and mastered by the motion of the Same, one moving in a larger, another in a smaller circle, those in the smaller circle moving faster, those in the larger more slowly. Now because of the motion of the Same, the bodies moving fastest appeared to be overtaken by those moving more slowly, even though they were really overtaking them; for this motion, twisting all their circles into a spiral, since they move forward at once in two opposite directions, made whatever moved away from it most slowly appear nearest to it, since it itself is the fastest of all. And so that there might be some clear measure of their relative slowness and speed, by which the eight revolutions might proceed, the god kindled a light in the orbit second from the earth, which we now call the sun, so that it might shine as far as possible over the whole heaven, and so that all the living things for whom it was fitting might share in number, learning it from the revolution of the Same and uniform. So night and day came to be in this way and for this reason, being the period of the single, most intelligent revolution; a month, whenever the moon, having gone round its own circle, overtakes the sun; a year, whenever the sun has gone round its own circle. As for the periods of the others, human beings, except for a few among the many, have not taken note of them, and neither name them nor measure them against one another by numbers, so that they scarcely know that time is in fact the wanderings of these bodies, bewildering in their multitude and marvelously intricate. Nevertheless it is no less possible to grasp that the perfect number of time fulfills the perfect year at that moment when the relative speeds of all eight revolutions, having completed their courses together, reach a head, as measured by the circle of the Same and uniformly moving. It was in accordance with this plan, and for this purpose, that those of the stars which pass through the heavens and undergo turnings were begotten, so that this universe might be as like as possible to the complete and intelligible living being, in imitation of its everlasting nature. Now in other respects the work had already been carried, up to the generation of time, into likeness with that on which it was modeled; but in this respect it still fell short of likeness, that it did not yet contain within itself all the living creatures that were to come into being. This remaining task he now went on to complete, shaping the universe after the nature of the pattern. Just as intellect discerns the Forms present in the living being that truly is—of what sort and how many they are—so he judged that this universe, too, should possess the same kind and number of them.
TIMAEUS: There are four kinds of living things: one is the heavenly race of gods, another is winged and travels through the air, a third is the watery kind, and a fourth goes on foot on dry land. Of the divine kind he fashioned the greatest part out of fire, so that it might be as bright and beautiful to look at as possible, and making it resemble the universe he made it perfectly round, and set it in the understanding of that most excellent thing, to follow along with it, distributing it in a circle all around the heavens, so that it might be a true cosmos, adorned throughout its whole. And he attached two motions to each: one in the same place, turning always in the same way, always thinking the selfsame things concerning the selfsame objects; the other a forward motion,, held in check by the circuit of what is same and uniform. But from the other five motions he kept it unmoved and at rest, so that each of them might become as excellent as possible. And it is from this cause that all the fixed stars have come to be — living beings, divine and eternal, which forever remain revolving in the same place and in the same manner; while those that turn and wander in the way described earlier came to be in accordance with that account. As for the earth, our nurse, coiled as it is around the axis stretched through the whole universe, he devised it as the guardian and maker of night and day, the first and eldest of all the gods that have come to be within the heavens. To describe the dances of these gods themselves, and their approaches to one another, and the counter-revolutions and advances of their circles, and which of the gods come into conjunction with which and which stand opposite, and in what order they pass in front of one another, and at what times each is hidden from us and again reappears, sending fears and signs of what is to come to those unable to reason — to speak of all this without the aid of a visual model of these very motions would be a wasted effort. Let this, then, and what has been said about the visible and generated gods, suffice, and let it have its end here. But concerning the other divinities, to speak of their origin and to know it is beyond us, and we must trust those who spoke of it before, who were, as they claimed, offspring of gods, and surely knew their own ancestors well. It is impossible to disbelieve the children of gods, even though they speak without probable or necessary proofs; rather, since they profess to be reporting their own family history, we must believe them, in accordance with custom.
TIMAEUS: Let our account of the birth of these gods, then, stand and be told just as they told it. Earth and Heaven had as children Oceanus and Tethys; and from these came Phorcys and Cronus and Rhea and all the rest with them; and from Cronus and Rhea came Zeus and Hera and all those we know to be called their siblings, and still others descended from these. Now once all the gods had come to be, both those who visibly circle the heavens and those who appear only as far as they wish, the one who begot this whole universe spoke to them as follows: "Gods, gods of whom I am the maker and father of your works, whatever has come to be through me is indissoluble, so long as I do not will otherwise. Now everything that is bound can be dissolved, but to wish to dissolve what has been well fitted together and is in good condition would be the mark of an evil being. Therefore, since you have come into being, you are not immortal nor wholly indissoluble; yet you shall not be dissolved, nor shall you meet the fate of death, since you have been allotted a bond even greater and more sovereign than those bonds with which you were bound together when you came to be — the bond of my will. Now then, learn what I am telling you and pointing out to you. There remain still three mortal kinds not yet begotten; and if these are not brought into being, the heavens will be incomplete, for they will not contain within themselves all the kinds of living things — and they must, if the heavens are to be sufficiently complete. Yet if these came to be through me and shared in life, they would be equal to gods. So, that mortality may belong to them, and that this universe may be complete in the fullest sense, turn yourselves, according to your nature, to the crafting of living things, imitating the power I used in your own begetting. And insofar as it is fitting for a part of them to bear the same name as the immortals, called the divine part and ruling within them in those who are ever willing to follow justice and to follow you, I will sow that part and set it going, and then hand it over to you; the rest of the task is yours — weave what is mortal onto what is immortal, fashion living things, give them growth by feeding them, and receive them back again when they waste away." So he spoke; and once more into the same mixing bowl in which he had blended and mixed the soul of the universe, he poured what remained of the earlier ingredients, mixing them in much the same manner, though no longer as pure and unmixed as before, but now second and third in purity. And having composed the whole, he portioned it out into as many souls as there are stars, allotting one soul to each star; and mounting them as it were upon a vehicle, he displayed to them the universe's nature and declared to them the laws that were fated for them: that there would be a single ordained first birth appointed for all alike, so that none should be slighted by him; and that once sown, each into the instrument of time suited to it, they should grow into the most god-fearing of living things; and that since human nature is twofold, the superior kind would be that which would afterward be called man.
TIMAEUS: Once these souls were of necessity implanted in bodies, and matter flowed into and out of their bodies, it was necessary first that a single sensation, common to all, should arise in them from violent impressions; second, a desire mixed with pleasure and pain; and besides these, fear and anger, and whatever follows upon these, and whatever is naturally opposed and stands apart from them. If they were to master these, they would live justly; if mastered by them, unjustly. And whoever lived well for his appointed time would return again to dwell in his companion star, and there live a happy life in keeping with his character; but whoever failed in this would, at his second birth, pass over into a woman's nature. And if even then he did not cease from wickedness, then in the manner in which he continued to grow base, he would keep changing, according to the likeness of his character, into some such bestial nature, and there would be no release for him from these labors and changes of shape until, following along with the revolution of the same and uniform within him, he mastered by reason that great accreted mass of fire, water, air, and earth that had later attached itself to him, turbulent and irrational as it was, and thus arrived again at the form of his first and best condition. Having ordained all these things as law for them, so that he himself might be blameless for the wickedness each of them would afterward commit, he sowed some of them into the earth, some into the moon, and others into the other instruments of time; and after this sowing, he handed over to the young gods the task of molding mortal bodies, and of fashioning and governing whatever remained still needed to complete the human soul, along with all that follows from it, and of ruling and, as far as possible, guiding this mortal living being in the finest and best way, so that it might not become, through its own fault, a cause of evils to itself. And he who had arranged all these things remained, in his own fashion, within his own accustomed way of being.
TIMAEUS: While he remained, his children took note of their father's ordinance and obeyed it. Taking the immortal starting-point of a mortal living being, and imitating their own maker, they took on loan from the cosmos portions of fire, of earth, of water, and of air, on the understanding that these would be repaid again, and welded together what they took, not with the indissoluble bonds by which they themselves were held together, but fusing it with tiny, invisible rivets set close together, forming out of all the parts a single body for each; and into this body, subject to inflow and outflow, they bound the revolutions of the immortal soul. Bound as they were to this great river, these revolutions neither mastered it nor were mastered by it, but were carried along and carried it along by force, so that the whole living creature was moved, but proceeded in a disorderly and irrational way, however it happened, possessing all six motions; for it wandered forward and backward, and again rightward and leftward, downward and upward, and every which way through all six directions. For since the wave that brought in and carried off nourishment was great, it produced yet greater turmoil through the disturbances caused whenever a body collided with some foreign fire from outside, or struck a solid mass of earth, or slid upon the wet slipperiness of waters, or was overtaken by a stormy blast of winds borne by the air — and by all of these, motions carried through the body toward the soul struck upon it. It was on account of all this, indeed, that they were then called, and are still now called, collectively, sensations. And it was then, at that very moment, that they produced the greatest and most extensive motion; joining with the ceaselessly flowing stream and shaking violently the revolutions of the soul, they utterly hindered the revolution of the same, flowing against it, and checked it as it tried to rule and to proceed, while they shook up the revolution of the different so violently that the three intervals of the double and the three of the triple, and the mean terms and connecting links of the ratios of three to two, four to three, and nine to eight, since they could not be entirely dissolved except by the one who bound them together, were twisted into every kind of turn, and produced every sort of break and disruption of the circles, as far as this was possible, so that these circles, barely holding together with one another, moved indeed, but moved irrationally, sometimes in reverse, sometimes obliquely, and sometimes upside down. It is as when someone, lying on his back with his head propped against the ground and his feet thrust up and resting against something above — in this condition, both for the one undergoing it and for those looking on, right appears as left and left as right, to each in relation to the other.
TIMAEUS: This very thing, and other things like it, happen violently to the revolutions, whenever they encounter something from outside that belongs either to the kind of the same or to that of the different; and then, calling the same different and the different the same in some particular case, they contradict the truth and become false and unintelligent, and at that time there is in them no revolution that rules or leads. And whenever certain sensations, borne in from outside and striking against them, drag along with them the entire vessel of the soul, then these revolutions, though actually mastered, seem to be the masters. And it is on account of all these disturbances that the soul, now as in the beginning, becomes unintelligent at first, whenever it is bound to a mortal body. But when the stream of growth and nourishment flows in less strongly, and the revolutions, regaining themselves, proceed along their own path and settle down more, as time goes on, then at last, as each of the circles is directed toward its shape according to nature, and they call the different and the same by their right names, they render the one who possesses them intelligent. And if some correct nurture of education joins in and assists, such a person becomes whole and entirely healthy, having escaped the greatest disease; but if he is negligent, he passes through life lame, and returns again to Hades incomplete and unintelligent. This, however, happens only later on. As for what has now been proposed, we must go through it more precisely; and before that, concerning the generation of the parts of the body and concerning the soul, we must go through the causes and providences of the gods by which they came about, holding fast always to what is most probable, and proceeding accordingly. The two divine revolutions, then — imitating the shape of the universe, which is spherical — they bound into a spherical body, that which we now call the head, which is the most divine part and rules over all that is within us; to it the gods gave the whole body as its servant, having assembled it, since they understood that it would partake of all the motions there were to be. So that it might not, rolling upon the ground, which has heights and depths of every kind, be at a loss how to climb over some and descend from others, they gave it this as a vehicle and means of easy passage —
TIMAEUS: This, then, is why the body acquired length, and grew four limbs, extendable and bendable, once the god had devised a means of locomotion — limbs by which it could take hold of things and push against them, and so make its way through every region, carrying above us the dwelling place of what is most divine and most sacred in us. Legs and hands, then, grew onto all creatures for this reason and toward this end. And because the gods regarded the front as more honorable and more fit to lead than the back, they gave us, accordingly, most of our capacity for motion in that direction. So it was necessary that the front of a human being's body be marked off and made unlike the rest. That is why, first of all, around the vessel of the head, they set the face in place there, and bound into it organs for the whole forethought of the soul, and arranged that this — the part naturally in front — should be the part that shares in leadership. And of these organs, the first they fashioned together were the light-bearing eyes, binding them in for the following reason. Whatever portion of fire does not burn, but instead yields a gentle light suited to each day, they contrived to make into a body of its own. For the fire within us, being akin to that outer fire, they made pure and smooth, and caused to flow through the eyes — dense throughout, but especially compressed at the middle of the eyes — so that it holds back everything coarser, and lets only that pure kind filter through by itself. So whenever the light of day encircles the visual current, like issues forth to meet like, the two coalesce, and a single homogeneous body is formed along the straight line of sight, wherever the fire from within strikes against whatever it meets from outside. And because this whole body has become alike through likeness, whatever it touches, and whatever touches it, transmits its motions throughout the body all the way to the soul, and produces that sensation which we call seeing. But when the kindred fire departs into night, the connection is cut off; for going out toward what is unlike itself, it is altered and quenched, no longer being of one nature with the neighboring air, since that air has no fire in it. So it stops seeing, and moreover it induces sleep. For the safeguard which the gods devised for sight — the nature of the eyelids — when these close together, shuts in the power of the fire within, and this power diffuses and evens out the motions within us; and once they are evened out, stillness follows; and when the stillness is deep, a sleep with few dreams falls upon us,
TIMAEUS: but when certain larger motions are left over, whatever sort they are and in whatever regions they remain, they produce, by a corresponding process, likenesses within — images which, when we are roused, are remembered as appearing outside us. As for the image-making of mirrors, and everything smooth and reflective, there is nothing difficult left to grasp. For out of the communion with one another of the fire within and the fire without — each becoming, on each occasion, a single thing around the smooth surface, and reshaped in many ways — all such appearances necessarily show themselves, whenever the fire from the face and the fire from the sight coalesce around what is smooth and bright. What is on the left appears on the right, because contact occurs between opposite parts of the visual stream and opposite parts of the object, contrary to the usual manner of encounter; whereas right appears right and left appears left when the light, in coalescing, shifts position — which happens whenever the smoothness of the mirror, rising up on this side and that, pushes the right-hand part of the vision over to the left, and the other way about. And when the mirror is turned along the length of the face, this same effect makes the whole image appear upside down, pushing what is below toward what is above in the reflected ray, and what is above back down toward what is below. Now all these are among the auxiliary causes which the god uses as servants in bringing to completion, so far as possible, the form of what is best; yet most people suppose them not auxiliary causes but the causes of everything, since they cool and heat, condense and disperse, and produce all such effects. But in truth these things are capable of no reasoning and no intelligence about anything. For among the things that exist, the one to which alone it belongs to possess intelligence must be called soul — and soul is invisible, while fire, water, earth, and air have all come into being as bodies open to sight. So the lover of intelligence and knowledge must pursue first the causes belonging to a rational nature, and only second those which, being moved by other things, in turn move still others by necessity. And we too must do the same: both kinds of causes must be spoken of, but kept distinct — those which, working with intelligence, are craftsmen of things fine and good, and those which, left alone without understanding, produce on each occasion whatever happens to come about, without order.
