Book II

Glaucon Renews the Argument: Three Kinds of Good

Now when I had said this, I thought I was done with the argument; but that was, it seems, only a prelude. For Glaucon, as it happens, is always the most courageous of men in every matter, and on that occasion too he would not accept Thrasymachus's withdrawal, but said: Socrates, do you want merely to seem to have persuaded us, or truly to persuade us, that it is in every way better to be just than unjust?

Truly, I said, I would choose that, if it were up to me.

Then you are not doing what you want, he said. Tell me this: does it seem to you that there is a good of this sort — one we would want to have not because we desire its consequences, but because we welcome it for its own sake, such as feeling joy, and all the pleasures that are harmless, and because of which nothing else comes about in the time that follows, beyond the enjoyment of having them?

Yes, I said, it seems to me that there is such a good.

What of this? Is there a good that we cherish both for its own sake and for what comes from it — such as thinking, seeing, and being healthy? For we welcome things like these, I suppose, on both counts.

Yes, I said.

And do you see a third kind of good as well, he said, which includes exercising, being treated when sick, the practice of medicine itself, and the other ways of making money? We would call these things burdensome, yet beneficial to us; and we would not choose to have them for their own sake, but for the sake of the wages and whatever else comes from them.

Yes, I said, this too is a third kind. But why do you ask?

In which of these, he said, do you place justice?

I myself think, I said, in the finest kind — the one that anyone who is to be happy must love both for itself and for what comes from it.

That is not, however, he said, what most people think; rather, they place it in the burdensome kind, the sort that must be pursued for the sake of wages and the good standing that a reputation brings, but must be avoided for its own sake as being harsh.

I know, I said, that this is how it seems, and that Thrasymachus has long been finding fault with justice on this ground, and praising injustice instead; but I, it seems, am somewhat slow to learn.

Come then, he said, hear me out as well, and see whether you still think the same. For Thrasymachus seems to me to have been charmed by you, like a snake, sooner than he should have been; but the proof about each of the two has not yet come out to my satisfaction — I want to hear what each of them is, and what power it has, by itself, when present in the soul, and to let the wages and their consequences go. So this is what I will do, if it suits you too: I will take up Thrasymachus's argument again — first I will state what people say justice is and where it comes from, second that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as something necessary rather than good, and third that they have good reason to act so, since the life of the unjust is, as they say, far better than that of the just. Since to me, at least, Socrates, that does not seem so at all — yet I am at a loss, my ears worn out from listening to Thrasymachus and countless others, for I have never yet heard from anyone the argument on behalf of justice, that it is better than injustice, in the way that I want to hear it — I want to hear it praised in and of itself — and I think I could learn this best of all from you. That is why I will strain every nerve to speak in praise of the unjust life, and once I have spoken, I will show you the manner in which I want, in turn, to hear you as well, blaming injustice and praising justice. But see whether what I say suits you.

More than anything, I said — for what topic would a sensible person rather speak and hear about, again and again, than this?

The Origin of Justice as a Compact, and the Ring of Gyges

Excellently put, he said; and listen now to what I said I would speak of first — what justice is, and where it has come from.

For they say that to do wrong is by nature good and to suffer wrong is bad, but that the badness of suffering wrong outweighs the goodness of doing it, so that when men wrong one another and are wronged in turn, and taste of both, those who cannot escape the one and seize the other find it profitable to make a compact with one another neither to do wrong nor to suffer it; and from this they began to set up laws and agreements among themselves, and to call what the law commanded lawful and just; and this, they say, is the becoming and being of justice, a thing between the best case — doing wrong and paying no penalty for it — and the worst — suffering wrong with no power to get redress; and the just, lying in the middle between the two, is cherished not as a good, but as something honored out of an inability to do wrong — since a man who had the power to do it, a true man, would never make a compact with anyone, neither to do wrong nor to suffer it; he would be mad to. So then, Socrates, this is the nature of justice, and this is its character, and these the things it naturally grows from — or so the argument runs.

We would see most clearly that even those who practice justice do so unwillingly, from an inability to do wrong, if we carried out this experiment in thought — give each of them license to do whatever he wants, the just man and the unjust alike, and then follow along and watch where each one's desire leads him. So we would catch the just man red-handed, converging on the very same goal as the unjust man, because of that desire for more which every nature is inclined to pursue as good, but which law forcibly diverts toward honoring equality. The license I am speaking of would be at its fullest if they came to have such power as they say once came to the ancestor of [Gyges] the Lydian. He was a shepherd, working for hire under the ruler of Lydia at the time, and when heavy rain and an earthquake struck, the ground split open at a certain place, and a chasm formed where he was pasturing his flock. Seeing it, he marveled, and climbed down, and there among the other wonders the storytellers speak of he saw a bronze horse, hollow, fitted with little windows, through which he stooped and looked in and saw a corpse that seemed more than human in size, wearing nothing else, but on its hand a gold ring — he slipped it off and climbed back out. Now when the shepherds held their customary gathering, at which they would report to the king each month about the flocks, he came too, wearing the ring; and as he sat there among the others, he happened to turn the bezel of the ring around toward himself, to the inside of his hand, and when this happened, he became invisible to those sitting beside him, and they fell to talking as though he had gone. He was amazed, and feeling for the ring again, he turned the bezel back outward, and as he turned it, he became visible once more. Realizing this, he tested the ring to see whether it truly had this power, and found that this was exactly what happened: turning the bezel inward made him unseen, and outward, seen again; and as soon as he grasped this, he at once contrived to become one of the messengers who went up to the king, and once there, seduced the king's wife, and with her plotted against the king, killed him, and so seized the throne. So if there were two such rings, and the just man put one on and the unjust man the other, no one, it seems, would prove so adamant as to stand firm in justice and bring himself to keep away from what belongs to others and not lay a hand on it — with it in his power to take without fear whatever he liked, even from the marketplace, and to go into houses and lie with whomever he wanted, and to kill or set free from bonds whomever he wished, and to do everything else among men as though he were a god. Acting this way, he would do nothing different from the other, but both would end up traveling the same road. And yet someone might say this is strong proof that no one is just by choice, but only under compulsion, on the ground that justice is no private good — since wherever each man thinks he will be able to do wrong, he does it. For every man believes that injustice pays him far better, privately, than justice does — and believes truly, as the one making this argument will say — since if someone got hold of such power and never wished to do wrong, and never touched what belonged to others, he would seem, to those who learned of it, most wretched and most foolish, even though they would praise him in one another's presence, deceiving each other out of fear of being wronged themselves. So much, then, for that.