TIMAEUS: Let this, then, be said about the eyes and their part in the working out of the power they now possess. But now I must speak of the greatest benefit they provide, on account of which the god has bestowed them on us as a gift. Sight, in my account, has become the cause of the greatest benefit to us, because none of our present accounts about the universe could ever have been given if we had never seen the stars, the sun, or the sky. But as it is, the sight of day and night, of months and the cycles of years, of equinoxes and solstices, has enabled the invention of number, and given us the concept of time and the capacity to inquire into the nature of the whole; and from these we have derived the pursuit we call philosophy, than which no greater good has ever come, or ever will come, as a gift from the gods to mortal kind. This, I say, is the greatest benefit of the eyes. Why should we praise all the lesser benefits, which a person who lacks philosophy would only lament, blind and grieving, in vain? Let us instead say this: the reason and purpose for which the god invented and gave us sight is so that we might observe the courses of intelligence in the heavens and put them to use for the revolutions of our own thinking, which are akin to those, though ours are disturbed while theirs are undisturbed; and by learning them thoroughly and coming to share in the correctness of reasoning that accords with nature, we might, by imitating the utterly unwandering courses of the god, bring order to the wandering courses within ourselves. The same account holds again for voice and hearing — that these too were given by the gods for the same purposes and to the same end. For speech has been ordained for these very purposes, contributing the greatest share toward them; and as much of it as is useful for hearing, for the sake of harmony, has been given for the purposes of music. And harmony, whose motions are akin to the revolutions of the soul within us, has been given by the Muses — to one who makes intelligent use of them — not for irrational pleasure, as it now seems to be used, but as an ally against the discordant revolution that has arisen in our soul, to bring it into order and concord with itself; and rhythm, likewise, was given by the same gods for the same purpose, as a help against the graceless and measureless condition that prevails in most of us. Now everything said up to this point, with a few exceptions, has displayed what has been fashioned by intelligence; but we must also set alongside our account what comes about through necessity.
TIMAEUS: For the coming-to-be of this universe was a mixed result, from a combination of necessity and intelligence. Intelligence ruled over necessity by persuading it to guide most of what comes to be toward what is best, and it was in this way, through necessity yielding to intelligent persuasion, that this universe was originally put together. So if someone is to say truly how it actually came to be, in accordance with this account, he must also bring in the character of the wandering cause, in whatever way it is naturally suited to carry things along. We must go back again in this way, and taking a fresh starting point suited to these matters themselves, we must begin again from the beginning about them, just as we did before about the earlier subjects. We must consider the nature of fire, water, air, and earth in themselves, prior to the coming-to-be of the heavens, and the states they were in before that. For up to now no one has yet explained their origin; instead we speak as if we knew what fire is, and each of the others, and set them down as the elements, the letters, so to speak, of the universe — though it would not even be fitting to compare them, plausibly, to the level of syllables, by anyone with even a little sense. For now, then, let our own position on this be as follows. As to the principle, or principles, of all things, or whatever view one holds about them, I shall not speak of it now, for no other reason than that it is difficult, given the present manner of our exposition, to make clear what I think about it; so neither should you expect me to speak of it, nor could I persuade myself that I would be right to undertake so great a task. Rather, holding fast to what was said at the outset, the power of likely accounts, I shall try to give an account no less likely than any other — indeed more so — starting again from the beginning about each thing and about all things together. So invoking the god once more at the start of what is to be said, as a savior to bring us safely through a strange and unaccustomed exposition to a doctrine of likelihood, let us begin speaking again. Now this fresh beginning about the universe must be divided more fully than before; for then we distinguished two kinds, but now we must make clear to ourselves a third kind besides.
TIMAEUS: The two kinds were sufficient for what was said before: one posited as the form of a model, intelligible and always the same; and a second, the copy of the model, subject to coming-to-be and visible. A third kind we did not distinguish at that time, supposing those two would suffice; the argument now, however, appears to compel us to attempt to bring to light in words a form that is difficult and obscure. What power and nature, then, should we suppose it has? This above all: that it is the receptacle of all coming-to-be — its nurse, so to speak. Now this is true, but it must be stated more clearly, and that is difficult, especially because it requires that we first raise puzzles about fire and the things that go with fire for this very reason: it is difficult to say of any one of them which sort really deserves to be called water rather than fire, or which sort deserves any other name rather than all of them, or each of them individually, in a way that would let us use any trustworthy and stable account. How, then, and in what way, and with what likely reasoning about them should we speak, once we have raised these puzzles? First: what we have just now called water, we see, when it congeals, becoming, as we suppose, stones and earth; but when it melts and disperses, this same thing becomes vapor and air; and air, when burned together, becomes fire; and, in the reverse direction, fire, when compressed and quenched, passes back again into the form of air; and air, once more coming together and condensing, becomes cloud and mist; and from these, compressed still further, flows water; and from water, earth and stones again — thus handing on, it appears, coming-to-be in a circle from one to another. Since, then, none of these things ever appears the same, who would not be ashamed to insist stubbornly that any one of them is, with certainty, this thing and no other? No one would — rather, it is far safer to speak of them as follows: whenever we see something continually becoming other and other — fire, say — we should call it not this, but that which is such, each time, fire; and not this, but that which is such, always, water; and nothing else, ever, as though it had any stability, whatever we point to using the words 'this' and 'that,' supposing thereby to indicate something. For it flees, refusing to abide the designation 'this' and 'that,' and 'thereof,' and every phrase that points to them as fixed and existing things. Rather, we should not speak of each of them this way, but call whatever recurrently appears alike, in each case and in all together, 'the such' — and so call fire, in particular, that which is throughout of this sort, and likewise everything else that has coming-to-be.
TIMAEUS — As for that in which each of these qualities is always appearing and from which it again perishes, to that alone do the names "this" and "that" properly apply; but whatever has some quality—hot, or white, or any of the opposites, and all the things composed of these—none of that should we call "that." Let me try to put this more clearly still. Suppose someone molds every shape there is out of gold, and never stops remolding each one into all the others—if someone pointed at one of them and asked what it was, the answer truest and safest by a wide margin would be "gold"," and never to speak of the triangle or whatever other shape has come to be in it as though these were things that are, since they shift even while one is in the act of naming them; rather one should be content if it will accept even that description with some measure of safety. The same account holds for the nature that receives all bodies. It must always be called the same, for it never departs at all from its own power—it is always receiving all things, and it has never taken on any shape at all like any of the things that enter it, in any way whatsoever. For by nature it lies there as a matrix for everything, set in motion and marked with shapes by the things that enter it, and because of them it appears different at different times—while the things that enter and leave are always imitations of the things that are, stamped from them in some manner hard to describe and wonderful, which we shall pursue later. For the present, then, we must have in mind three kinds: that which comes to be, that in which it comes to be, and that from which the thing coming to be grows, in likeness to it. And it is fitting to compare the receiving thing to a mother, that from which it grows to a father, and the nature between the two to their offspring; and to understand that if an impression is to display every variety of appearance, that very thing in which the impression is to be set could not be well prepared unless it were itself formless, free of all those characters which it is to receive from elsewhere. For if it were similar to any of the things entering it, then whenever things of the opposite character, or of an entirely different nature, came upon it in its receiving, it would render them badly, since it would show through with its own appearance mingled in. That is why the thing that is to receive within itself all the kinds must be free of all form—just as with fragrant ointments, the craftsmen who prepare them first see to it that the liquids meant to receive the scents are as odorless as possible; and those who attempt to press shapes into anything soft take care that no shape at all is visible in it beforehand, but smooth it out and make it as level as they can.
TIMAEUS — The same holds, then, for that which is to receive well, many times over, throughout itself, the likenesses of all the things that always are: it must by nature be free of all the forms. That is why we should not call the mother and receptacle of what has come to be, visible and altogether perceptible, earth, or air, or fire, or water, nor any of the things composed of these, nor any of the things from which these come—but rather, in calling it a kind that is invisible and formless, all-receiving, and partaking of the intelligible in some most perplexing way, most difficult to grasp, we shall not be speaking falsely. And so far as it is possible, from what has been said, to arrive at its nature, one might put it most correctly this way: fire is always the part of it that has been kindled that appears as such, water the part that has been moistened, and earth and air appear so far as it receives imitations of these. But we should examine this more closely by reasoning things out as follows. Is there some fire that is just by itself, and all the other things about which we always speak in this way, as each being a thing in itself—or are the very things we see, and all the things we perceive through the body, alone the things that have this kind of reality, with nothing else existing besides these anywhere at all, and are we saying in vain, every time, that there is some intelligible form of each thing, when this is nothing but a form of words? Now it would not be right to let the present question go untried and unjudged, simply asserting that things stand thus, nor should we tack on some further digression to an argument already long; but if some great distinction could be drawn in a few words, that would be most opportune of all. This, then, is how I cast my own vote. If understanding and true opinion are two distinct kinds, then these things exist entirely on their own—forms imperceptible to us, objects of thought alone. But if, as it seems to some, true opinion differs in no way from understanding, then everything we perceive through the body must be set down as the most stable reality there is. Now we must say these are two, because they have come to be separately and are unlike in character. For the one comes to be in us through teaching, the other through persuasion; the one is always accompanied by a true account, the other has none; the one cannot be moved by persuasion, the other can be changed by it; and of true opinion, we must say, every man has a share, but of understanding, only the gods, and but a small portion of humankind.
TIMAEUS — Given that this is so, we must agree that there is, first, a kind that keeps the same form always, ungenerated and indestructible, neither receiving into itself anything else from elsewhere nor itself passing into anything else anywhere, invisible and otherwise imperceptible—this is the very thing that understanding has been allotted to study. Second, there is that which bears the same name and is like the first, but is perceptible, generated, forever in motion, coming to be in some place and again perishing out of it, apprehended by opinion joined with perception. And third, there is again another kind, that of space, which is everlasting, admits no destruction, provides a seat for all things that come to be, and is itself apprehended without perception, by a kind of bastard reasoning, scarcely to be trusted—the very thing we look to when we dream and say that everything that exists must of necessity be somewhere, in some place, occupying some space, and that what is neither on earth nor anywhere in the heavens is nothing at all. Because of this dreaming state, we are unable, once roused, to draw the necessary distinctions and speak the truth about all these things and their kin, with respect to the waking and truly existing nature—namely, that for an image, since the very thing on which its coming-to-be depends is not its own, but it is forever borne along as the phantom of something else, it is fitting that it should come to be in something else, clinging in some way to existence, or else be nothing at all; whereas for that which really and truly is, the exact and true account comes to its aid, namely that so long as one thing is one thing and another is another, neither of the two, having come to be in the other, can ever become one and the same thing while also being two. This account, then, reckoned by my own vote, let it stand given in summary: that being, space, and becoming existed, three things in three ways, even before the heaven came to be. And the nurse of becoming, being made now watery and now fiery, and taking on in turn the shapes of earth and of air, and undergoing all the other affections that attend upon these, appeared many-shaped to look upon; yet because it was filled with powers neither alike nor evenly balanced, no part of it was in equilibrium, but it was shaken unevenly in every direction and swayed, and being moved it in turn shook those things—
TIMAEUS — and the things thus moved were carried, ever separating, this way and that, just as things shaken and winnowed by sieves and instruments used for cleaning grain settle, the dense and heavy ones in one place, the loose and light ones borne off to settle in another spot. In just this way the four kinds were then shaken by the receiving thing, which itself, being in motion, provided a kind of shaking like that of an instrument; and the things most unlike one another it separated furthest apart, while the things most alike it pressed together most closely into the same place—which is why these kinds came to occupy different regions, even before the ordered whole was formed out of them and came to be. Before that, all these things were in a condition without proportion or measure; but when the ordering of the universe was undertaken, fire and water and earth and air, though they still bore certain traces of themselves, were nevertheless disposed just as one would expect anything to be when god is absent from it—so disposed then by their nature, these things were first given shape by means of forms and numbers. That the god composed them to be as beautiful and as good as possible out of things that were not so disposed—let this stand, throughout, as something always assumed on our part. Now then we must attempt to explain to you the ordering and coming-to-be of each of these, in an account unfamiliar to you; but since you have shared in the paths of learning through which what is said must necessarily be shown, you will follow along. First, then, it is surely plain to everyone that fire, earth, water, and air are bodies; and body in every form possesses depth as well. And depth, in turn, must of necessity be bounded by a plane surface; and every rectilinear plane surface is composed of triangles. All triangles derive from two triangles, each having one right angle and the other angles acute; of these, one has, on each side, a portion of a right angle divided into equal parts, while the other has unequal parts of it divided unequally. This, then, we lay down as the starting point of fire and of the other bodies, proceeding according to the account that combines likelihood with necessity; but the starting points prior to these are known to god, and to whatever man is dear to him. Now we must say what the four most beautiful bodies would be—unlike one another, yet capable, by breaking down, of arising out of one another; for if we hit upon this, we shall have the truth about the coming-to-be of earth and fire and those in proportion between them. For we shall concede to no one that there are visible bodies more beautiful than these, each belonging to a single kind of its own. This, then, we must be eager to do: to fit together the four kinds of bodies that excel in beauty, and to affirm that we have grasped their nature sufficiently.
TIMAEUS — Of the two triangles, the isosceles has but one form, while the scalene has an unlimited number; so, of these unlimited ones, we must choose the most beautiful, if we are to begin in the proper way. If anyone can name a more beautiful one, chosen for constructing these bodies, his victory will be that of a friend, not an enemy. But we shall take, then, as the most beautiful of the many triangles—setting aside all the others—the one single triangle out of which the equilateral triangle is composed as a third stage. Why this is so is a longer story; but for whoever tests this claim and discovers that it is indeed so, a friendly prize awaits. Let there be chosen, then, two triangles, out of which the body of fire and the bodies of the other things have been fashioned: the one isosceles, the other having its longer side always three times the square of the shorter, in respect of power. Now what was said earlier rather unclearly must be made more precise. For the four kinds appeared to come to be out of one another through one another, all of them—but this appearance is not correct. For four kinds do indeed come to be out of the triangles we have chosen, three of them from the one triangle that has unequal sides, and the fourth, alone, fitted together out of the isosceles triangle. So it is not possible for all of them, breaking apart into one another, to turn a few large ones into many small ones and the reverse; but three of them can. For since all three are naturally composed from a single triangle, when the larger ones are broken up, many small ones will be formed out of the same triangles, taking on the shapes proper to themselves; and again, when many small ones are scattered apart along their triangles, a single number of them, forming one mass, will produce one large unit of another kind. So much, then, for their coming-to-be out of one another; next it would follow to speak of what shape each of them has come to be, and out of what combination of numbers. The first kind, and the smallest to be composed, will lead the way; its element is the triangle whose hypotenuse is twice the length of its shorter side. When two such triangles are joined along their diagonal, and this is done three times, with the diagonals and the short sides all set together at a single point as a center, one equilateral triangle is formed out of six such triangles in number.
TIMAEUS: Four equilateral triangles, joined three plane angles at a time, make one solid angle—the one formed next in order after the most obtuse of the plane angles. When four such angles have been completed, the first solid figure results, one that divides the whole sphere into equal and similar parts. The second solid comes from the same triangles, but eight equilateral triangles uniting so that four plane angles yield a single solid one; and when six such angles have been formed, the second body is likewise complete. The third is put together out of one hundred and twenty of the elements, with twelve solid angles, each contained by five equilateral plane triangles, and it has twenty faces, each an equilateral triangle. And at this point one of the two elements was done generating these bodies, while the isosceles triangle went on to generate the nature of the fourth: four of them joined together, bringing their right angles to a common center, produce a single equilateral quadrilateral. Six of these joined together produce eight solid angles, each fitted together out of three plane right angles; and the shape of the resulting body has become the cube, having six plane equilateral quadrilateral faces. There remained one further construction, a fifth, and the god used it for the universe as a whole, embroidering it upon that. Now if someone, weighing all this carefully, were to raise the question whether the number of worlds should be said to be unlimited or finite, he would judge the view that they are unlimited to be really the opinion of someone inexperienced in matters where experience is called for; but whether it is proper to say there is truly by nature one such world, or five, is a question over which one might more reasonably come to a halt and feel at a loss. Our own account declares that by the likely reasoning there is by nature one god of this kind; but another, looking to other considerations, will judge otherwise. This question we must let go, and let us now assign the kinds that have arisen in our discussion to fire, earth, water, and air. To earth let us give the cubic form; for earth is the most immobile of the four kinds and the most malleable of bodies, and that which has the most secure bases must of necessity be preeminently of this character. And among the triangles we posited at the outset, the base formed of equal sides is by nature more secure than that of unequal sides, and the plane composed of each—the equilateral quadrilateral built from equilateral triangles—stands, both in its parts and as a whole, more firmly than the triangle does, of necessity.