Two Portraits: The Perfectly Unjust and the Perfectly Just Man

Now, as for the judgment itself about the life of the men we are speaking of — if we set the most just man and the most unjust man apart from one another, we will be able to judge correctly; otherwise, we will not. What, then, is this separation? This — let us take nothing away, either from the unjust man's injustice or from the just man's justice, but set each of them, in full, into his own pursuit. First, then, let the unjust man act as skilled craftsmen do — a master pilot or doctor, say, perceives what is impossible in his craft and what is possible, undertakes the one while leaving the other alone, and further, if he does happen to slip somewhere, is able to set it right — so let the unjust man too, in pursuing his wrongdoings correctly, escape notice, if he is to be unjust in the extreme. The one who is caught must be reckoned a poor hand at it; for the extreme of injustice is to seem just without being so. We must, then, grant the completely unjust man the most complete injustice, and not take anything away, but allow that, while doing the greatest wrongs, he has secured for himself the greatest possible reputation for justice — that if he does happen to slip in something, he is able to set it right; that he is a good enough speaker to win people over if any of his wrongdoing comes to light; and that he can use force wherever force is needed, through courage and strength, and through his supply of friends and wealth. Having made him such, let us in turn set the just man beside him in our discussion — a simple, noble man who, in Aeschylus's phrase, wishes not to seem but to be good. The seeming, then, must be taken away. For if he is thought to be just, he will have honors and gifts because he is thought to be such a man; then it would be unclear whether he is such a man for the sake of justice, or for the sake of the gifts and honors. He must, then, be stripped of everything except justice, and made the very opposite of the man before him — while doing no wrong, let him have the reputation of being unjust in the extreme, so that his justice may be tested by his not softening under ill repute and what comes from it; instead let him go unchanged until death, seeming unjust throughout his life while in fact being just, so that both men, having each come to the furthest extreme — one of justice, the other of injustice — may be judged as to which of the two is happier.

Goodness, my dear Glaucon, I said, how vigorously you scour each of the two men clean, like a statue, for the judging.

As best I can, he said. Now that the two of them are such, I think it is no longer difficult to go on in our account and describe what sort of life awaits each of them. It must be said, then — and even if it is said somewhat crudely, do not suppose it is I who say it, Socrates, but those who praise injustice ahead of justice. They will say this: that the just man, disposed in this way, will be whipped, racked on the wheel, bound in chains, have his eyes burned out, and finally, after suffering every evil, be impaled, and will come to know that one must wish not to be just but to seem so. So the saying of Aeschylus, it turns out, would be far more rightly spoken of the unjust man. For in truth they will say that the unjust man, since he pursues a business that holds fast to truth and does not live with an eye to reputation, wishes not to seem unjust but to be so, reaping a deep furrow through his mind, from which prudent counsels spring, first ruling in the city because he is thought to be just, then marrying from wherever he wishes and giving his daughters in marriage to whomever he wishes, entering into contracts and partnerships with whomever he likes, and besides all this, profiting by feeling no distaste at doing wrong; then, going into contests both private and public, coming out ahead and getting the better of his enemies, and by getting the better of them growing rich and benefiting his friends and harming his enemies, offering sacrifices to the gods and dedicating offerings amply and splendidly, and serving the gods — and whichever men he wishes — far better than the just man does, so that it is more fitting, in all likelihood, that he rather than the just man be dear to the gods. So they say, Socrates, that life is arranged better for the unjust man than for the just, both by gods and by men.

Adeimantus: What Fathers and Poets Praise

When Glaucon had said this, I for my part had it in mind to say something in reply, but his brother Adeimantus said, You surely do not think, Socrates, that enough has been said about the argument?

Why, what else is there? I said.

The very point that most needed making has not been made, he replied.

Well then, I said, as the saying goes, let brother stand by brother — so you too, if he is leaving anything out, come to his aid. And yet what he has said is enough to throw me to the ground and leave me unable to come to justice's aid.

And he said, You are talking nonsense — but listen to this as well. For we must also go through the opposite arguments to the ones he gave — the ones that praise justice and censure injustice — so that what I take Glaucon to want may become clearer. Fathers, too, tell their sons, and so does everyone who has someone in his care, that one must be just — not praising justice itself but the good reputation that comes from it, so that the person who is thought to be just may gain from that reputation offices and marriages and everything else Glaucon just went through, all coming from being well-regarded for being just. But these people carry the business of reputations further still. For by bringing in the good reputation that comes from the gods, they have no end of good things to say — the things they claim the gods give to the pious; just as the noble Hesiod and Homer say — the one that the gods make oaks bear acorns at their tops for the just, and bees in their middles, and that the wool-bearing sheep, he says, are weighed down with fleece, and much else besides, of the same kind. The other poet says much the same — for he speaks of someone as … or of a faultless king, one who fears the gods and upholds just judgments, so the dark earth bears wheat and barley, and the trees hang heavy with fruit, and the flocks bring forth their young unfailingly, and the sea yields fish. Musaeus and his son grant the just, from the gods, goods still headier than these — for leading them down to Hades in their account, and laying them on couches, and setting up a banquet of the pious, crowned with garlands, they have them spend all the rest of time already drunk, taking everlasting drunkenness to be virtue's finest reward. Others stretch the rewards from the gods out even longer than these — for they say that children's children, and a whole line descending after, are left behind to the man who is pious and true to his oaths. With this and other such things they praise justice — as for the unholy and unjust, on the other hand, they bury them in a kind of mud in Hades and force them to carry water in a sieve, and while they are still living they bring them into ill repute as well — the very punishments Glaucon recounted for the just man who is thought unjust — these are what they say about the unjust, and they have nothing else to add. So much, then, for the praise and the blame given to each.