TIMAEUS: For this reason, in assigning this figure to earth we preserve the likely account; and to water, in turn, we assign the least mobile of the remaining forms, to fire the most mobile, and to air the form in between; and the smallest body to fire, the largest to water, and the one in between to air; and again the sharpest to fire, the second to air, the third to water. Now of all these, the one having the fewest bases must by nature be the most mobile, being in every way the most cutting and sharp of all, and moreover the lightest, being composed of the fewest identical parts; the second is second in having these same properties, and the third is third. Let it stand, then, according to the correct and likely account, that the solid figure that has come to be in the form of the pyramid is fire's element and its seed; and let us say that the second in order of generation is that of air, the third that of water. All of these we must think of as so small that no single one of any kind is visible to us because of its smallness, though when many are gathered together their masses can be seen. And indeed the proportions governing their quantities, their motions, and their other properties, the god everywhere—wherever the nature of necessity yielded willingly and was persuaded—worked out with precision in every respect and fitted these together in due proportion. From everything we have said about these kinds, the following would be, by likely account, most nearly the case. Earth, on meeting fire and being dissolved by its sharpness, would be carried along, whether it happens to be dissolved in fire itself or in a mass of air or of water, until its parts, meeting one another somewhere, are refitted again to one another and become earth once more—for into any other kind it could never pass. Water, though, once broken up by fire — or indeed by air — admits of recombination so as to form one body of fire and two of air; and the divided fragments of one part of air could become two bodies of fire. And again, whenever a little fire, enclosed by much air or water or some earth, moving among things that are being carried along, struggles and is overcome and shattered, two bodies of fire combine into one form of air; and when air is overpowered and broken up, out of two whole parts and a half, one whole compact form of water will result.
TIMAEUS: For let us reason about these things again in this way: whenever, amid fire, some other kind is caught by it and severed by the keenness of its angles and its edges, then if it recombines into the nature of fire it ceases being cut—for no kind that is alike and the same as itself can ever produce any change in, or suffer anything from, another kind that is in the same condition and alike to it—but so long as it is passing into something else, being weaker, and struggles against something stronger, it does not cease being dissolved. And again, when smaller particles, enclosed by many larger ones, are shattered, few against many, and quenched, they cease being extinguished only once they consent to combine into the form of what has overpowered them, and fire becomes air, air becomes water; but if, in passing into these same forms, some other kind combining with them should struggle against them, they do not cease being dissolved, until, being thoroughly driven and broken apart, they escape to their kindred, or else, being overcome, one out of many becomes like the victor and remains dwelling together with it. And indeed it is through these very transformations that all things exchange their regions; for the bulk of each kind is set apart in a region of its own because of the motion of the receiving medium, while those parts that become each time unlike themselves and like other things are carried, by the shaking, toward the region of those things to which they have become alike. Now all the unmixed, primary bodies have come to be through such causes as these. But as for the fact that other kinds are found engendered within the forms of these, the cause must be sought in the construction of each of the elements: it was not merely one size of triangle that was planted at the beginning for each, but smaller and larger ones, in a number corresponding to the number of kinds found within the forms. Hence, as they mix with themselves and with one another, the variety is unlimited; and it is this variety that those who intend to give a likely account of nature must study closely. Concerning motion and rest—in what manner and among what conditions they occur—unless one comes to some agreement about this, much will stand in the way of the reasoning that follows. Something has already been said about them, but beyond that there is this further point: motion is never willing to exist in a state of uniformity. For it is difficult—rather, impossible—for there to be a thing to be moved without something to move it, or a mover without something to be moved; there is no motion where these are absent, yet it is impossible for these ever to be uniform.
TIMAEUS: Let us then always posit rest as belonging to uniformity, and motion as arising from non-uniformity; and inequality, in turn, is the cause of a non-uniform nature. We have already explained the origin of inequality; but we have not said how it is that things, once separated out by kind, do not cease from their motion and passage through one another. So let us say it again in this way. The revolution of the whole, since it has taken all the kinds together within it, being circular in shape and naturally inclined to gather in upon itself, constricts everything and leaves no empty space anywhere. For this reason fire has penetrated most thoroughly into everything, air second, since it is by nature second in fineness, and the rest likewise; for the things composed of the largest parts have left the greatest gaps in their structure, the smallest the least. This compacting, then, forces the small into the empty spaces of the large. So, with the small placed alongside the large, and the smaller particles separating out the larger while the larger compress the smaller together, everything is carried up and down toward its own proper region; for as each thing changes in size it also changes its position in space. In this way, and for these reasons, the generation of non-uniformity is continually preserved, providing the motion of these things that exists now and will exist forever without ceasing. After this we must understand that many kinds of fire have come to be—flame, for instance, and that which streams off from flame, which does not burn but provides light for our eyes, and that which, once the flame is extinguished, remains behind in what is still glowing hot. Likewise with air: the most translucent kind is called by the name aether, the murkiest is mist and darkness, and there are other nameless forms besides, arising from the inequality of the triangles. As for water, there are first of all two kinds: the liquid and the fusible. The liquid kind, because it partakes of those kinds of water which are small—being unequal—is mobile both of itself and by another, owing to its non-uniformity and the character of its shape; but the kind composed of large and uniform parts is more stable than the former and, being solidified by its uniformity, is heavy. Yet when fire enters and dissolves it, it loses this uniformity, and having lost it, it partakes more of motion; and becoming mobile, pushed by the neighboring air and stretched out over the earth, it takes the name melting for the reduction of its mass, and flowing for its being drawn out over the earth.
TIMAEUS: And again, when the fire departs from it, since it does not go out into a void, the neighboring air, being pushed, forces the still-mobile liquid mass into the seats vacated by the fire and mixes it in upon itself; and the liquid, being compressed and regaining its uniformity again, now that the fire, the craftsman of its non-uniformity, has departed, settles back into agreement with itself. And the departure of fire is called cooling, while the coming-together that follows fire's withdrawal is called becoming solid. Now of all these that we have called fusible waters, the one that becomes densest, composed of the finest and most uniform parts, a single uniform kind, sharing in a gleaming, golden color, is that most precious possession, gold, refined and hardened through the rock. The offshoot of gold—being, on account of its density, the hardest of all and having turned dark—is called adamant. And there is another kind, close to gold in its parts but having more than one form, denser in one respect than gold, and sharing in a small, fine portion of earth so as to be harder, yet lighter because it has large gaps within itself—this, one kind among the bright, solidified waters, when combined, has become bronze. And the portion of earth mixed into it, when with age the two separate again from one another, becomes visible by itself and is called verdigris. As for the rest of such things, it is no longer anything intricate to work out, if one keeps pursuing the pattern of likely accounts; and whenever, for the sake of relaxation, one sets aside for a while the accounts concerning things that always are and, in contemplating the likely accounts of things that come to be, gains a pleasure free of regret, one would thereby provide oneself a measured and sensible amusement in life. It is in this spirit that we now, having indulged ourselves, shall go on to trace out what follows next concerning these same matters, in likely fashion, as follows. Water mixed with fire, the sort that is fine and fluid because of its motion and the path along which it rolls upon the earth—it is on this account called liquid—and also soft, because its bases, being less firmly grounded than those of earth, give way: when this is separated from fire and isolated from air as well, it becomes more uniform and is compressed together by the elements departing from it; and having thus solidified, that portion which undergoes this above the earth is called hail, and on the earth, ice; and that which has undergone it less, being still only half solidified, is called, above the earth, snow, and on the earth, when it solidifies out of dew, is called hoarfrost.
TIMAEUS — As for the many kinds of water mixed with one another—the whole class of them, filtered through the plants that grow from the earth, are called flavors—and because of their mixtures each kind, differing from the others, has given rise to many unnamed varieties; but four of them, being fiery in nature and coming out especially transparent, have received names of their own. The one that warms the soul together with the body is wine; the one that is smooth and separates the sight, and for that reason appears bright and gleaming and oily, is the oil-like kind—pitch, castor oil, olive oil itself, and whatever else has the same power; and whatever has the capacity to dissolve as far as the natural joints around the mouth, providing sweetness by this power, has received the name honey, the term applied most of all among such things; and the kind that dissolves flesh by burning it, a frothy class set apart from all the other flavors, has been named sap. As for the kinds of earth: the earth that is filtered through water becomes, in the following way, a stony body. When the water mixed with it is cut off in the mixing, it changes into the form of air; and having become air, it rushes up to its own place. But since no empty space lay above them, it pushed the neighboring air. That air, being heavy, when pushed and poured around the mass of earth, pressed hard upon it and squeezed it together into the very seats from which the new air was rising; and earth compacted inseparably by air together with water forms rock—more beautiful, the kind whose parts are equal and even and transparent, uglier, the opposite kind. And whatever has all its moisture snatched away suddenly by the swiftness of fire, and forms into something more brittle than that former kind, becomes the substance we have named earthenware; and sometimes, when moisture is left behind, earth that has become fluid through fire, when it cools, becomes the stone that has a black color. Two other kinds, again formed in the same way out of a mixture with much water, but out of finer parts of earth and being briny, half-solidified and yet dissolvable again by water: one is the kind that cleanses oil and earth, soda; the other, the kind well suited for the sensations that occur in the mouth in social gatherings, is the substance dear to the gods that is salt, in keeping with custom. Those things common to both, not dissolvable by water but by fire, are compounded in this way, for the following reason. Neither fire nor air melts masses of earth; for since their parts are naturally smaller than the interstices in earth's structure, they pass through its ample open spaces without forcing their way, and leave it undissolved, unmelted. But the parts of water, since they are naturally larger, force their way through, and in dissolving the earth, melt it.
TIMAEUS — Earth that is not compacted, then, only water dissolves by force in this way; but earth that has been compacted, nothing but fire dissolves, for entry has been left to nothing but fire. And of the combination of water, only fire dissolves the most forcibly bound kind, while both fire and air dissolve the weaker kind—the one working through the interstices, the other even through the triangles themselves; and of air compacted by force, nothing dissolves it except by resolving it into its element, while unforced, only fire melts it down. As for the bodies compounded of earth and water mixed together, so long as the water occupying the interstices of the earth in it, forced together, holds them, the parts of water coming upon it from outside, having no way in, flow around the whole mass and leave it unmelted; but the particles of fire, slipping into the gaps within the water—doing to water what water does to earth—working upon air the way fire itself does, are the sole cause by which the compound body, once melted, comes to flow. Now it happens that some of these bodies have less water than earth—the whole class of glass, and all the kinds called fusible stones—while others have more water: all the bodies that solidify into wax-like and incense-like substances. And so the kinds that have been variegated by shapes, combinations, and mutual transformations have now, more or less, been displayed; but we must try to bring to light the affections belonging to them, and the causes through which they have come about. First of all, then, sensation must always be presupposed for what we say, though we have not yet gone through the coming-to-be of flesh and what belongs to flesh, nor of the mortal part of the soul. And it happens that neither these things can be adequately explained apart from the affections that concern sensation, nor those apart from these—though to explain them together is nearly impossible. We must therefore first assume the one set, and come back afterward to what we have assumed. So that the affections may be discussed in due order after the kinds, let us take as prior to us the things concerning body and soul. First, then, as to why we call fire hot, let us look at it in this way, considering the separating and cutting action it produces upon our body. That the affection is something sharp, nearly all of us perceive—
TIMAEUS — but we must reckon with the fineness of its sides, the sharpness of its angles, the smallness of its parts, and the speed of its motion—by all of which, being forceful and sharp-cutting, it always cuts through whatever it meets—recalling the coming-to-be of its shape, that it is above all that particular nature, and no other, that, cutting through our bodies and mincing them into small pieces, has quite reasonably given both the affection and the name we now call heat. The opposite of this is plain enough, but let it not go without an account all the same. For the coarser-parted portions of the moisture surrounding the body, as they make their way in and expel the smaller ones, being unable to slip into their seats, and pressing together our moisture, turning it from uneven and moving into unmoving through evenness—the compression they produce solidifies it; and what is drawn together contrary to nature fights back according to its own nature, pushing itself in the opposite direction. To this struggle and this shaking has been given the name trembling and shivering, and the whole of this affection, together with what produces it, has been called cold. Hard is whatever our flesh yields to; soft, whatever yields to our flesh—and so also in their relation to one another. What yields is whatever rests on a small base; but what is composed of square bases, being very firmly planted, is the most resistant form, as is whatever, compacted into the greatest density, offers the strongest resistance. Heavy and light would be shown most clearly if examined together with what is called the nature of down and up. For it is not at all correct to think that there are by nature two regions, dividing the universe in two and opposed to each other—one below, toward which everything that has any bodily mass is carried, and one above, toward which everything moves only unwillingly. For since the whole heaven is spherical, all the points that are equally distant from the center must be alike extremities, and the center, being distant by the same measure from all the extremities, must be thought to lie directly opposite to all of them. Since the cosmos is naturally so constituted, whoever places any of the things just mentioned as up or down would not, in justice, be thought to be speaking a name that fits at all. For the middle region in it is not naturally either down or fittingly called up, but simply in the middle; and the surrounding region is neither the middle, nor does it have any part of itself different from another in being nearer the middle than what lies opposite. And since it is by nature alike in every direction, what names could one apply to it that are opposite to each other and in any way think one was speaking correctly?
TIMAEUS — For if there were some solid body evenly balanced at the center of the universe, it would never be carried toward any of the extremities, on account of their being alike in every direction; rather, even if someone were to travel around it in a circle, he would often, standing at antipodal points, call the very same spot of it both down and up. For the whole, as has just been said, being spherical, it is not the mark of a sensible person to say that it has one region down and another up. As for why these names came to be used, and in what contexts we have grown accustomed to use them and, because of that habit, to speak of the whole heaven as divided in this way—these points we must agree upon, having laid down the following as our assumption. If someone, standing in that region of the universe where the nature of fire has its especial seat, and where the greatest amount of it would be gathered, toward which it is carried—if someone, stepping onto that mass and having the power to do so, were to take away parts of the fire, setting them in scale-pans, and lifting the balance-beam, drag the fire by force into the unlike air—it is clear that the lesser quantity would yield to his force more readily than the greater; for whenever one and the same effort raises a pair of things together, the smaller must necessarily yield to the force and follow along more readily, the larger less so; and so the greater amount would be called heavy and said to move downward, the smaller, light and upward. This very same thing we must catch ourselves doing in this region here. For standing on the earth, when we separate out earthy kinds—and sometimes earth itself—we drag them by force and against nature into the unlike air, both clinging to what is akin to them, but the smaller yields more easily than the larger to those exerting the force, and follows first into the unlike medium; and so we have called it light, and the region into which we force it, up, while the opposite affection to these we call heavy and down. These things, then, must necessarily stand in varying relations to one another, because the masses of the various kinds occupy opposite regions, one here and another there—for what is light in one region, being opposite in place to what is light in the opposite region, and heavy to heavy, down to down and up to up, will all be found, on examination, to be opposite, crosswise, and in every way different from one another as they come to be and exist. Yet this one point must be understood concerning all of them: that the path toward what is akin to each is what makes the thing moving heavy, and the region toward which such a thing is carried, down; while things standing otherwise than these behave in the opposite way. So much, then, for the causes of these affections.