Besides this, Socrates, consider another kind of talk about justice and injustice, spoken both privately and by the poets. For with one voice they all chant that moderation and justice are fine, yet hard and toilsome, while licentiousness and injustice are pleasant and easy to get, shameful only by opinion and by law — they say that unjust acts pay better than just ones, for the most part, and they are quite ready to call the wicked happy and to honor them, both in public and in private, if they are rich or hold some other kind of power, while dishonoring and looking down on anyone who happens to be weak or poor, even while admitting that such people are better than the others. Of all these claims, the ones about the gods and virtue are the most astonishing — that the gods themselves assign misfortune and a bad life to many good people, and the opposite lot to their opposites. Begging priests and seers go to the doors of the rich and persuade them that they possess a power, procured from the gods through sacrifices and incantations, to heal with pleasures and festivities any wrongdoing committed by that person or by his ancestors, and that if someone wishes to harm an enemy, for a small fee he will injure the just and the unjust alike, by certain spells and bindings, since they persuade the gods, as they say, to serve them. For all these claims they bring in poets as witnesses, some on the subject of vice, granting that it comes easily, as: Wickedness can be taken up even in droves with ease — smooth is the road, and it lies very near; but before virtue the gods have set the sweat of toil and some road that is long and rough and steep; while others call Homer to witness that the gods can be led astray by men, since he too said— the gods themselves can be entreated as well, and with sacrifices and gentle vows, with libation and with savor, men turn them aside by entreaty, whenever someone oversteps and errs. They also produce a whole din of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring of the Moon and the Muses, as they say, and perform rites according to them, persuading not only private people but whole cities that there are indeed releases and purifications from wrongdoing, through sacrifices and pleasurable games, both for those still alive and for those who have died — rites they call initiations, which free us from the evils of the other world, while terrible things await those who have not sacrificed.

All this, he said, dear Socrates — all these many things said about virtue and vice, and the honor men and gods hold them in — what do we suppose it does to the souls of the young who hear it, those of good natural parts, able to light on everything that is said, as a bird might, and reckon up from it what sort of person one should be, and what path to take, to get through life in the best way possible? For, reasoning from what is likely, he might well say to himself, in Pindar's words, that very question — shall I climb the higher wall by justice, or by crooked deceit, and fence myself round and live my life that way? For what people say is that if I am just but do not also seem so, there is no benefit in it for me, only plain hardship and loss, while for the unjust man who has secured himself a reputation for justice, a marvelous life is said to be in store. Well then, since seeming, as the wise make clear to me, overpowers even truth itself and is the master of happiness, I must turn wholly to that — I must draw round myself, as a front porch and a facade, a mere outline-sketch of virtue, and trail behind me the fox of that most cunning Archilochus, wily and full of shifts. But, someone will say, it is not easy always to escape notice while being bad. Well, we will reply, nothing that is great is easy either — but still, if we mean to be happy, this is the path we must take, following where the tracks of the argument lead. For the sake of escaping notice, we will form secret societies and clubs, and there are teachers of persuasion who impart the wisdom of public speaking and of the courts, with which we will win some things by persuasion and take others by force, so as to get the advantage and not pay the penalty. But then it is impossible either to escape the gods' notice or to force them. Well then, if they do not exist, or if they have no concern at all for human affairs, why should we concern ourselves with escaping notice either? But if they do exist and do care, we know or have heard of them from nowhere else but the laws and the poets who traced out their lineages, and these very same sources say that the gods are of a kind to be led astray, won over by sacrifices, gentle vows, and votive offerings — and we must trust these sources on both counts, or on neither. If then we must trust them, we should do wrong and sacrifice out of the proceeds of our wrongdoing. For if we are just, we will only go unpunished by the gods, while pushing away the profits that come from injustice; but if we are unjust, we will make our profit, and by entreating them as we overstep and err, we will win them over and come away unpunished. Ah, but in Hades we will pay the penalty for whatever wrongs we commit here, either we ourselves or our children's children. But, my friend, our reasoner will say, the initiation rites in turn have great power, and so do the gods who release us, as the greatest cities say, and the children of the gods who became poets and prophets of the gods, and who reveal that these things are so.

On what reasoning, then, would we still choose justice over the greatest injustice, when, if we acquire that injustice along with a counterfeit air of decency, we will fare according to our wishes both with gods and with men, in life and in death, as the argument of the many and of the eminent alike puts it? So from everything that has been said, what device is left, Socrates, for anyone with some power of soul, or of wealth, or of body, or of birth, to be willing to honor justice, rather than laugh when he hears it praised? For indeed, if anyone can show that what we have said is false, and has come to know well enough that justice is best, he surely has a great deal of forgiveness for the unjust, and feels no anger at them, but knows that unless someone, by a divine nature, is disgusted by doing wrong, or has gained knowledge and so holds back from it, no one else is just of his own will — rather, people condemn wrongdoing out of cowardice, or old age, or some other weakness, simply because they are unable to do it. And that this is so is plain — for the first of these people to come into power is the first to do wrong, to whatever extent he is able. And the cause of all this is nothing other than the very thing this whole argument — both his and mine — started from, in speaking to you, Socrates: that, my remarkable friend, of all of you who claim to be praisers of justice, starting from the heroes of old, all whose words have come down to us, down to the people of today, no one has ever blamed injustice or praised justice for anything other than the reputations, honors, and gifts that come from them, while what each of the two itself does, by its own power, dwelling in the soul of the one who has it and escaping the notice of gods and men alike, no one has ever adequately worked through, in poetry or in private discourse, to show that the one is the greatest of all the evils a soul holds within itself, and justice the greatest good. For if this had been said by all of you from the beginning, and you had persuaded us from childhood on, we would not now be guarding one another against wrongdoing, but each of us would be his own best guard, afraid that in doing wrong he would be living with the greatest evil as his housemate.

This, Socrates, and perhaps even more than this, is what Thrasymachus or someone else might say on behalf of justice and injustice, turning their respective powers inside out in a crude way, or so it seems to me at least. But I — for I have no need to hide anything from you — speak as forcefully as I can, because I am eager to hear the opposite from you. So do not merely show us in your argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but show what each of them does, in its own right, to the one who has it, that makes the one bad and the other good — and take away their reputations, just as Glaucon urged. For if you do not take away the true reputations from both sides, and instead add the false ones, we will say that you are praising, not justice, but the seeming of it, and censuring, not being unjust, but seeming so, and that you are urging us to escape notice while being unjust, and agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is really someone else's good, the advantage of the stronger, and that injustice is advantageous and profitable to oneself, but disadvantageous to the weaker. Since, then, you agreed that justice is among the greatest goods — the sort worth acquiring both for the sake of what comes from them and, far more, for their own sake, such as seeing, hearing, being wise, and indeed being healthy, and whatever other goods are fruitful by their own nature and not merely by reputation — praise this very thing in justice, how it, by itself, benefits the one who has it, while injustice harms him, and leave rewards and reputations for others to praise, since I would accept it from others when they praise justice and blame injustice in that way, extolling and abusing the reputations and rewards attached to them, but not from you, unless you yourself bid me to, because you have spent your whole life examining nothing else but this. So do not merely show us in your argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but also what each of them does, in its own right, to the one who has it — whether or not it escapes the notice of gods and men — that makes the one good and the other bad.

The City as the Soul Writ Large

And when I heard this, I had always admired the character of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but just then I was quite delighted and said that Glaucon's admirer had not composed the opening of his elegiac verses about you badly, sons of that famous man, when, after your fine showing in the fight at Megara, he wrote— Sons of Ariston, godlike stock of a famous man— This seems to me well said, my friends; for something quite divine must have happened to you, if, with such powers of speech on its behalf, you are still not persuaded that injustice is better than justice. You seem to me not really convinced — I judge this from the rest of your character, since going by the arguments alone I would distrust you — but my trust in you keeps growing, and so does my bewilderment about what to do with you. For I have no idea how to give help — I think myself incapable of it, and my proof is that you did not accept what I said against Thrasymachus, when I thought I was showing that justice is better than injustice — yet neither do I know how to refuse to help; for I am afraid it would not even be pious, when present while justice is being maligned, to give up and not defend her while I am still breathing and able to speak. So it is best that I help her as I am able.

So Glaucon and the others begged me in every way to help and not to drop the argument, but to search out thoroughly what each of the two really is, and where the truth lies about their benefit. So I said what occurred to me: that the inquiry we were undertaking was no trivial matter but called for sharp eyesight, or so it seemed to me. Since we are not clever, then, I think, I said, we should make our search for it the way we would if someone had ordered men whose sight was not sharp to read small letters from a distance, and then one of them noticed that the same letters stood written somewhere else as well, larger and on a larger surface — it would seem a godsend, I think, to read those first and only then examine the smaller ones, to see whether they really are the same.

Certainly, said Adeimantus; but what do you see of that sort, Socrates, in our inquiry about the just?

I will tell you, I said. We say that justice belongs to a single man, and also, I suppose, to a whole city?

Certainly, he said.

Then is a city not bigger than a single man?

Bigger, he said.

Perhaps, then, there would be more justice in the bigger thing, and it would be easier to make out. So if you are willing, let us first look for what kind of thing it is in cities, and then examine it in the same way in each single man, looking for the resemblance of the greater in the form of the lesser.

Well, that seems to me a good way to put it, he said.

Then, I said, if in our discussion we were to watch a city coming into being, would we also see its justice and its injustice coming into being?

Perhaps, he said.

Then, once it has come into being, is there hope of seeing what we are looking for more easily?

The First City and Its Needs

Very much so.

Does it seem, then, that we should undertake to carry this through? For I think it is no small task — so give it your consideration.

It has been considered, said Adeimantus — so do not do otherwise.

A city comes into being, then, I said, as I imagine, since each of us happens to be not self-sufficient, but ⟨is⟩ in need of many things — or what other origin do you suppose founds a city?

None, he said.

So it is, then, that one person joins another — one for this need, another for that — and, since we need many things, we gather many people together into a single settlement as partners and helpers, giving this common dwelling the name city; isn't that right?

Quite so.

Does one person, then, give a share to another — if he gives anything — or receive a share, believing it is better for himself?

Certainly.

Come, then, I said, let us build a city in speech, starting from the beginning — and it seems our need will be what builds it.

How could it not?

And surely the first and greatest of our needs is the provision of food, so that we may exist and live at all.

Yes, absolutely.

Second comes the need for shelter, and third for clothing and things of that kind.

So it is.

Come, then, I said, how will the city provide for so much? Won't there be one man who is a farmer, another a builder, and another a weaver? Or shall we add a shoemaker as well, or someone else to look after the needs of the body?

Certainly.

So the most basic city would consist of four or five men.

So it appears.

What then? Must each of these men contribute his own work as something common to all — the farmer, for instance, being one man, preparing food for four and spending four times the time and labor on producing food, and sharing it with the others — or should he instead take no notice of them and produce only a fourth of this food for himself alone in a fourth of the time, spending the other three parts of his time, one on providing a house, another on a cloak, another on shoes, sparing himself the trouble of dealings with others, and doing his own work by himself for himself?

And Adeimantus said, But perhaps, Socrates, this way is easier than the other.

By Zeus, that's not strange at all, I said. For now that you've said it, I realize myself that, to begin with, each of us is born not quite like every other, but different in nature, one man fitted for one job and another for another. Or don't you think so?

I do.

Well then? Would one man do finer work practicing many crafts, or when he practices just one?

When he practices one alone, he said.

And surely this too is clear, I think — if a man lets the right moment for some task pass him by, the work is ruined.

Clear enough.

For I do not think the task waits upon the leisure of the man performing it — rather he must follow closely upon what is being done, not treat it as some incidental matter.

Necessarily.

So it is from this that each thing is produced in greater abundance, and better, and more easily, when one man does one thing in accordance with his nature, at the right time, and is free from other occupations.

Absolutely so.

So then, Adeimantus, we need more than four citizens for the provisions we mentioned. For the farmer, it seems, will not make his own plow, if it's to be a good one, nor a hoe, nor any of the other tools used in farming. Nor will the builder, either — he too needs many things. And the same goes for the weaver and the shoemaker; or is that not so?

True.

So carpenters, smiths, and many other craftsmen of that kind become partners with us in our little town, and make it a sizable place.

Quite so.

But it would still not be very large, even if we added to them cowherds and shepherds and other herdsmen, so that the farmers might have oxen to plow with, the builders, together with the farmers, draft animals for hauling, and the weavers and shoemakers hides and wool.