TIMAEUS — As for the affection of smooth and rough, anyone who has grasped its cause could probably explain it to another as well: for hardness mixed with unevenness produces roughness, while evenness combined with density produces smoothness. The greatest of the affections shared by the body as a whole still remains: it is the cause of pleasant and painful sensations in the things we have gone through, and all the sensations that, through the parts of the body, involve pains and, following upon them, pleasures at the same time. Let us, then, take up the causes of every affection, whether perceptible or imperceptible, in the following way, recalling what we distinguished earlier about the nature of what is easily moved and what is not easily moved; for it is along these lines that we must pursue everything we intend to grasp. For whatever is by nature easily moved, when even a slight affection falls upon it, transmits it in a circle, one part acting upon another in the same way, until the parts reach the seat of intelligence and report the power of what produced it; whereas the opposite kind, being stable and moving in no circle, only suffers the affection itself and moves nothing else nearby, so that, the parts not transmitting the affection to one another, the initial affection, remaining unmoved in them, produces insensibility in the living creature as a whole with respect to what it has undergone. This is the case with the bones and the hair and whatever other parts we have in us that are for the most part earthy; whereas what was said before applies especially to sight and hearing, because in them the power of fire and air is present in the greatest degree. Now pleasure and pain must be understood in this way: an affection that arises among us contrary to nature and all at once, and is violent, is painful; while what departs again all at once toward its natural state is pleasant; but what is gentle and gradual is imperceptible, and the opposite of these is opposite. And whatever comes about with ease is entirely perceptible in the highest degree, but has no share of pain or pleasure—such as the affections concerning sight itself, which was said earlier to be a body that becomes joined to us daily. For in this case, cuttings and burnings and whatever else it undergoes produce no pains, nor again pleasures when it returns to the same form; but the sensations are greatest and clearest according to whatever it undergoes and whatever things it comes into contact with by directing itself toward them in any way; for there is no force at all in its separation and combination.
TIMAEUS: Bodies made of larger parts yield only grudgingly to what acts on them, but transmit the motion through the whole, and so they produce pleasures and pains — pains when they are thrown out of their own state, pleasures when they are restored again to it. But whatever has taken on its withdrawals and emptyings little by little, and its fillings all at once and on a large scale, is insensible to the emptying but keenly sensitive to the filling; such things bring the mortal part of the soul no pains, but the greatest pleasures — as is plain in the case of sweet smells. Whatever, on the other hand, is estranged all at once, but returns to its own state again only slowly and by degrees, produces effects the very opposite of the former — as shows itself plainly when the body suffers burning or cutting. Now we have pretty well described the affections common to the whole body, and the names that have arisen for the agents that produce them. We must try to describe, so far as we can, what occurs in our several parts individually — both the affections themselves and, in turn, the causes of the agents that produce them. First, then, we must try to bring to light, as far as possible, the matters concerning flavors that we left aside earlier — affections peculiar to the tongue. These too, it appears, like most things, come about through certain combinations and separations, and beyond that they make use, more than the other senses do, of roughness and smoothness. Whatever particles enter around the little veins that stretch, as it were like sampling-probes of the tongue, toward the heart, and fall upon the moist and soft parts of the flesh, and in dissolving draw the little veins together and dry them out — these, if rather rough, appear astringent, and if less rough, appear merely tart. And those substances that scour these away, and rinse off the whole area of the tongue, if they do this beyond due measure and go so far as to erode its very substance — like the power of soda — are all called bitter; while those that fall short of the soda-like condition and use their scouring power in moderation appear to us salty, without harsh bitterness, and rather agreeable.
TIMAEUS: Substances that share in the heat of the mouth and are smoothed by it, catching fire together with it and then in turn burning back against the very thing that heated them, and being carried upward by their lightness to the sensations of the head, and cutting through everything they fall upon — because of these powers all such things are called pungent. And again, the substance that has been thinned out beforehand by decay, and works its way into the narrow veins, and there meets earthy parts and parts with a due proportion of air, so that it stirs them and makes them churn about one another, and in churning they collide and, working into one another, produce hollow places by stretching around what enters them — when moisture stretches hollow around air, sometimes earthy moisture, sometimes pure, moist vessels of air are formed, round hollow bodies of water; and those formed of the pure moisture, standing round transparent, are called bubbles, while those of the earthy moisture, when it is stirred and rises up together, are called boiling and fermentation — and the cause of these affections is called sour. Opposite to all these described affections is an affection from an opposite cause: whenever the composition of what enters, being in moist substances naturally suited to the tongue's condition, smooths what has been roughened by spreading over it, and draws together what is unnaturally contracted or, conversely, loosens what is unnaturally dispersed, and settles everything as much as possible into its natural state — every such thing, being pleasant and welcome to everyone as a remedy for violent affections, is called sweet. So much for that. As for the power of the nostrils, there are no distinct kinds within it. For every smell is a half-formed thing, and no kind possesses the due proportion needed to have any particular smell; rather, our veins around this region are formed too narrow for the kinds of earth and water, but too wide for those of fire and air, and that is why no one has ever perceived any smell of these; smells arise instead only when things are wetted, or decaying, or melting, or being burned as incense. For as water changes into air and air into water, smells come to be in the interval between these, and all smells are a kind of smoke or mist — that which passes from air into water being mist, and that which passes from water into air being smoke. Hence all smells are finer than water but coarser than air.
TIMAEUS: This becomes clear whenever, something obstructing the breath, one draws the air into oneself by force; for then no smell is filtered through together with it, but the air, stripped of all smells, follows alone. So these varied forms of smell have received two names only, not being drawn from many or simple kinds, but rather only the pleasant and the painful stand out distinctly as named here — one being that which roughens and does violence to the whole cavity that lies between our head and navel, the other being that which soothes this same region and restores it gladly to its natural state. Considering next the third perceptive part within us, that concerned with hearing, we must state the causes that produce the affections connected with it. Let us in general lay down that sound is a blow transmitted through the ears, by means of air, brain, and blood, all the way to the soul, and that the motion caused by it, beginning at the head and ending in the region of the liver, is hearing; and that whatever motion is swift is high-pitched, and whatever is slower is lower-pitched; and that motion which is uniform is even and smooth, while its opposite is rough; and that a large motion is loud, while its opposite is soft. The matters concerning their concords must necessarily be treated later on. There remains for us now a fourth kind of perception, which we must distinguish, since it comprises many varied forms within itself — all of which together we have called colors, a flame streaming off from the bodies of each thing, having particles proportioned to sight so as to produce sensation. The causes of the origin of sight itself were stated earlier. It is fitting, then, that here we should go through the subject of colors in a reasonable account of this kind: of the particles that stream from other things and fall upon sight, some are smaller, some larger, and some equal to the parts of sight itself; those that are equal are imperceptible, and these we call transparent, while those that are larger or smaller — the ones contracting sight, the others expanding it — are akin to the hot and cold affecting the flesh, and to the astringent affecting the tongue, and to all those heat-producing things we called pungent; these are white and black, being the same affections in a different kind, though appearing different because of these different causes.
TIMAEUS: So they must be named accordingly: that which dilates sight is white, and its opposite is black; while the swifter motion, belonging to a different kind of fire, falling upon and dilating sight all the way to the eyes, and forcing apart and dissolving the very passages of the eyes, pouring out from there fire all at once together with water, which we call a tear, being itself fire meeting fire from the opposite direction — and as the fire that leaps out flashes like lightning, while that which enters is quenched in the moisture, all sorts of colors arise in this churning — this affection we have called shimmering, and that which produces it we have named bright and gleaming. A kind of fire midway between these, reaching the moisture of the eyes and mingling with it, but not gleaming — when the ray of this fire mingles through the moisture and produces a blood-red color, we call this name red. And bright, mingled with red and white, becomes yellow; but as for the proportion in which each is mingled, even if one knew it, it would make no sense to state it, since for such things one could give neither any necessity nor any reasonably probable account with real precision. Red mixed with black and white gives purple; and dusky, when these are mixed together and burned more, and black is mingled further in. Tawny comes from a mixture of yellow and gray, and gray from white and black, and pale yellow from white mixed with yellow. White combined with bright and falling into deep black produces the color dark blue, and dark blue mixed with white gives gray-blue, and tawny mixed with black gives greenish. The rest are fairly evident from these, by whatever mixtures one might preserve their likeness in the probable account. But if anyone should put these matters to an actual test, he would show ignorance of the difference between human and divine nature — that a god possesses both the skill and the power to fuse plurality into a single unity, and likewise to break that unity back apart into many things, whereas no human being either is now, or ever will be in the future, capable of either of these two things. All these matters, then, being at that time of such a nature by necessity, the craftsman of the fairest and best took them over as they occurred in the process of becoming, when he was engendering the self-sufficient and most perfect god, making use of the causes concerned with them as his servants, but himself fashioning the good in everything that came to be.
TIMAEUS: This is why we must distinguish two kinds of cause, the necessary and the divine, and seek the divine in everything, for the sake of acquiring a life of happiness, so far as our nature allows it, while seeking the necessary for the sake of the divine — reckoning that without these we cannot, by themselves, either understand or grasp or in any other way share in those very things toward which we are in earnest. Now, since the kinds of causes lie before us, filtered out, like timber laid ready for carpenters, out of which the remaining account must be woven together, let us go back again briefly to the beginning, and move quickly to the same point from which we arrived here, and then try to set upon what has gone before a conclusion and a head fitting to the tale. As was said at the very start, these things, existing in disorder, god introduced into each of them, in itself and in relation to one another, such measures of proportion as it was possible for them to have, so far as they could be made analogous and proportionate. For at that time none of these had any share in such qualities except by chance, nor was there anything worth naming among the things now named, such as fire and water and any of the rest — but god first set all these in order, and then out of them constructed this universe, one single living creature containing within itself all living creatures, both mortal and immortal. Of the divine beings he himself becomes the craftsman, but the making of the mortal beings he assigned to his own offspring to fashion. And they, imitating him, having received the immortal principle of the soul, fashioned around it a mortal body and gave it the whole body as a vehicle, and built onto it another form of soul, the mortal kind, containing within itself terrible and necessary affections — first pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil, then pains, which drive away good things, and further, boldness and fear, foolish counselors both, and anger, hard to appease, and hope, easily led astray; and mingling these with irrational sensation and desire that ventures upon everything, they compounded the mortal kind of soul as necessity required. And on this account, reverencing to defile the divine part except so far as was wholly necessary, they gave the mortal part a separate dwelling apart from that other, in a different region of the body, building a neck between them as an isthmus and boundary between head and chest, so that they might be kept apart. It is in the chest, then, and in what is called the trunk, that they bound in the mortal kind of soul.
TIMAEUS: And since one part of the soul was by nature better, the other worse, they built the cavity of the chest as a separate lodging, marking it off the way one marks off women's quarters from men's, placing the midriff between them as a partition. The part of the soul that shares in courage and spirit, being ambitious for victory, they gave a dwelling closer to the head, in the space bounded by the neck above and the midriff below, so that, being obedient to reason, it might join forces with it in forcibly restraining the tribe of appetites whenever they refused, from the citadel above, to submit willingly to the command and reason. As the place where the veins are tied into a knot, and the source out of which blood is pumped forcefully to every limb, the heart they stationed in the guardhouse, so that when the might of spirit boiled up—reason having given the signal that some unjust act was occurring, whether from outside or from the appetites within—every sensitive part of the body might quickly, through all the narrow passages, perceive the summons and the threats and become obedient and follow throughout, and thus allow the best part to rule over them all. But foreseeing that the heart's leaping in anticipation of dangers, and its rousing in anger, would all involve such swelling brought on by fire, they contrived aid for it by planting the lung within, first soft and bloodless, then having hollows inside like a sponge pierced through, so that by receiving breath and drink it might cool the heart and provide relief and respite in the heat. For this reason they cut channels of the windpipe toward the lung, and set the lung around the heart like a cushion, so that when spirit was at its height within it, the heart, leaping into something yielding and being cooled, might suffer less and be better able to serve reason in company with spirit. As for the part of the soul that desires food and drink and whatever else it needs because of the nature of the body, this they settled in the region between the midriff and the boundary at the navel, fashioning throughout that whole area a kind of manger for the body's nourishment. And there they tied this thing down like a wild beast, one that must nonetheless be kept fed and joined to us, if a mortal race was ever to exist at all.
TIMAEUS: So that it might always be grazing at its manger, and dwelling as far as possible from the deliberating part, causing the least possible tumult and outcry, and might allow the best part to deliberate in peace about what is advantageous for all in common and for each individually—for this reason they gave it this position there. And knowing that it would never understand reason, and that even if it should somehow get a share of some perception of such things, it would have no innate concern for any reasoned arguments, but would be led about above all by images and phantoms by night and by day—for this the god, plotting against it, constructed the form of the liver and placed it in that creature's dwelling, contriving it to be dense and smooth and bright and sweet, yet also possessing bitterness, so that the power of thoughts moving from the mind might, as in a mirror that receives impressions and yields visible images to be seen, at one time frighten this thing when it employs a portion of that bitterness akin to itself, bearing down on it harshly with a threat, mixing itself swiftly through the whole of the liver so as to display bilious colors, and by contracting the whole make it wrinkled and rough, and by bending the lobe and the receptacles and the gates down from their upright position, and squeezing them, and by blocking some and closing others, cause pains and nausea; and again, when, on the contrary, some breath of gentleness from the thinking part paints the opposite kind of images, giving the bitterness rest by being unwilling to stir or touch a nature opposite to its own, but instead employing toward the liver the sweetness native to it, and setting all its parts straight and smooth and free, it might make the portion of the soul settled around the liver cheerful and content, giving it a measured way of passing the night, engaged in divination in sleep, since it had no share in reason and understanding. For those who put us together, remembering their father's instruction to make the mortal race as good as possible within the limits of power, set right even this base part of us in this way, so that it might somehow lay hold of truth, and for that purpose established the seat of divination in this organ. And there is sufficient proof that god has given divination to human folly: for no one in his right mind lays hold of true, inspired divination, but only when the power of his understanding is fettered in sleep, or he is deranged through disease, or has passed out of himself through some form of possession.
TIMAEUS: But it belongs to a person in his right mind to think over and recall, whether dreaming or waking, the things said by this prophetic and inspired nature, and to sort out by reasoning all the apparitions that were seen, working out in what way and for whom they signify something of evil or good to come, or past, or present; but it is not the task of one who is still in the grip of madness to judge what has appeared and been spoken by himself—rather, as the old saying rightly has it, to do and to know one's own affairs and oneself belongs only to the sound of mind. That is why it is the custom to appoint the tribe of prophets as judges over inspired divinations—people some call diviners themselves, in total ignorance that they are interpreters of riddling utterance and vision, and not diviners at all, but most properly to be called prophets of things divined. This, then, is why the liver has the nature it does and is situated where we say it is—for the sake of divination. And while each living thing is alive, this organ's signs are clearer, but once deprived of life it goes blind, and its divinations become too dim to signify anything clear. The structure and seat of the neighboring organ came about on the left for the sake of the liver, so as to keep it always bright and clean, like a mirror always standing ready and prepared at its side. This is why, whenever there is some uncleanness about the liver due to bodily illness, the spleen's porous texture, being hollow and bloodless as it is woven, receives and cleanses it all away; and so, filling up with what is purged away, it grows large and festers, and again, when the body is purified, it subsides and shrinks back to its former size. So much, then, for the soul—what part of it is mortal and what divine, and where and with what companions and for what reasons it was settled apart. That this account is true we could affirm with confidence only if a god agreed; but that it is likely, as we have said, both now and on further reflection, this we must venture to assert, and let it be asserted. What comes next in order must be pursued in the same manner: it was the remaining part of the body, how it came to be. It would be most fitting for us to put this together out of the following line of reasoning.
TIMAEUS: Those who put together our race knew that we would be undisciplined in drink and food, and that through greed we would consume far more than what is measured and necessary; so that there should not be swift destruction through disease, and the mortal race come to an end straightaway before it was complete, foreseeing this they set up what is called the lower belly as a receptacle to hold the surplus of drink and food, and they coiled the formation of the intestines round about, so that the food, passing through too quickly, should not force the body to need further food again too quickly, and by producing insatiable craving make the whole race, through gluttony, unphilosophical and uncultured, disobedient to the most divine part within us. As for bones and flesh and everything of that nature, matters stood as follows. The origin of all these lies in the generation of marrow: for the bonds of life, by which the soul is bound to the body, are fastened together in this, and take root there for the mortal race; and the marrow itself came to be from other things. For of the triangles, whichever were first, unwarped and smooth, and most capable of yielding fire and water and air and earth with precision, these the god, separating each from its own kind, and mixing them with one another in due proportion, contriving a seed-stock for every mortal kind, made into the marrow, and afterward, planting in it the various kinds of souls, divided the marrow itself, at once in the original distribution, into just as many and such shapes as the souls were going to have severally in their several forms. And the portion which was to hold the divine seed within it, like a field, he shaped round on every side and called this share of the marrow the brain, since once each living creature was completed, the vessel around this part would become its head; but the part that was to hold the remaining, mortal part of the soul he divided into shapes at once round and elongated, and called all of it marrow alike; and casting out from these, as if from anchors, the bonds of the whole soul, he then fashioned our entire body around this, fitting first a covering of bone all around it. And he put the bone together in this way: sifting earth pure and smooth, he kneaded it and moistened it with marrow, and after this put it into fire, then dipped it into water, then again into fire, and again into water; and by carrying it back and forth many times into each in this way he made it unmeltable by either.
TIMAEUS: Making use of this, he turned on a lathe, around the brain, a bony sphere, and left in it a narrow passage; for the marrow that runs through neck and backbone, he shaped vertebrae from that same stuff and slid them beneath it like pivots, beginning from the head, running through the whole trunk. And thus, to preserve the whole seed, he fenced it in with a stone-like enclosure, fashioning joints, employing in them the power of the Other as something set in the middle, for the sake of movement and bending. But considering that the condition of bony substance was more brittle and inflexible than it should be, and that becoming heated through and then cooled again it would quickly mortify and destroy the seed within it, for these reasons he devised the kind of sinews and the kind of flesh, so that by binding all the limbs together with the one, stretching and relaxing around the pivots, it might allow the body to bend and extend, while the flesh would serve as a defense against heat and a shield against cold, and further, as a protection against falls, like felted furnishings, yielding softly and gently to bodies, and having warm moisture within itself, sweating in summer and being moistened from without, it would provide a coolness proper to the whole body, while in winter, by means of this same fire, it would ward off, in due measure, the frost that approaches and surrounds it from outside. Having thought all this through concerning us, the modeler in wax mixed and fitted together water and fire and earth, and mingling into them a ferment compounded of sour and salt, formed flesh, juicy and soft; and the nature of the sinews he blended from bone and unfermented flesh into a single substance midway in power between the two, using a yellow color for it. This is why sinews came to have a power more taut and sticky than flesh, but softer and moister than bone. With these the god wrapped round the bones and the marrow, binding them to one another with sinews, and afterward overshadowed all of them from above with flesh. Those bones that had the most soul in them he fenced with the least flesh, while those with the least soul within he covered with the most and densest flesh; and indeed at the joints of the bones, wherever reason did not show any necessity requiring it, he grew only a scant covering of flesh, so that the bodies would not be made unwieldy by flesh getting in the way of the bending of the joints, being thereby hard to move, nor again, where flesh was abundant and dense and packed tightly together, that it should, through its solidity, produce insensibility and make the parts concerned with thought duller and less retentive of memory.
TIMAEUS: For this reason the thighs and shins and the region around the hips, and the bones of the upper arms and forearms, and all our other joint-free parts, and whatever bones within us are empty of intelligence for want of soul in the marrow—all these have been filled out with flesh. But the parts that have intelligence received less flesh, unless some part was constructed to have flesh purely for the sake of sensation on its own account, as with the form of the tongue; otherwise the rule holds generally, for a nature that comes to be and grows by necessity nowhere admits both dense bone and abundant flesh together with keen sensation. The structure around the head would have had all these most of all, if the two could have come together at once, and the human race, having a fleshy, sinewy, and strong head set upon it, would have gained a life twice as long and many times over, and healthier and less painful than the life we have now. But as it was, the craftsmen responsible for our coming-to-be, weighing whether they should make a longer-lived but worse race or a shorter-lived but better one, agreed that a shorter but superior life was in every way to be chosen over a longer but inferior one for every creature. That is why they did not cover the head with dense bone, or with flesh and sinews, since it has no joints. For all these reasons, then, the head, once attached to the body of every man, is more richly endowed with sensation and intelligence, but far weaker than the rest of the body. And it was for these reasons and in this way that the god set the sinews at the outer end around the head, glued them in a ring about the neck through their likeness to one another, and bound the extremities of the jaws to them beneath the shape of the face; the rest he scattered among all the limbs, joining joint to joint. As for the power of our mouth, those who arranged it fitted out teeth, tongue, and lips as they are now arranged, for the sake both of necessities and of what is best, contriving the entrance for the sake of necessary things and the exit for the sake of the best things. For everything that enters, giving nourishment to the body, is necessary, while the stream of speech that flows out and serves thought is the finest and best of all streams.
TIMAEUS: As for the head, leaving it as nothing but naked bone was impossible, given how far the seasons swing toward heat at one extreme and toward cold at the other, nor again to let it become muffled in flesh and so dull and unfeeling. Since the fleshy substance did not dry out completely, a larger rind formed and separated off from it—what is now called skin. This, because of the moisture around the brain, drew together into itself, and sprouting in a circle, clothed the head all around; and as the wetness climbed up beneath the seams, it irrigated the skin and pulled it shut at the crown, gathering it as it were into a knot. The varied pattern of the sutures came about through the power of the revolutions and of nutrition, being more numerous where these forces conflicted more with one another, and fewer where they conflicted less. The divine power then pricked this whole skin all around with fire, and once it was pierced and the moisture carried outward through it, whatever was pure moisture and heat departed, while the mixed part, of which the skin itself was made, was lifted by the current and stretched out long outside, having a thinness equal to the puncture; but being slow, it was pushed back inward under the skin by the surrounding outer air and took root there coiled up. And it is by these processes that the class of hairs has grown in the skin, being akin to it as a strap is akin to leather, but harder and denser through the compacting effect of the cold, which each hair, once it separates from the skin, undergoes as it cools and is compressed together. By this means the maker made our heads shaggy, using the causes stated, but intending that this should serve as a covering instead of flesh, for the safety of the brain, being light and providing adequate shade and shelter in both summer and winter, while posing no obstacle to keenness of sensation. As for the interlacing of sinew, skin, and bone in the region of the fingers, once mixed from the three and dried out, it became one common hard substance—skin of a sort—produced by these contributing causes, but wrought for the sake of the most decisive purpose, namely what was to come afterward. For those who were putting us together knew that women and the other animals would one day come to be from men, and they also knew that many of the creatures would need the use of claws for many purposes; hence in human beings, right from birth, they sketched out the growth of nails. It is on this reasoning and for these ends that, out at the tips of the limbs, they made skin and hair and nails spring forth.
TIMAEUS: Once all the parts and limbs of the mortal living being had grown together, and it necessarily had to have its life amid fire and breath, and for this reason was wasting away, being melted and drained by these, the gods contrived help for it. Blending a nature akin to human nature with other forms and other kinds of sensation, so that it would be a different living thing, they planted it—what are now the tame trees, plants, and seeds, trained by agriculture to be gentle toward us, although in earlier times nothing existed but the untamed varieties, which predate the domesticated sorts. For whatever partakes of life may most rightly and justly be called a living thing; and what we are now speaking of does participate in that third form of soul, the one our account places in the region between the navel and the midriff, a kind that has no part whatsoever in opinion, reasoning, or understanding, but only in sensation, pleasant and painful, together with desires. For it remains passive throughout, and since it was turned in upon itself, around itself, repelling motion from without and using only its own, its birth did not grant it the nature to observe and reason about any of its own experiences. Hence it lives, and is not other than a living thing, but it stands fixed, rooted and stationary, because it is deprived of motion by itself. Having planted all these kinds to be food for us, their inferiors, the higher powers channeled our body itself, cutting it through with conduits as one cuts channels in a garden, so that it might be watered as if by an incoming stream. And first they cut two hidden channels beneath the junction of skin and flesh—two veins along the back, twin as the body itself happens to be, right and left; these they let down along the spine, taking the generative marrow between them, so that it might flourish as much as possible, and so that the flow, since it ran downhill from there to everything else, might provide an even supply of water. After this, splitting the veins around the head and weaving them crosswise through one another, they sent them down, steering those on the right over to the body's left flank, and bending the left-hand ones across to the right, so that there might be a bond, together with the skin, linking the head to the body—since the head was not encircled by sinews at the crown—and also so that the experience of the senses from both sides might be made evident to the whole body.
TIMAEUS: From this point on they arranged the conveyance of water in some such way as this, which we shall see more easily once we have first agreed on the following: that everything composed of smaller parts contains the larger, while what is composed of larger parts cannot contain the smaller; and fire is of all the kinds the one with the smallest parts, and so it passes through water, earth, air, and whatever is composed of these, and nothing can contain it. The same must be understood about our stomach: when food and drink fall into it, it contains them, but breath and fire, being of parts smaller than its own structure, it cannot contain. These, then, the god used for conveying water from the stomach to the veins, weaving together a network of air and fire like a fish-weir, having a double funnel-mouth at the entrance, one of which he further wove in two; and from these funnel-mouths he stretched out, as it were, cords all around, through the whole, to the outer edges of the network. The interior parts of the woven structure he composed wholly of fire, but the funnel-mouths and the outer casing of air-like material; and taking this, he arranged it around the creature he had shaped, in the following manner. He let down one of the funnel-mouths into the mouth; and since it is double, he let one part down through the windpipe into the lung, the other beside the windpipe into the stomach. The other funnel-mouth he split, and let each part out in common through the passages of the nose, so that whenever the one through the mouth did not operate, all the currents from that one too would be replenished from this one. The rest of the hollow of the weir he wrapped around all the hollow part of our body, and made it so that this whole mass sometimes flows gently together into the funnel-mouths, being air, and sometimes the funnel-mouths flow back, while the network itself, since the body is porous, sinks in through it and out again, and the rays of fire within, being bound fast to it, follow the air as it goes in either direction—and this, for as long as the mortal living creature holds together, never ceases happening. And it is to this process that the one who assigned the names gave the terms inhalation and exhalation. And all this activity and experience has come to be for our body, so that, being watered and cooled, it might be nourished and live.
TIMAEUS: For whenever, as the breath goes in and out, the fire bound within follows along with it, and being forever suspended, passing in through the stomach, takes hold of the food and drink, it melts them, and dividing them into small portions, conducting them out through the passages by which it travels, draws them off as if from a spring into channels leading to the veins, and sets the streams within the veins running along the body as though along a pipe. Let me turn once more to what happens in breathing, by what causes it operates in the way it now does. It is this way: since there is no void into which anything in motion could enter, and breath moves outward from us, the next point is clear to everyone—that it does not move into a void, but pushes what is next to it out of its place; and what is pushed drives out in turn what is next to it, and by this necessity everything, being driven around, follows the breath into the place from which it came out, entering there and filling it up, and this all happens at once, like a wheel turning, because there is no void anywhere. That is why the chest and the lung, in releasing breath outward, become filled again by the air around the body, which sinks in through the porous flesh and is driven around; and again, as the air turns back and passes out through the body, it forces the inhaled breath back around through the passage of the mouth and nostrils. The cause of the origin of these movements must be posited as follows. Every living creature has its inner parts, around the blood and the veins, hottest, as if it had within itself a kind of spring of fire; and this is what we compared to the weaving of the fish-weir, saying that the whole of it was woven of fire stretched through the middle, and all the other, outer parts, of air. Now it must be agreed that heat naturally moves outward to its own region, toward what is akin to it; and since there are two outlets, one through the body outward, the other in turn through the mouth and nostrils, whenever it rushes toward one, it drives the other around; and what is driven around, falling into the fire, is heated, while what goes out is cooled. And as the heat changes and the parts at the other exit become hotter, the hotter part inclines back that way again, moving toward its own nature, and drives around what is at the other side; and since this experiences the same things and gives back the same things in return always, a circle is thus set swaying this way and that, and it is by both these movements together that inhalation and exhalation are brought about.
TIMAEUS — And indeed the causes of the sensations produced by medical cupping-glasses, and of swallowing, and of things thrown—whatever is released and travels through the air, and whatever moves along the ground—must be traced along these same lines; likewise all the sounds that appear fast or slow, high or low, sometimes discordant because of the dissimilarity of the motion they produce in us, sometimes concordant because of similarity. For the slower sounds, moving after the faster ones, catch up with the motions of those earlier and swifter sounds just as they are dying away and have already arrived at a state similar to their own—and when the slower sounds, arriving later, set those earlier motions moving again, they do not throw in some other, disruptive motion, but rather impose the beginning of a slower movement conforming to the pattern of the faster motion as it fades, and by fitting a likeness onto it, they blend high and low into a single experience. This is what gives pleasure to the unmusical and delight to the musical, through the imitation of divine harmony that comes to exist in mortal movements. And indeed all the flows of water, and further the fall of thunderbolts, and the wonders people marvel at concerning the pull exerted by amber and by the Heraclean stone—not one of these involves any genuine attraction; rather, since there is no such thing as void, and these things push each other around into one another's places, and as they separate and combine each thing shifts to exchange its own seat with another—it is by these interwoven interactions that these apparent wonders will show themselves to anyone who investigates properly. And indeed the phenomenon of breathing, from which our account set out, has come about in just this way and through these same causes, as was said before: fire cuts up the food, and being borne along inside the body in company with the breath, it fills the veins from the belly by drawing up, through this joint motion, the matter that has been cut up there. And this is why, throughout the whole body, in all living things, the streams of nourishment flow in this manner. And these freshly cut portions, being akin to the body—some from fruits, some from greenery, which the god planted for us for this very purpose, to be nourishment—take on all sorts of colors because of their mixture, though the color that runs through them most is red, a nature produced by the cutting and wiping action of fire in moisture.
TIMAEUS — From this comes the color of what flows through the body—the sort of appearance we have described, which we call blood, the nourishment of the flesh and of the whole body; from it, drawing their supply, all the parts fill up whatever space has been emptied. The manner of this filling and depleting occurs just as the motion of everything in the universe occurs, whereby everything akin is borne toward its own kind. For the things surrounding us on the outside are constantly dissolving us and distributing us, sending off to each kindred form what belongs to it, while the blood-filled parts within us, in turn, having been broken into small pieces inside us and enclosed as if beneath a heaven belonging to each living creature, have no choice but to copy how the whole cosmos moves; so each of the divided parts within, moving toward its kindred substance, refills again what has just been emptied. Whenever more flows out than flows in, the whole thing wastes away; whenever less, it grows. Now the newly formed structure of any living creature has the triangles of its elemental kinds still fresh, as it were straight from the keel-blocks, and these triangles are locked tightly together with one another; yet the whole mass of it is compacted soft, since it has only just come from marrow and has been nourished on milk. So the triangles that enter it from outside, contained within the food and drink it takes in, being older and weaker than its own triangles, are overpowered by the new ones, which cut them up, and the creature grows large as it is nourished from many similar particles. But when the root of the triangles slackens, from having fought many contests over a long time against many opponents, then the incoming particles of food can no longer be cut down into a form similar to the body's own, while the body's own triangles are easily divided by those coming in from outside. Every living thing wastes away when overcome in this contest, and this condition is called old age. Finally, when the bonds holding together the triangles around the marrow no longer hold firm under the strain and come apart, they in turn release the bonds of the soul; and the soul, once freed in accordance with nature, flies off with pleasure. For anything contrary to nature is painful, while whatever happens in accordance with nature is pleasant. And death, likewise, when it comes through disease or from wounds, is painful and violent, but the death that comes with old age, reaching its end in accordance with nature, is the least distressing of deaths and comes more with pleasure than with pain.