Nor would it be a small city, he said, that has all these things.

But then again, I said, to found the city itself in a place where it will need no imports is close to impossible.

Yes, impossible.

So it will need still others besides, who will bring it what it needs from another city.

It will.

And surely, if our agent goes empty-handed, carrying none of what the people he deals with need in return for what we need from them, he will come back empty-handed. Isn't that so?

So it seems to me.

So we must produce at home not only enough for ourselves, but also goods of the kind and quantity that those others need.

Yes, we must.

So our city needs more farmers and more of the other craftsmen too.

Yes, more.

And it will need other agents too, presumably — those who will import and export each commodity. And these are merchants, are they not?

Yes.

So we will need merchants too.

Certainly.

And if the trade is carried on by sea, it will need a great many others besides, skilled in the business of seafaring.

Yes, a great many indeed.

And what about this? Within the city itself, how will they share with one another what each produces? It was for the sake of just this, in fact, that we formed a partnership and founded the city in the first place.

Clearly, he said, by selling and buying.

So a marketplace will arise for us from this, and money as a token for exchange.

Certainly.

So if the farmer brings something he has produced to the marketplace, or some other craftsman does, and does not arrive at the same time as those who want to exchange something with him, will he sit idle in the marketplace, away from his own work?

Not at all, he said, but there are those who, seeing this, set themselves to this service — in cities that are rightly governed, generally those who are weakest in body and useless for any other work. For they must stay right there in the marketplace, giving money in exchange for goods to anyone who needs to sell, and in turn giving goods in exchange for money to anyone who needs to buy.

This need, then, I said, brings retailers into being for us in the city. Or do we not give the name retailers to those who station themselves in the marketplace to serve buying and selling, and the name merchants to those who travel from city to city?

Certainly.

And there are, I think, still other agents as well — those who are not quite fit to be partners in matters of the mind, but have bodily strength enough for hard labor; these, then, selling the use of their strength, and calling the price for it a wage, are called, I believe, wage-earners — isn't that so?

Certainly.

So wage-earners too, it seems, make up part of the city's full complement.

I think so.

Has our city, then, Adeimantus, now grown to the point of being complete?

Perhaps.

Where, then, could justice and injustice ever be found in it? And alongside which of the things we've considered does it arise?

I myself, he said, cannot see it, Socrates — unless it lies somewhere in these people's need of one another.

But perhaps, I said, you are right — and we must look into it, and not shrink from the task.

So let us first consider in what manner these people, thus provided for, will live. Doing nothing other than producing grain, wine, clothing, and shoes? And once they have built houses, for the most part in summer they will work naked and unshod, and in winter suitably clothed and shod — and they will feed themselves by preparing barley-groats from their barley and flour from their wheat, baking some and kneading others, setting out fine loaves and cakes on a reed or on clean leaves, and, reclining on beds strewn with yew and myrtle, they will feast, themselves and their children together, drinking their wine, wearing garlands, singing hymns to the gods, enjoying one another's company happily, and not having more children than their means allow, guarding against poverty or war.

And Glaucon broke in and said, It seems you are making these men feast without any relish at all.

You're right, I said. I forgot that they will also have a relish — salt, clearly, and olives and cheese, and they will boil onions and greens, the sort of things people boil in the country. And we will also set out for them, I suppose, desserts of figs, chickpeas, and beans, and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns by the fire, drinking moderately as they do — and living their lives this way, in peace and good health, they will grow old and, in due course, hand down a similar life to their children.

And he said, But if you were founding a city of pigs, Socrates, what else would you fatten them on but this?

But then, Glaucon, I said, how should it be?

As is customary, he said — those who are not to live in discomfort should recline on couches, I think, and dine from tables, and have the relishes and desserts that people have nowadays too.

The Feverish City, and the Need for Guardians

Very well, I said; I follow. It seems we are examining not merely how a city comes to be, but a luxurious city as well. Perhaps that is no bad thing, either — by examining a city of that sort too, we might catch sight of how justice and injustice actually take root in cities. The city we have gone through so far seems to me to be the true one, a sort of healthy city; but if you like, let us look at a feverish city too — nothing stops us. For it seems this will not satisfy some people, nor this way of living either, but couches will be added, and tables, and other furniture, and relishes too, and perfumes, and incense, and courtesans, and cakes — each of these in every variety. And moreover, what we spoke of at first — houses and clothes and shoes — must no longer be treated as merely necessary, but painting and embroidery must be brought into play, and gold and ivory and everything of that sort must be acquired. Is that not so?

Yes, he said.

So the city must in turn be made bigger; for that healthy one is no longer sufficient, but must now be filled out with bulk and numbers — with all the people in cities who are there for something other than necessity: hunters of every kind, and imitators, many of them concerned with shapes and colors, many with music — poets and their assistants, reciters, actors, dancers, contractors, and makers of every kind of article, including those for women's adornment. And moreover we shall need more servants — or do you not think we shall need tutors, wet-nurses, nurses, hairdressers, barbers, and cooks and chefs besides? We shall need swineherds too, besides; this had no place in our earlier city — there was no need of it — but in this one there will be need of that as well. And we shall need great numbers of other livestock besides, if people are going to eat them — is that not so?

How could it not be?

So shall we not be far more in need of doctors too, living this way, than we were before?

Far more so.

And the land, too, which was then sufficient to feed the people of that time, will now become small, from having been sufficient. Or how shall we put it?

That is so, he said.

So must we not cut off a piece of our neighbors' land, if we are to have enough for pasture and plowing, and they in turn a piece of ours, if they too let themselves go after limitless acquisition of wealth, overstepping the boundary of what is necessary?

A great necessity, Socrates, he said.

Shall we go to war after that, then, Glaucon? Or how else will it be?

So it will, he said.

And let us not yet say anything, I said, about whether war does any harm or good, but only this much — that we have now found the origin of war, in the very things that most bring evil upon cities, both privately and publicly, whenever it does occur.

Quite so.

So the city needs to be bigger still, my friend, not by a small amount, but by a whole army, which will go out and fight to the finish with any invaders, on behalf of all our property and everything we have just been talking about.

What do you mean? So he asked — are they not enough by themselves?