TIMAEUS — As for where diseases arise from, that, I think, is clear to everyone. Since the body is packed together out of four kinds—fire, water, air, and earth—the unnatural excess or deficiency of these, and the shifting of any of them from its proper region into a foreign one; and further, since fire and the other elements each in fact occur in more than one kind, the taking on by each part of the body of a kind not proper to it, and all such things as these, produce internal conflict and disease. For when each element comes to be, or shifts, contrary to its nature, then whatever was previously cold grows hot, and what is dry later becomes moist, and things become light or heavy, and undergo every sort of change in every direction. For only, we say, when the same thing is added to and taken from the same thing, in the same manner and proportion and in the same respect, will it be allowed to remain itself, safe and healthy; but whatever oversteps this measure in what leaves or enters from outside will produce all sorts of alterations, diseases, and countless forms of decay. Now that a second set of natural compounds has been formed, there is a second level of understanding of diseases available to anyone who wishes to grasp it. For since marrow, bone, flesh, and sinew are compounded from those first elements, and blood too—formed in a different way, but out of the same elements—most of the other diseases arise in the manner described before, but the gravest diseases prove harsh in this way: when the formation of these compounds proceeds in reverse, that is when they are destroyed. For by nature flesh and sinew arise out of blood—sinew out of the fibers, because of its kinship with them, and flesh out of what coagulates when separated from the fibers; and what departs in turn from sinews and flesh, being sticky and oily, both glues the flesh onto the substance of the bones and also nourishes and increases the very bone that surrounds the marrow, while the part filtered through the density of the bones—the purest, smoothest, and oiliest kind of triangles, oozing and dripping from the bones—waters the marrow. And when each of these processes occurs in this way, health generally results; when it happens in the opposite way, disease results. For when flesh, wasting away, sends its wasted matter back into the veins, then blood, together with breath, abundant and of every kind, becomes mottled in the veins with colors and bitternesses, and further with sharp and salty qualities, and takes on bile of all sorts, serous fluids, and phlegms of every kind.
TIMAEUS — For all these substances, having been formed by a reversal and corruption of the process, first destroy the blood itself, and, providing no further nourishment to the body, are carried everywhere through the veins, no longer keeping the order of their natural circuits—hostile to one another, since they get no benefit from each other, and hostile too to the body's constitution, which they remain at war with, destroying it and dissolving it. Now whatever part of the flesh is oldest when it wastes, being hard to digest, turns black from long-standing charring, and because it has been eaten through everywhere, being bitter, it attacks harshly whatever part of the body is not yet corrupted; and sometimes, in place of its bitterness, the black matter takes on a sharp quality, as the bitterness is refined further, while other times the bitterness, dyed by blood, takes on a redder color, and when the black is mixed with this it becomes greenish; and further, a yellow color mixes in with the bitterness when fresh flesh is consumed by the fire around the flame. And the common name for all these substances is one that certain physicians, or perhaps someone capable of seeing, amid many dissimilar things, one single kind present in all of them worthy of a common name, have called bile; while the other kinds of bile, as they are called, have each received their own account according to their color. Serum, meanwhile, is in one form the mild whey of blood, and in another the wild whey of black, sharp bile, when it mixes with a salty quality through heat; and this kind is called sour phlegm. And again, what melts away together with air out of fresh, tender flesh—when this becomes windy and enveloped by moisture, and bubbles form from this condition, invisible individually because of their smallness, but together making a visible mass, having a color that looks white because of the way foam is generated—all this wasting of tender flesh, entangled with breath, we call white phlegm. And of newly forming phlegm, again, the whey is sweat and tears, and all the other bodily fluids of that sort that are discharged daily in the process of purging. All these things have become instruments of disease whenever, rather than being restocked the natural way out of food and drink, the blood builds up its mass from contrary sources, contrary to the laws of nature.
TIMAEUS — Now when each portion of flesh is broken down by disease while its foundations remain, the destructive force is only half as severe, since recovery is still possible with ease; but when the substance that binds flesh to bones falls sick, and no longer, separating itself from fibers and blood, becomes nourishment for bone and a bond for flesh to bone, but instead, from being oily, smooth, and sticky, becomes rough and salty and parched through bad regimen, then all such affected matter crumbles back again beneath the flesh and sinews, pulling away from the bones; and as it falls away from its roots it leaves the sinews bare and full of salt, and falling back in turn into the bloodstream, it increases the number of the diseases already described. And grave as these afflictions of the body are, still graver ones precede them, when the bone, because of the density of the flesh, fails to get sufficient breathing room, and, heated by mold, becomes gangrenous and can no longer take in nourishment, but instead, as it crumbles, sends its own matter in the reverse direction into that same flesh; and the flesh, falling into the blood, makes all the previous diseases rougher still. And worst of all is when the very nature of the marrow falls sick, from deficiency or some excess; this produces the gravest and most decisive of diseases leading to death, since the whole nature of the body is forced to flow in reverse. There is, again, a third kind of disease that must be understood as arising in three ways: from breath, from phlegm, and from bile. Whenever the lung, which is steward of the breath for the body, fails to keep its passages clear, being blocked by discharges, then, since in some places no breath enters while in others more than the proper amount comes in, the parts that get no refreshment putrefy, while other parts, as the breath forces its way violently through the veins and twists them, melt the body and become trapped, enclosed as it takes hold of the midriff; and from these conditions countless painful diseases arise, often accompanied by a great deal of sweating. Often, too, when the flesh is disrupted within the body, breath is generated there and, unable to make its way out, causes the same agonies as the breath that enters from outside—worst of all when it surrounds the sinews and the small veins there, and, swelling up, pulls the tendons and the connected sinews backward so forcefully; and it is from this very straining of the affliction that these diseases have been named tetanus and opisthotonos.
TIMAEUS: For these conditions the remedy is difficult, since fevers, once they set in on top of them, generally resolve them. The white phlegm, because of the breath trapped in its bubbles, is dangerous when shut in, but when it finds vents to the outside of the body it is milder—though it mottles the body, producing white blotches and vitiligo and the diseases akin to these. When mixed with black bile and spread over the circuits in the head—which are the most divine of all—it disturbs them; in sleep this poison is gentler, but when it attacks people who are awake it is harder to shake off. Since it is an affection of what is by nature sacred, it is most justly called the sacred disease. Sharp, salty phlegm is the source of all catarrhal diseases; and because the places into which it flows are so various, it has taken all sorts of names. All the conditions of the body that are called inflammations, from their burning and blazing, arise from bile. When bile finds a vent to the outside, boiling, it sends up all kinds of pustules; but when it is shut in it produces many burning diseases, and the worst of these is when it mixes with pure blood and displaces the fibrous element from its proper arrangement—the fibers that are dispersed throughout the blood so that it may have the right proportion of thinness and thickness, so that it neither flows out like a liquid through the loose flesh of the body because of heat, nor, again, becomes too thick and sluggish to circulate readily in the veins. The fibers preserve the right measure of these things by their very nature; and when someone gathers together the fibers even of blood that is dead and has grown cold, all the rest of the blood disperses, but if they are left alone they quickly congeal it, along with the surrounding cold. Since the fibers have this power within the blood, bile—which is by nature old blood, and has again been dissolved out of the flesh back into this state, hot and moist—when it first falls in little by little, congeals through the power of the fibers; and in congealing, being forcibly quenched, it produces internal chill and trembling.
TIMAEUS: But when bile flows in more abundantly, overpowering the fibers with its own heat and setting them boiling, it shakes them into disorder; and if it manages to prevail to the end, it burns its way through to the marrow and, cutting loose the soul's cables there, as it were the mooring-lines of a ship, sets it free. But when the bile is less, and the body holds out even as it wastes away, the bile itself is overpowered, and either it is expelled over the whole surface of the body, or, forced through the veins into the lower belly or the upper, it gets expelled from the body the way a faction drives a banished man from a rebelling city, producing diarrhea and dysentery and all diseases of that kind. So a body that falls ill chiefly from an excess of fire produces continuous burning and fevers; one that falls ill from air produces quotidian fevers; one from water produces tertian fevers, since water is more sluggish than air or fire; while one from earth, being the most sluggish of the four in the fourth degree, and purged only in periods four times as long, produces quartan fevers, and is released from them only with difficulty. Such, then, is how the diseases of the body come about. As for those of the soul that arise through the condition of the body, they come about in this way. We must grant that disease of the soul is folly, and that there are two kinds of folly: one is madness, the other ignorance. Whatever affection produces either of these in a person must be called a disease; and we must set down excessive pleasures and pains as the greatest of the soul's diseases. For when a man is overjoyed, or conversely suffering under pain, hastening inopportunely to seize the one and to flee the other, he can neither see nor hear anything rightly; he is in a frenzy, and at that moment is least capable of any share in reasoning. And the man in whom seed grows abundant and fluid around the marrow, like a tree bearing more fruit than is proportionate, undergoes many pangs and gains many pleasures, one after another, in his desires and in the offspring of such desires, and becomes for the greater part of his life frenzied because of these extreme pleasures and pains; his body renders his soul diseased and witless, and yet people reckon him not as ailing but as deliberately depraved. But the truth is that licentiousness in matters of sex arises, for the most part, from the condition of a single substance which, through the porousness of the bones, becomes fluid and moistening within the body, and is a disease of the soul. And indeed almost everything that is called incontinence in pleasures, and is reproached as though the wicked did wrong willingly, is not rightly reproached; for no one is willingly wicked, but the bad man becomes bad through some evil condition of the body and an unschooled upbringing—things that are hateful to everyone and come upon him against his will. And again, in the matter of pains too, the soul in the same way acquires much vice on account of the body.
TIMAEUS: For whenever the sharp and salty phlegms, and all the bitter and bilious humors, wander about the body and find no vent outward, but are shut in and mix their vapor with the motion of the soul, blending with it, they produce all sorts of diseases of the soul, more or less severe, more or fewer in number; and carried to the three regions of the soul, whichever region each of them strikes, they produce varied forms of ill temper and despondency of every kind, along with assorted forms of recklessness and timidity, and likewise of poor memory and slowness at learning. Beyond this, when people so badly constituted live under bad political systems, and bad words are spoken among cities both privately and publicly, and further, when from childhood on no studies capable of curing these ills are learned, it is in this way that all of us who are bad become so through two causes entirely beyond our will; and the blame for this must be laid on the begetters more than the begotten, and on those who raise more than those who are raised. Still, one must strive, so far as one is able, through upbringing and through pursuits and studies, to escape vice and to lay hold of its opposite. But this belongs to another kind of discourse. Now the converse of this, the treatment of bodies and minds by which they are preserved, it is fitting and proper to give in return, since it is more just to give an account of good things than of bad. Everything good is beautiful, and the beautiful is not without proportion; so a living creature that is to be such must be set down as well-proportioned. Now we perceive small instances of proportion and reason about them, but the most sovereign and greatest instances we treat without reasoning at all. For with regard to health and disease, and virtue and vice, no proportion or disproportion is greater than that between the soul itself and the body itself; yet we give no thought to this and take no notice of it—that whenever a strong and altogether great soul is carried by a weaker and lesser bodily form, or when, conversely, the two are joined together the other way about, the whole living creature is not beautiful, for it is out of proportion in the most important proportions of all; whereas the creature in the opposite condition is, to one able to behold it, the most beautiful and lovely of all sights. Just as a body that is disproportionately long in the leg, or has some other excess out of measure, is at once unsightly, and also, in the exertions it must share, produces much fatigue and many cramps and falls through its lack of balance, causing itself countless troubles—
TIMAEUS: the same must be thought true of the combination of the two we call a living creature: whenever the soul within it, being stronger than the body, is overly spirited, it shakes the whole body through from within and fills it with diseases; and whenever it pursues some course of learning or inquiry too intensely, it wastes the body away; and again, when it engages in teaching and disputation in public and in private through arguments carried on in strife and rivalry, it sets the body ablaze and shakes it loose, and by inducing discharges it deceives most so-called physicians into blaming the wrong causes. And conversely, when a body too big and too powerful for its soul is yoked to a slight and feeble intelligence—since there are by nature two kinds of desire in human beings, one for food on account of the body, the other for wisdom on account of what is most divine in us—the motions of the stronger part prevail and, increasing what belongs to themselves, make the soul's part dull, slow to learn, and forgetful, and so bring about the greatest disease of all, ignorance. There is one safeguard against both these dangers: neither to move the soul without the body, nor the body without the soul, so that, each defending against the other, they may become evenly balanced and healthy. So the man who is working hard at mathematics or any other intense study of the mind must also give his body its due exercise by taking part in gymnastics; and the man who is carefully molding his body must in turn render to the soul the motions proper to it, by cultivating music and philosophy in every form, if he is to be rightly called at once beautiful and good. And these same parts of the body must be looked after in the same way, in imitation of the form of the universe as a whole. For since the body is heated and cooled within by the things that enter it, and again dried and moistened by things from outside, and undergoes the consequent effects from both these kinds of motion, then, whenever a person surrenders his body to these motions in a state of rest, it is overpowered and perishes; but if a person imitates that which we called the nurse and wet-nurse of the universe, and above all never allows the body to remain at rest, but keeps it moving and by constantly producing certain tremors in it wards off, in accordance with nature, the internal and external motions, and by shaking it in due measure brings into orderly arrangement, according to their affinities, the affections and parts that wander about the body—following the account we gave earlier concerning the universe as a whole—then he will not allow enemy to be set beside enemy and breed wars and diseases in the body, but will bring about health by setting friend beside friend.
TIMAEUS: Now among motions, the finest is the kind a thing sets going in itself by its own agency, since it bears the closest kinship to the movement of intellect and to that of the cosmos; motion produced by another is worse; and worst of all is that which, while the body lies still and at rest, moves it part by part by means of something else. Therefore, of the modes of purifying and restoring the body, the best is that through exercise; second is that through swaying motions, as in sailing or in any other conveyance that produces no fatigue; and a third kind of motion, useful only on occasion of great necessity but otherwise never to be accepted by a sensible person, is the medical purging brought about by drugs. For diseases that do not carry great dangers should not be provoked by medications; since every constitution of diseases bears some resemblance to the nature of living creatures. For the composition of a living being has, in a sense, fixed periods of life allotted to it, both for the species as a whole and for each individual creature, which grows with its own destined span of life, apart from those sufferings that come by necessity; for the triangles, from the very beginning, are constituted with a power in each case sufficient to last only up to a certain time, beyond which no one could ever continue to live. The same holds true of the constitution of diseases; whenever someone destroys this, in defiance of its destined time, by means of drugs, then diseases that were small and few tend to become great and many. Hence one must manage all such conditions, so far as one has the leisure to do so, by regimen, rather than provoke a troublesome evil by drugging it. Concerning the living creature as a common whole, then, and the bodily part of it, and the way in which a person might best live according to reason, both training and being trained by himself, let this be said. But that which is to do the training, the soul itself, must be prepared beforehand, and with even greater priority, to be as excellent and as fair as possible for its task of training. To go through these matters with precision would in itself be work enough for a treatise on its own; but as a subordinate matter, following the plan we have kept to so far, one might not be out of place in bringing the discussion to a close in this way, as follows.
TIMAEUS — As we've said many times, three kinds of soul are settled in us, in three regions, and each has its own motions. So now too, as briefly as possible, we must say this: whichever part lives in idleness and keeps its own motions still is bound to become weakest, while the part that gets exercise becomes strongest. That's why we must watch that their motions stay in due proportion to one another. As for the ruling kind of soul in us, we should think of it this way: god has given it to each of us as a guiding spirit — this thing that we say lives in the topmost part of our body and lifts us up from earth toward our kinship in heaven, since we are a plant not of earth but of heaven. And that's exactly right, for it is from there, from the place where the soul first came to be, that the divine suspends our head and root and keeps our whole body upright. So for a person absorbed in appetites or rivalries, working hard at those alone, all his convictions are bound to become mortal, and insofar as it's possible at all for a human being to become wholly mortal, he falls short of that not even a little, since it's exactly this side of himself he's built up. But for the person who has devoted himself to the love of learning and to true understanding, and who has exercised this part of himself above all, it's entirely necessary, if he lays hold of truth, that he think immortal and divine thoughts — and insofar as human nature admits a share in immortality, he leaves no part of that behind; and since he's always caring for the divine and keeps in good order the guiding spirit that lives within him, he is happy beyond the ordinary measure. And the one care that fits every part of us is this: to give each part the nourishment and the motions proper to it. Now the movements that are kindred to the divine element in us are the universe's own reasonings and orbits. Those are what every one of us ought to follow, setting right the circuits in our head that were thrown out of order at our birth, by coming to know the cosmos's harmonies and circling paths — and so rendering the understanding part like the thing it understands, following our original nature, and by so likening it, achieving the goal of the best life the gods have set before human beings, both for the present and for time to come. And with that, the task set for us from the start — to give an account of the universe up to the birth of human beings — has, I think, pretty much reached its end. As for how the other animals came to be, that needs only brief mention, nothing that requires dwelling on at length; that way a person may seem to himself to have kept fair proportion in his account of these matters. So let this be said on the subject.
TIMAEUS — Of the men who were born, all those who were cowards and spent their lives unjustly were, by all reasonable account, changed into women at the second birth. And it was at that very time, for this reason, that the gods devised the desire that belongs to sexual union, fashioning one living thing, ensouled, in us, and another in women, making each of them in the following way. The channel for drink — by which the drink, passing through the lung under the kidneys into the bladder, is pressed by the breath and expelled along with it — they bored through so as to connect it to the marrow that runs, compacted, from the head down the neck and through the spine, the very thing we earlier called seed. And this marrow, being ensouled and having gained a means of breathing, implanted in that very place where it breathes a living desire for outflow, and so brought about the desire for begetting. This is why, in men, the part concerned with the genitals has become disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that will not listen to reason, and through its raging desires tries to master everything. And likewise in women, what are called the womb and matrix, for these same reasons, contain a creature desirous of childbearing; and whenever it goes unfruited for a long time past its season, it grows distressed and bears this badly, and wandering all through the body, blocking the passages of breath, not allowing respiration, it throws the body into the extremest straits and produces all sorts of other diseases — until the desire and love of each sex, drawing them together, as if plucking fruit from trees, sow into the womb, as into a plowed field, living things invisible for their smallness and still unformed, and then, separating them out again, nourish them within to a great size, and after that bring them to light and complete the birth of living creatures. This, then, is how women and the whole female sex came to be. And the tribe of birds was transformed, growing feathers instead of hair, out of men who were harmless but light-headed, men who studied the heavens but in their simplicity thought that the surest proofs about such things came through sight. The land-dwelling, wild-animal kind, in turn, came from men who made no use whatsoever of philosophy and gave no thought at all to the nature of the heavens, because they no longer made use of the circuits in the head but instead followed the parts of the soul around the chest as their guides.
TIMAEUS — From these habits of life, then, their forelimbs and heads were dragged down to the earth and fixed there by kinship with it, and their crowns were drawn out long and took on all sorts of shapes, depending on how each one's revolutions were squeezed together through disuse. It's from this cause that their kind grew four-footed and many-footed, god setting more feet under the more mindless ones, so that they might be drawn even more toward the earth. And the most mindless of these, those whose whole body is stretched out flat against the earth as though there were no further need of feet, these the gods bred footless, writhing along the ground. The fourth kind came to live in water, born from those who were the most thoughtless and ignorant of all — creatures whose remolders no longer thought them worthy even of pure breath, on the grounds that their soul was made impure by every kind of transgression; so instead of fine, pure air to breathe, they were thrust into water, to draw a murky, deep sort of breath there. From this came the tribe of fish, and that of shellfish, and all the other creatures that live in water, having been allotted, as the penalty for their utter ignorance, the most degraded dwellings of all. And it is according to these same principles that, both then and now, living things pass back and forth into one another, changing as they lose or gain understanding or its lack. And so let us now say that our account of the universe has, at last, reached its end. For having taken in mortal and immortal living things and been filled up in this way, this world has come to be a visible living thing containing the visible things within it, an image of the intelligible, a perceptible god, greatest and best, most beautiful and most complete — this one heaven, being of a single kind, having come into being.
TIMAEUS: How gladly, Socrates, I now find myself released from this long journey of argument, like a traveler resting at last. And to that god who existed long ago in deed, but has just now come into being in our speech, I offer this prayer: that for whatever we have said rightly he grant us the preservation of it, and if we have said anything about him unwillingly out of tune, that he impose the fitting penalty. And the right penalty for one who strikes a false note is to be brought back into harmony. So that we may henceforth speak correctly about the birth of the gods, we ask him to give us knowledge, the most complete and best of remedies. Having prayed, we now hand over the argument to Critias, as we agreed, to continue. CRITIAS: Well, Timaeus, I accept it, but the same plea you made at the outset, asking indulgence since you were about to speak of great matters, I now make again for myself, and indeed I think I deserve to receive it in even greater measure, given what I am about to say.
CRITIAS: And yet I know pretty well that what I am about to ask forgiveness for is rather too ambitious, even ill-mannered for the occasion, but it must be said all the same. Who in his right mind would try to argue that what you have said was not said well? But that what is about to be said needs even more indulgence, since it is more difficult, this I must try somehow to show. Speaking about the gods to human beings, Timaeus, seems easier to bring off convincingly than speaking about mortal things to us. For the inexperience and sheer ignorance of an audience about matters they know nothing of gives great freedom to anyone who means to speak about them, and we know exactly how we stand regarding the gods. But to make what I mean clearer, follow me this way. Everything said by any of us must, I suppose, amount to imitation and representation. Consider then the image-making of painters, when they represent divine and human bodies, how easy or difficult it is to satisfy viewers that they have imitated well enough. We will see that in the case of earth, mountains, rivers, forest, and the whole sky with everything moving in it, we are content, first, if someone is able to reproduce even a small resemblance of them, and further, since we have no exact knowledge of such things, we neither examine nor test what is painted, but make do with a vague and misleading sketch of them. But when someone attempts to depict our own human bodies, we notice sharply what is left out, because of our constant familiarity with them, and we become harsh critics of anyone who fails to render every last likeness. We must recognize the same thing happening in speeches: we are satisfied with accounts of heavenly and divine things even when only slightly plausible, but we scrutinize mortal and human things with precision. So if, speaking on the spur of the moment now, we cannot render everything fittingly, you must forgive us; for mortal things are not easy but difficult to represent to your satisfaction, and that is how you should think of it.
CRITIAS: Wanting to remind you of this, Socrates, and asking not less but more indulgence for what is about to be said, I have said all this. If it seems to you that I ask for this gift justly, grant it willingly. SOCRATES: Why should we not grant it, Critias? And let this same gift be given, as a third installment, by us to Hermocrates as well. For it's clear that shortly, when his turn comes to speak, he will ask the same indulgence you have. So that he may find a fresh opening and not be forced to repeat the same one, let him assume the forgiveness is already his when the time comes, and speak accordingly. I warn you now, dear Critias, of how the audience will take it: the poet who went before you was remarkably well received by them, so you will need a very great deal of indulgence if you are to be able to take up the subject after him. HERMOCRATES: You are giving me, Socrates, the very same warning you give him. But men who lose heart, Critias, have never yet raised a victory trophy. So you must go forward into your speech bravely, and calling upon Paian and the Muses, show forth and celebrate the ancient citizens as the good men they were. CRITIAS: Dear Hermocrates, stationed as you are in the rear rank with another before you, you can still afford courage. How this will actually go, the event itself will soon show you. Still, I must be persuaded by your comfort and encouragement, and besides the gods you named, I must call on the others, and especially Memory. For nearly everything of greatest importance in our account depends on this goddess. If we can recall and report adequately what was once told by the priests and brought here by Solon, I am fairly confident we will seem to this audience to have discharged our task reasonably well. So this must now be done, and no more delay. First of all, let us recall that the sum total was nine thousand years since the war was reported to have occurred between those who dwelt beyond the Pillars of Heracles and all who dwelt within, a war we must now trace through. Of the one side, this very city was said to have led and fought the whole war through; of the other side, the kings of the island of Atlantis, which we said was once larger than Libya and Asia together, but now, sunk by earthquakes, has left an impassable mud that blocks any who sail out from here into the open sea, so that no one can pass through any longer.
CRITIAS: The many barbarian peoples, and whatever Greek nations existed then, our account will reveal each in turn as the story unwinds and comes upon them. But the Athenians of that time and their opponents, whom they fought, we must first go through at the outset, describing the power and constitution of each. Of these it is right to give precedence to our own side. Long ago the gods divided up the whole earth among themselves by region, not through strife, for it would not be reasonable to suppose the gods ignorant of what was fitting for each of them, or that, knowing what was more properly another's, they would try to seize it for themselves through quarreling. Receiving their fair portions by the allotments of justice, they settled the various lands, and having settled them, they reared us, their own possessions and creatures, as a shepherd tends his flock, though not by forcing bodies with bodies as herdsmen drive their cattle with blows, but guiding the most tractable part of the living creature from the stern, as with a rudder, laying hold of the soul by persuasion according to their own purpose, and so steering and guiding the whole mortal race. Different gods, then, took charge and ordered their own regions in different places; but Hephaestus and Athena, sharing a common nature, both as sister and brother from the same father and as united in their love of wisdom and love of craft, both received this land as their single common portion, since it was naturally suited to virtue and wisdom, and being their own. Making good men to spring from its very soil, they set in their minds the order of a constitution. Of these men the names have been preserved, but their deeds have vanished, owing to the destructions suffered by those who came after and the length of the ages. For the race that always survived was left, as was said before, in the mountains, illiterate, having heard only the names of the rulers in the land and a little of their deeds besides. So they gave these names fondly to their children, but knew nothing of the virtues and laws of those who came before, except for some dim and scattered reports about each, and being themselves in want of life's necessities for many generations, and their children after them, having their minds fixed on what they lacked, they made their conversation about these needs, and neglected what had happened long before, in earlier times.
CRITIAS: For storytelling about the past and inquiry into antiquity come to cities together with leisure, and only once people see that the necessities of life have already been secured for some, not before. This is how the names of the ancients, without their deeds, have been preserved. I say this, inferring it from the fact that Solon said the priests, in recounting that war, mentioned most of the names we still remember from before the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, Erechtheus, Erichthonius, Erysichthon, and the rest, applying these names mostly to the deeds of those ancient men, and likewise with the names of the women. And indeed the figure and image of the goddess, since warfare was then a shared practice for both women and men alike, shows that in accordance with that custom the goddess was dedicated armed, as a sign to those of that time that every kind of creature living together, whether female or male, is naturally capable of practicing in common the excellence proper to its kind. Now at that time the other classes of citizens in this land were occupied with crafts and with the produce of the earth, but the warrior class had been set apart from the beginning by godlike men and lived separately, having everything needed for their upbringing and education, none of them possessing anything private, but considering everything common to all of them, and claiming nothing beyond sufficient sustenance from the rest of the citizens, and practicing all the customs described yesterday concerning our proposed guardians. And indeed what was said about our land was plausible and true: first, that its boundaries at that time reached to the Isthmus, and on the mainland side extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron and Parnes, the boundary descending with Oropia on the right and marking off the Asopus on the left toward the sea; and that in excellence it surpassed every other land, so that it was able at that time to support a great army, exempt from the labors of the soil.
CRITIAS: And here is great evidence of its excellence: what remains of it now can rival any land for yielding every kind of produce and abundant grazing for all creatures. But then, besides its beauty, it bore these things in vast quantity. How can this be believed, and in what sense could what remains rightly be called a remnant of that land? The whole of it juts out from the rest of the continent far into the sea like a headland, and the basin of the sea around it happens to be everywhere deep close to shore. Since then many great floods have occurred in the nine thousand years, for that is the number of years since that time to now, the soil in these times and disasters, flowing down from the heights, has not built up any noteworthy deposit as in other places, but has been carried around in a circle and disappeared into the depths. What is left, then, as happens on small islands, is like the bones of a body wasted by disease compared to what was there before, the rich soft earth having all washed away and only the thin frame of the land remaining. But at that time, being undamaged, it had high hills where there is now bare rock, and what are now called stony plains were then full of rich soil, and it had abundant timber in its mountains, of which clear evidence remains even now. For there are mountains that today provide sustenance for nothing but bees, but it is not so very long ago that timbers cut from trees there, grown for roofing the largest buildings, still stand sound. And there were many other tall cultivated trees as well, and the land bore boundless pasture for cattle. And moreover it enjoyed the yearly rainfall from Zeus, not lost as now by running off the bare earth into the sea, but received in abundance into the soil itself, stored up in a layer of clay that held it, releasing the water absorbed from the heights into the hollows, and so supplying every region with generous springs and rivers, of which even now, at what were once their sources, sacred shrines remain as evidence that what is now said about the land is true. This, then, is how the rest of the country naturally stood, and it had been arranged as one would expect by farmers who were true to their calling and devoted to it alone, lovers of beauty and naturally gifted, possessing the best soil, the most abundant water, and above the land the most temperate climate. And the city was settled in that time in the following way.
CRITIAS: First, the Acropolis was not then as it is now. As things stand today, a single night of extraordinary rain has stripped it bare, washing away its soil, when earthquakes struck together with a monstrous flood of water — the third such disaster before the one in Deucalion's time. But in that earlier age, in a different time altogether, it was large, reaching out to the Eridanus and the Ilissus, and enclosing within itself the Pnyx, with Lycabettus as its boundary on the side opposite the Pnyx; the whole of it was covered in soil and, apart from a small part, flat on top. The outer slopes, just below its edges, were inhabited by the craftsmen and by those farmers who worked the neighboring land; but the upper part was occupied by the warrior class alone, settled by itself around the sanctuary of Athena and Hephaestus, as if it were the single garden of a single house, all enclosed within one wall. On the northern side they had built common dwellings and winter mess-halls, along with everything else needed for their communal way of life in the way of buildings and temples — but none of it in gold or silver, for they made no use of those metals anywhere; instead, aiming for a mean between extravagance and meanness, they built themselves modest houses, in which they and their children's children grew old together and handed the same houses down, generation after generation, to others just like themselves. On the southern side, they gave up their gardens, gymnasia, and mess-halls for summer use, and made use of the space for those purposes instead. There was a single spring where the Acropolis now stands; it was quenched by the earthquakes, and only small trickles remain scattered around it today, but back then it supplied all of them with abundant water, being well-tempered for both winter and summer. In this fashion they lived, guardians of their own citizens and, by the citizens' willing consent, leaders of the rest of the Greeks, always taking the greatest care to keep their numbers — men and women alike, those still fit to bear arms and those not yet — constant across time, at around twenty thousand in all. Such, then, were these people, and in some such manner did they govern, with justice, both their own land and the whole of Greece; and throughout Europe and Asia they were renowned and celebrated above all others of that time for the beauty of their bodies and for every kind of excellence of soul. As for those who made war against them, and how that war began — provided our memory does not fail us of what we heard as children — we will now set it out in full and share it with all of you, our friends, as common property.