Not if you and all the rest of us agreed rightly, I said, when we were molding the city; for we agreed, I think, if you remember, that it is impossible for one person to practice many crafts well.

That is true, he said.

What then? I said — does the contest of war not seem to be a matter of craft?

Very much so, he said.

Then should we care more about shoemaking than about the craft of war?

Not at all.

But surely we did not allow the shoemaker to try to be a farmer at the same time, or a weaver, or a builder, but kept him a shoemaker only, so that the work of shoemaking would turn out well for us; and in the same way we gave each of the others in turn a single occupation, the one for which each was naturally suited, and at which each was to have leisure from the rest throughout his life, working at that alone and never letting the right moments pass, so as to produce it well; but is the business of war, of all things, not among those it matters most to have carried out well? Or is it so easy that a man farming will at the same time be a warrior too, and a man making shoes, or working at any other craft whatever — while no one could become a competent player of draughts or dice without practicing that very thing from childhood, but only treating it as a sideline? And will a man, merely by picking up a shield or some other weapon or instrument of war, become on that very day a competent contestant in hoplite combat or any other kind of fighting proper to war, when none of the other instruments, once picked up, makes anyone a craftsman or an athlete, nor is of any use to one who has neither grasped the knowledge proper to each nor given it sufficient practice?

In that case, he said, the instruments would be worth a great deal.

So then, I said, in so far as the guardians' work is the greatest, by so much would it need the most leisure from everything else, and in turn the greatest craft and care.

I think so myself, he said.

Then would it not also need a nature suited to that very pursuit?

How could it not?

Then it would be our task, it seems, if we are able, to select which people and what kind of natures are suited to the guarding of a city.

Ours indeed.

By Zeus, I said, then it is no trivial task we have taken on; still, we must not shrink from it, so far as our strength allows.

The Guardian's Nature: Spirited and Philosophic

No, certainly not, he said.

Do you think, I said, that the nature of a well-bred puppy is any different, for guard-duty, from that of a well-born young man?

What do you mean?

Something like this — each of the two needs to be sharp of perception, and quick to chase down whatever it perceives, and strong besides, if it has to catch something and then fight for it.

Yes, he said, all of that is required.

And courageous too, certainly, if it is to fight well.

Of course.

But will anything be courageous without spirit — horse, dog, or any other creature? Or have you not noticed that spirit is irresistible and unbeatable, and that wherever it is present, the whole soul becomes fearless and unconquerable, whatever it faces?

I have noticed.

What the guardian's body should be like, then, is clear.

Yes.

And so is what belongs to his soul — that it must be spirited.

That too.

Then how, Glaucon, I said, will men of such a nature avoid turning savage, both toward one another and toward the rest of the citizens?

By Zeus, he said, not easily.

And yet they need to be gentle toward their own people and harsh toward their enemies — otherwise they will not wait for others to destroy them, but will get there first and do it themselves.

True, he said.

What, then, I said, are we to do? Where will we find a temperament that is gentle and high-spirited at once? A gentle nature is, after all, more or less the opposite of a spirited one.

So it appears.

And yet if he lacks either one, he can never become a good guardian — and these two look impossible to combine, so it turns out a good guardian is impossible to produce.

So it seems, he said.

And I, being at a loss and looking back over what had gone before, said, With good reason, my friend, are we at a loss, for we have let go of the very image we set out with.

What do you mean?

We failed to notice that there are, after all, natures of a kind we did not suppose, which have both of these opposite qualities.

Where?

One could see it in other animals as well, and not least in the very creature we compared to the guardian. You know, I take it, that this is the natural temperament of well-bred dogs — to be as gentle as possible toward those they are used to and know, and just the opposite toward strangers.

I do know that.

This, then, I said, is possible after all, and we are not asking for something unnatural in wanting our guardian to be like this.

It doesn't seem so.

Then does it seem to you that our future guardian needs one thing more besides — that a philosophic nature be joined to his spirited one?

How so? So he asked — I do not follow.

This too, I said, you will see in dogs — a thing about the creature well worth marveling at.

What is that?

That when it sees someone it doesn't know, it turns fierce, even though it has suffered no wrong from him at all — but when it sees someone it knows, it greets him warmly, even if it has never received any good from him. Or have you never marveled at that?

Not really, he said — I hadn't given it that much thought before, but that it does this much is plain.

Well, this feature of its nature really does look refined, and truly philosophic.

In what way?

In this, I said — it marks off a friendly face from a hostile one by nothing other than knowing the one and not knowing the other. And yet how could a creature not be a lover of learning, when it draws the line between what is its own and what is alien by understanding and ignorance?

There is no way it could fail to be, he said.

But surely, I said, love of learning and philosophy are the same thing?

The same, yes, he said.

Then can't we confidently lay it down for man too, that if anyone is going to be gentle toward his own and those he knows, he must by nature be philosophic and a lover of learning?

Education Begins: The Tales We Tell

Let us posit it, he said.

Then the one who is to become a fine and good guardian of the city will be philosophical, spirited, quick, and strong by nature.

Absolutely, he said.

That, then, is how he would start out. But in what way will these men be reared and educated by us? And is it of any use to us, in examining this, for catching sight of the very thing for the sake of which we examine everything — in what way justice and injustice arise in a city? The aim is not to pass over an argument that serves, nor to drag out a long one.

And Glaucon's brother said, Certainly — I for one expect this inquiry to be of use toward that very end.

By Zeus, I said, my dear Adeimantus, then it must not be abandoned, even if it happens to be rather long.

No, indeed not.

Come then — as if telling a story and with leisure to spare, let us educate the men in our discussion.

Yes, we must.

What then is education? Or is it hard to find one better than that discovered over a long span of time? There is, I suppose, gymnastic for bodies, and music for the soul.

There is indeed.

Then shall we not begin our education with music rather than gymnastic?

How could we not?

Under music, I said, do you include stories, or not?

I do.

And there are two kinds of stories, one true, the other false?

Yes.

And must the children be educated in both, but first in the false ones?

I don't understand, he said, what you mean.

Don't you understand, I said, that we tell tales to children first? That, generally speaking, is false, though there is some truth in it too. And we make use of tales with children before physical exercises.

That is so.

This, then, is what I meant, that music must be taken up before gymnastic.

Correctly, he said.