CRITIAS: There is one more thing I should explain before I go on, so that you won't be puzzled at hearing so many Greek names attached to foreign men — you'll learn the reason for it. Solon, since he intended to make use of the story in his own poetry, inquired carefully into the meaning of the names, and found that the Egyptians who first wrote them down had translated them into their own language; he in turn took the sense of each name and rendered it into our language as he wrote it out. These very writings were kept by my grandfather, and are still in my possession today, and I studied them closely as a boy. So if you hear names of the sort used here, let there be no wonder in it — you now know the reason. The long story, as it was told then, began roughly as follows. As was said earlier concerning the allotment of the gods, how they divided the whole earth among themselves, some receiving larger portions and others smaller, and set up temples and sacrifices for themselves — in just this way Poseidon, having received the island of Atlantis as his portion, settled there the children he had fathered on a mortal woman, in a certain part of the island of the following kind. Facing the sea, but at the center of the whole island, there lay a plain said to be the most beautiful and fertile of all plains; and near the middle of that plain, about fifty stades inland, stood a low hill. On this hill lived one of the men born there in the earliest days from the earth itself, named Evenor, who dwelt there with his wife Leucippe; they had a single daughter, Cleito. When the girl had reached marriageable age, her mother and father died, and Poseidon, falling in love with her, had union with her. He took the hill where she had lived and fortified it, cutting it off all around, forming alternating rings of sea and land encircling one another, smaller and larger by turns — two of land and three of sea — as if turning them on a lathe from the center of the island, each ring equally distant from the next, so that no man could reach it, for ships and sailing did not yet exist. He himself, being a god, readily adorned the island at its center, bringing up two springs of water from below the earth — one warm, and a separate cold one flowing from a spring — and bringing forth from the earth every kind of nourishment, abundant and various.
CRITIAS: He fathered five pairs of male twins and raised them, and having divided the whole island of Atlantis into ten parts, he gave to the firstborn of the eldest pair his mother's dwelling and the surrounding allotment, the largest and best of all, and made him king over the rest; the others he made rulers as well, giving each one authority over many people and a large territory to govern. He gave names to them all: to the eldest, the king, he gave the name from which the whole island and the surrounding sea took their title — called Atlantic — because the first king's name at that time was Atlas. To the twin born next after him, who received as his portion the outer end of the island toward the Pillars of Heracles, facing the region now called the land of Gadeira, named after that place, he gave the name Eumelus in Greek, and in the native tongue Gadeirus, which is presumably the origin of that region's name. Of the second pair, he named one Ampheres and the other Evaemon; of the third pair, the elder was named Mneseus, and the one after him Autochthon; of the fourth pair, the elder was Elasippus, the younger Mestor; and of the fifth pair, the elder was named Azaes, and the younger Diaprepes. All these men, and their descendants after them, ruled for many generations, holding power over many other islands throughout that sea, and also, as was said before, over the peoples within the strait as far as Egypt and Tyrrhenia. Now Atlas fathered a great and honored line, and the eldest king always passed the kingship down to the eldest of his descendants, preserving it through many generations, having amassed wealth so vast that no dynasty of kings had ever possessed the like before, nor is it likely that any ever will again; and they had everything prepared for them that it was possible to provide, both in the city and throughout the rest of the land. Much flowed to them from abroad because of their power, but the island itself supplied most of what was needed for daily life — first, all the solid and fusible materials that can be dug from mines, including that metal which is now only a name but was then something more, the ore called orichalcum, dug up in many parts of the island, and at that time valued above everything except gold. It also provided, in abundance, all the timber needed for the work of carpenters, and pastured a sufficient number of tame and wild animals of every kind.
CRITIAS: And indeed there was on it a very great number of elephants; for there was ample grazing land for all the other creatures too, whether they lived in marshes, lakes, and rivers, or roamed the mountains and the plains, and likewise for this animal, the largest and hungriest of all. Besides this, whatever fragrant things the earth produces even today — roots, grasses, trees, or oozing saps, whether from flowers or fruits — the island bore all these and nourished them well; and also the cultivated crop, the dry grain that serves us for food, and those other plants we use alongside grain, all of whose kinds we call by the single name pulses; and the tree-fruit, which provides drink and food and oils; the fruit of the orchard trees, hard to store, grown for pleasure and amusement; and all the after-dinner treats we set out as welcome relief for a person who has had enough — all of these that island, then lying beneath the sun, brought forth in sacred, beautiful, and wondrous abundance without limit. Taking all these things from the earth, they built their temples, royal dwellings, harbors, and shipyards, and furnished the whole rest of the country, arranging it in the following order. First they bridged over the rings of sea that surrounded the ancient mother-city, building a road out from the palace and toward it. They had built the palace, right from the beginning, within this very dwelling place of the god and their ancestors; and each ruler, receiving it from the one before, added his own adornments to what was already adorned, always trying to outdo his predecessor as far as he could, until they had made the dwelling a thing to marvel at for the size and beauty of its work. Beginning from the sea, they cut a canal three hundred feet wide, one hundred feet deep, and fifty stades long, all the way through to the outermost ring, so as to make it into a harbor by allowing ships to sail up from the sea to that ring, and they cut its mouth wide enough for the largest ships to sail through. And they also cut passages through the rings of land that separated the rings of sea, at the points of the bridges, wide enough for a single trireme to pass from one to the next, and roofed these passages over so that the water flowed beneath; for the banks of the land-rings rose well above the level of the sea. The largest of the rings, into which the sea had been cut through, was three stades wide, and the land-ring next to it was equal to it in width; of the second pair, the ring of water was two stades wide, and the ring of land again equal to the water-ring before it; and the ring running around the central island itself was one stade wide.
CRITIAS: The island on which the palace stood had a diameter of five stades. This island, together with the rings of water and land and the bridge — which was a plethron wide — they enclosed all around with a stone wall, setting towers and gates at every point where the bridges crossed the water. They quarried the stone from beneath the central island itself and from the outer and inner sides of the rings — some white, some black, and some red — and as they quarried, they hollowed out at the same time double docks roofed over with the living rock. Of their buildings, some were plain, but in others they wove together stones of different colors for pleasure's sake, giving themselves an enjoyment that came naturally with the work. The entire circuit of the wall around the outermost ring they overlaid with bronze, applying it like a coat of paint; the wall of the inner ring they coated with tin; and the wall around the Acropolis itself with orichalcum, which flashed with a fiery gleam. The palace within the Acropolis was arranged as follows. At its center stood a holy sanctuary, forbidden to enter, dedicated to Cleito and Poseidon, enclosed by a wall of gold — this was the very place where the race of the ten royal lines had first been conceived and born; and here, every year, from all ten territories they brought offerings in their season for each of those ancestors. There was also a temple of Poseidon himself, a stade in length, three hundred feet wide, and proportionate in height to match, though with something of a foreign look to it. The whole exterior of the temple they coated with silver, except for the figures at its peaks, which were of gold. Inside, the ceiling was entirely of ivory, adorned throughout with gold, silver, and orichalcum, while all the rest — the walls, columns, and floor — they covered with orichalcum. They set up golden statues: the god himself standing on a chariot, driving six winged horses, so large that his head touched the ceiling above; and around him a hundred Nereids riding on dolphins, for that was thought to be their number in those days; and many other statues stood within as well, offerings from private citizens. Around the outside of the temple stood golden images of all the kings and their wives, descended from the ten original rulers, along with many other great offerings from kings and private citizens alike, both from the city itself and from all the lands under its rule.
CRITIAS: The altar matched this scale and workmanship in its size, and the palace too was fitted both to the greatness of the empire and to the splendor fitting for the temples. As for the springs — the cold one and the warm one — they had an inexhaustible supply, and the water of each was wonderfully suited by its pleasantness and its quality to its particular use. They built around them, setting up structures and plantings of trees suited to the waters, and also basins, some open to the sky, others roofed over for warm baths in winter — separate ones for the kings, separate ones for private citizens, and still others for the women, and others again for the horses and other beasts of burden, each fitted out appropriately for its use. The overflow they channeled to the grove of Poseidon, where trees of every kind grew to a marvelous height and beauty because of the richness of the soil, and from there they led it through conduits to the outer rings, crossing the bridges. There many temples had been built for many gods, and many gardens and many gymnasiums — some for men, some for horses, laid out separately on each of the two ring-islands — and in particular, at the center of the larger island, a racetrack had been set aside for them, a stadium wide, and its whole length ran around the circle, left open for the horses to race in. On either side of it stood barracks for the great number of the royal guard; the more trusted of them were stationed on garrison duty on the smaller ring, which lay closer to the acropolis, while those judged most trustworthy of all had dwellings assigned to them within the acropolis itself, around the persons of the kings. The dockyards were full of triremes and all the equipment triremes need, all of it well supplied. Such, then, was the arrangement around the dwelling of the kings. Crossing the three outer harbors, beginning from the sea, one came upon a wall running in a circle, everywhere fifty stadia distant from the largest ring and harbor, and it closed in upon itself at the mouth of the canal that opened to the sea. The whole of this space was thickly settled with many dwellings, and the channel and the great harbor teemed with ships and merchants arriving from every quarter, so many that by day and by night there rose from their multitude a great confusion of voices, noise, and clatter.
CRITIAS: So much, then, for the city and the region around the ancient dwelling, recalled now much as it was described then. As for the rest of the country, I must try to recall what its natural character was and how it was arranged. To begin with, the whole region was said to be very high and to fall steeply to the sea, but the area around the city was all plain, itself enclosed in a ring by mountains that ran down all the way to the sea — smooth and level, and oblong altogether, three thousand stadia long on one side, and two thousand from the sea up to the middle on the other. This whole area faced south, on that side of the island, and was sheltered from the north winds. The mountains surrounding it were celebrated in those days as surpassing in number, size, and beauty all that exist now, containing within them many wealthy villages of country folk, and rivers, lakes, and meadows providing ample fodder for every kind of animal, tame and wild, and timber abundant and varied both in quantity and in kind, sufficient for every use and every need. Such was the plain, shaped as it was by nature and worked further over a long time by many kings. It was, to begin with, four-sided, mostly straight-edged and oblong, and where it fell short of this a ditch had been dug around it to correct the shape. As for the depth, width, and length of this ditch, they seem past believing for a work made by hand, on top of all the other labors — but I must tell what we were told. It had been dug to a depth of a plethron, and its width was uniformly one stadium, and since it was dug around the whole plain, it worked out to a length of ten thousand stadia. It received the streams flowing down from the mountains, and circling around the plain and reaching the city from both directions, it was there let out to flow into the sea. From its upper part canals about a hundred feet wide were cut straight through the plain and led back again into the ditch on the seaward side, each one spaced a hundred stadia from the next. Through these they brought down the timber from the mountains to the city, and carried other seasonal produce by boat as well, cutting cross-channels from one canal to another and toward the city. And they harvested the land twice a year, using the rains from Zeus in winter, and in summer drawing on the water brought in from the canals to nourish whatever the earth produces.
CRITIAS: As for numbers — the men in the plain fit for war were organized so that each allotment supplied one man as a commanding officer, the size of each allotment being ten by ten stadia, and the allotments together numbered sixty thousand. As for those from the mountains and the rest of the country, their number was said to be beyond counting, and all of them were assigned, by district and village, to these allotments under their respective commanders. Each commander was required to furnish for war a sixth part of a war chariot, so as to make up ten thousand chariots in all, plus two horses and their riders, and in addition a pair of horses without a chariot, along with a combat rider bearing a small shield and a charioteer to manage the pair mounted behind the two riders; also two hoplites, and two archers and two slingers each; three light-armed stone-throwers and three javelin-throwers each; and four sailors, to help crew twelve hundred ships. Such was the war-organization of the royal city; the other nine cities were organized differently, each in its own way, which would take too long to tell. As for the offices and honors, they had been arranged from the beginning as follows. Each of the ten kings ruled, within his own portion and over his own city, the men and most of the laws, punishing and putting to death whomever he wished. But their rule over one another and their partnership followed the instructions of Poseidon, as the law had handed down to them and as was inscribed by the first kings on a pillar of orichalc, which stood at the center of the island in the temple of Poseidon. There they gathered every fifth year, and alternately every sixth, giving equal weight to the even and the odd, and when they were gathered they deliberated on matters of common concern, examined whether anyone had transgressed, and passed judgment. And whenever they were about to pass judgment, they first gave one another pledges of the following kind. With bulls running loose in the temple of Poseidon, the ten kings, left alone together, prayed to the god to help them catch the victim pleasing to him, and hunted the bulls with clubs and nooses alone, without iron; and whichever bull they caught, they led up to the pillar and slaughtered over its top, upon the inscription. And on the pillar, besides the laws, there was an oath calling down great curses upon those who disobeyed.
CRITIAS: So then, when they had sacrificed according to their own laws and were consecrating all the limbs of the bull, they mixed a bowl of wine and cast in a clot of blood for each king, and carried the rest to the fire, after first cleansing the pillar all around. Then, drawing wine from the bowl in golden cups, they poured a libation over the fire and swore an oath to give judgment according to the laws written on the pillar, and to punish anyone found to have transgressed them before, and thereafter never willingly to transgress any of the writings themselves, nor to rule or to obey a ruler except in accordance with the laws of their father. Each of them, having made this prayer for himself and his line, drank, and dedicated his cup in the temple of the god, then spent the time until dinner and other necessities. When darkness had come and the fire around the sacrifice had cooled, all of them put on the most beautiful dark-blue robes they had and sat on the ground by the embers of the oath-sacrifices, by night, extinguishing every fire around the temple, and there they were judged and gave judgment on any charge one might bring against another for transgression. And when judgment had been given, at daybreak they wrote the verdicts on a golden tablet and set it up as a memorial along with their robes. There were many other laws particular to the privileges of each of the kings, but the greatest were these: never to take up arms against one another, and all to come to the aid of any one of them if someone in any of the cities attempted to overthrow the royal line; and to deliberate in common, as their forefathers had, on matters of war and other undertakings, granting the leadership to the line of Atlas. And no king was to have power of death over any of his kinsmen unless more than half of the ten agreed. Such was the great power that existed then in that region, which the god arranged and brought to bear upon these regions here, for some such reason as the following, so the story goes. For many generations, so long as the god's nature was enough to sustain them, they were obedient to the laws and kindly disposed toward the divine to which they were akin.
CRITIAS: For they possessed true and, in every way, great-souled thoughts, using gentleness joined with wisdom both toward the fortunes that continually befell them and toward one another, and so, judging everything except virtue to be of little account, they thought lightly of their present prosperity and bore the weight of gold and their other possessions as a mere burden — they were not intoxicated by luxury, nor did they lose mastery of themselves through wealth and stumble because of it, but soberly and clearly they saw that all these things too grow through common friendship joined with virtue, while by eager pursuit of possessions and by honoring them, both these very things and the friendship perish along with them. By reasoning of this kind, and while their divine nature remained undiminished, everything grew for them as we have already described. But when the portion of the god within them began to grow faint, worn thin by repeated mixture with much that was mortal, and the human temperament gained mastery, then, no longer able to bear their prosperity, they began to behave shamefully, and to one who could see clearly they appeared base, since they were destroying what was most admirable among the things they held most precious; while to those unable to see what a truly happy life is, they seemed at that very time to be supremely beautiful and blessed, filled as they were with unjust greed and power. And Zeus, god of gods, ruling by law, since he could discern such things clearly, took note of this once-decent race now wretchedly disposed, and, wishing to inflict punishment on them so that, chastened, they might become more measured, gathered all the gods together into their most honored dwelling, which stands at the center of the whole universe and looks down upon all things that share in becoming, and having assembled them, he said—