Then don't you know that the beginning is the most important part of any task, especially for anything young and tender? For that is when it is most malleable, and it takes on whatever stamp one wishes to impress on it.

Quite so.

Then shall we so casually allow the children to hear any chance tales, made up by anyone who happens along, and to take into their souls opinions for the most part opposite to those which, once they are grown, we shall think they ought to hold?

We shall not allow it in any way at all.

First then, it seems, we must oversee the tale-makers, and if they compose a good [tale], it must be approved, but if not, it must be rejected. And the approved ones we shall persuade the nurses and mothers to tell to the children, shaping their souls with these tales far more than they shape their bodies with their hands — and of the tales they now tell, most must be thrown out.

Which ones? So he asked.

In the greater tales, I said, we shall also see the lesser ones. For the greater and the lesser alike must surely share the same stamp and have the same effect. Or don't you think so?

I do, he said — but I don't even know which ones you mean by the greater tales.

Those, I said, that Hesiod and Homer told us, and the other poets too. For these men, I suppose, put together false tales and told them to people, and still do.

Which ones, he said, and what fault do you find with them?

The very fault, I said, that must be found first and foremost, especially when someone lies badly.

What is that?

Whenever someone represents badly, in his account, [the nature] of gods and heroes, what sort of beings they are, like a painter whose painting resembles nothing of what he meant to portray.

Yes indeed, he said, it is right to find fault with things of that sort. But how exactly do we mean this, and which tales?

First, I said, whoever told the greatest lie, about the greatest matters, did not lie well — how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did, and how Cronus in turn took his revenge on him. As for the deeds of Cronus, and what he in turn suffered at the hands of his son, I would not think it right for these to be told so casually to the thoughtless and the young, even if they were true, but rather that they should above all be passed over in silence, and if there were some necessity to tell it, that it be heard by as few as possible under a bond of secrecy, after sacrificing not a pig but some great and scarce offering, so that the fewest possible might chance to hear it.

Yes indeed, he said, these tales are harsh.

And they must not be told, I said, Adeimantus, in our city. Nor should it be said to a young listener that in committing the utmost injustice he would be doing nothing to wonder at, nor again that in punishing an unjust father by every means he would only be doing what the first and greatest of the gods did.

No, by Zeus, he said, it does not seem fitting to me either to say such things.

Nor, I said, should it be said at all that gods make war on gods, plot against one another, and fight — for that isn't even true — if indeed those who are to guard our city must think it most shameful to quarrel with one another lightly; far from it, battles of giants must not be told to them as tales, nor embroidered, nor the many and varied other feuds of gods and heroes against their own kin — but rather, if we are somehow to persuade them that no citizen has ever hated another, and that to do so is not holy, such things must instead be told to the children from the very start by old men and old women alike, and, as they grow older, the poets must be compelled to compose stories close to this pattern for them too. And the binding of Hera by her son, and the hurling down of Hephaestus by his father when he was about to defend his mother as she was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods that Homer has composed — none of these are to be admitted into our city, whether they are composed with hidden meanings or without them. For a young person is not able to judge what is a hidden meaning and what is not; rather, whatever opinions they form in their souls at that age tend to become hard to erase and difficult to change — and this, perhaps, is why it matters most of all that the first stories they hear be told in the finest way possible, with virtue in mind.

That makes sense, he said. But if someone were to ask us again just what these are, and which tales we mean, what would we say?

And I said, Adeimantus, you and I are not poets at present, but founders of a city; and it befits founders to know the patterns within which the poets must tell their tales, and not to permit them to compose contrary to these, though they need not compose the tales themselves.

The First Pattern: God Is Good, and Cause Only of Good

Rightly, he said; but this is the very question — what would the patterns concerning theology be?

Something like these, I said — whatever sort the god actually is, that is surely always how he must be represented, whether one composes about him in epic, in lyric, or in tragedy.

Yes, one must.

Is the god not in truth good, and must he not be spoken of as such?

How could he not?

But surely nothing good is harmful — is it?

It does not seem so to me.

Does then what is not harmful cause harm?

Not at all.

And does what causes no harm do anything bad?

Not that either.

And could what does nothing bad be the cause of anything bad?

How could it?

And what of this? Is the good beneficial?

Yes.

It is the cause of well-being, then?

Yes.

The good, then, is not the cause of everything, but is the cause of things that go well, while it bears no responsibility for the bad.

Entirely so, he said.

Then, I said, the god, since he is good, would not be the cause of all things, as most people say, but is the cause of few things for human beings, and not the cause of many — for the good things that come to us are far fewer than the bad, and for the good things no other cause is to be assigned, but for the bad things some other causes must be sought, and not the god.

You seem to me to be speaking most truly, he said.

Then, I said, we must not accept, either from Homer or from any other poet, this error about the gods, when he errs senselessly and says— that two jars stand upon the threshold of Zeus, filled with dooms, one full of good, the other of evil; and to whomever Zeus gives, mixing from both, at one time he meets with evil, at another with good; but to whomever he does not, but gives the other unmixed, him a harsh hunger drives across the shining earth; nor that Zeus has been made for us a steward— of good things and of bad things. But the breaking of oaths and truces, which Pandarus broke, we shall not approve if anyone says it came about through Athena and Zeus, nor the strife and judgment of the gods through Themis and Zeus, nor again, as Aeschylus says, must the young be allowed to hear that— god plants guilt in mortals, whenever he wishes to ruin a house utterly. But if anyone composes poetry containing these iambic lines — the sufferings of Niobe, or those of the house of Pelops, or the Trojan sufferings, or anything else of the kind — either we must not allow these to be called the works of a god, or, if they are a god's work, the poet must work out for them nearly the account we are now seeking, and must say that the god was doing what was just and good, and that those punished were benefited by it; but that those paying the penalty were wretched, and that it was a god who did this, the poet must not be allowed to say. But if they were to say that the wicked were wretched because they needed punishment, and that in paying the penalty they were benefited by the god, this may be allowed; but that a god, being good, becomes for anyone the cause of evils, we must fight against in every way — no one is to say this in his own city, if it is to be well governed, and no one is to hear it, younger or older, whether the tale is told in verse or without it, since such things, if said, would be neither pious, nor advantageous to us, nor consistent with themselves.

I am with you on this law, he said, and it pleases me.

This, then, I said, would be one of the laws and patterns concerning the gods, by which both speakers must speak and poets must compose: that the god is the cause not of everything, but only of what is good.

Quite so, he said — that is enough.

The Second Pattern: God Does Not Change or Deceive

But what, then, is this second pattern? Do you think the god is a sorcerer — one who, as if by design, might appear now in one shape, now in another, at one moment truly becoming different [and] changing his own form into many shapes, at another merely deceiving us and making us think such things about him — or is he simple, and of all things least likely to step outside his own form?

I cannot say, he said, at least not right now.

And what of this? Isn't it necessary, if something departs at all from its own form, that it be changed either by itself or by another?

It is necessary.

Now then, isn't it true that things in the best condition are least altered and moved by another? Take a body affected by food, drink, and exertion, or any plant affected by heat, wind, and such things — isn't the healthiest and strongest least altered?

How could it not be?

And the soul — wouldn't the most courageous and most sensible soul be least disturbed and altered by anything from outside?

Yes.

And surely, by the same reasoning, all composite things too — furniture, buildings, and clothing — when well made and in good condition, are least altered by time and other such effects.

This is so.

Whatever is in good condition, whether by nature, by craft, or by both, admits the least change from another.

So it seems.

But surely the god, and everything belonging to the god, is in every way in the best condition.

How could it not be?

In that respect, then, the god would least of all take on many shapes.

Least of all, indeed.

But might he change and alter himself?

Clearly, he said, if he is altered at all.

Does he, then, change himself into something better and more beautiful, or into something worse and uglier than himself?

It must be for the worse, he said, if he is altered at all — for surely we won't say that the god is lacking in beauty or virtue.

That is exactly right, I said. And if that's how things stand, does it seem to you, Adeimantus, that anyone — god or man — would willingly make himself worse in any way at all?

Impossible, he said.

It is impossible, then, I said, for a god too to be willing to alter himself; rather, as it seems, being most beautiful and best so far as possible, each of them remains forever, simply, in his own form.

That seems to me an absolute necessity, he said.

Then let none of the poets, I said, my good friend, tell us that— … gods, like strangers from foreign lands, taking on every shape, go about the cities; nor let anyone speak falsely of Proteus and Thetis either, nor bring Hera on, in tragedies or in any other poems, transformed into a priestess out collecting alms— for the life-giving children of Inachus, the Argive river; nor let them tell us many other such falsehoods. Nor, in turn, let mothers, taken in by these stories, frighten their children with them — telling the tales badly, as though there really are gods who go about at night disguised as every sort of stranger — so that they may not at once blaspheme against the gods and make their children more cowardly.

No indeed, he said.

But is it, I said, that the gods themselves are the sort not to change, yet make us believe they appear as every sort of thing, deceiving and bewitching us?

Perhaps, he said.

But what of this? I said — would a god be willing to lie, presenting a false appearance in word or in deed?

I don't know, he said.

Don't you know, I said, that the true lie — if one may put it that way — is hated by all gods and men alike?

What, he said, do you mean?

Like this, I said: no one willingly consents to be deceived in the most sovereign part of himself, about the most important things, but fears more than anything to have that falsehood lodged there.

I still don't understand, even now, he said.

You think I mean something solemn, I said — but what I mean is this: that of all things, everyone would least willingly accept being lied to and deceived and made ignorant, in the soul, about the things that are, and having and holding falsehood there, and it is there that they hate it most.

Very much so, he said.

And surely what I was speaking of just now would most correctly be called the true lie — the ignorance in the soul of the one who has been deceived — since the lie in words is a kind of imitation of that condition in the soul, an image of it that comes into being afterward, and not an entirely unmixed falsehood. Or is it not so?

Certainly.

So the lie that really is a lie is hated not only by gods but by men as well.

So it seems to me.

But what of the [lie] in words? When and for whom is it useful, such that it doesn't deserve to be hated? Isn't it useful, like a medicine, against enemies, and among those called friends, whenever, through madness or some folly, they attempt to do something bad, for the sake of turning them away from it? And in the myth-telling we were just now discussing, don't we make it useful in the same way, because we don't know how the truth stands about ancient matters, by making the falsehood resemble the truth as closely as possible?

Yes indeed, he said, that's how it is.

So on which of these grounds, then, is falsehood useful to the god? Would he lie, through not knowing about ancient things, by fashioning a likeness?

That would be ridiculous, he said.

So there is no lying poet in a god.

I don't think so.

But would he lie out of fear of his enemies?

Far from it.

But because of the folly or madness of his kin?

But none of the foolish and the mad is dear to the gods, he said.

So there is no reason for which a god would lie.

There is not.

So everything divine and everything godlike is altogether free of falsehood.

Absolutely, he said.

So the god is entirely simple and truthful, in deed as in word, and he neither changes himself nor deceives others, whether by apparitions, by words, or by the sending of signs, either in waking life or in dreams.

That's how it seems to me too, he said, now that you put it this way.

So you agree, I said, that this is the second pattern by which one must speak and compose about the gods — that they are neither sorcerers who change themselves, nor do they lead us astray with falsehoods, in word or in deed?

I agree.

So although we praise Homer for much, we will not praise this — the sending of the dream to Agamemnon by Zeus — nor this of Aeschylus, when Thetis says that Apollo, singing at her own wedding, foretold her fortune in children: lives free of sickness, and long in their years, and speaking of my fortunes as altogether dear to the gods, he raised a paean of good omen, cheering my heart. And I hoped that the divine mouth of Phoebus was free of falsehood, brimming with the craft of prophecy; but he — the very one singing, the very one present at the feast, the very one who spoke these words — 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, and we will not allow the teachers to make use of them in educating the young, if our guardians are to become god-fearing and godlike, so far as that is possible for a human being.

I agree entirely, he said, with these patterns, and I would treat them as laws.

Book III

Tales of Hades, and Grief

Such, then, I said, are more or less the things about the gods that must and must not be heard, it seems, right from childhood, by those who are to honor the gods and their parents, and who are not to hold their friendship for one another lightly.

And I think, he said, that this seems right to us.

But what if they are to be courageous? Must we not tell them these things too, and such as will make them least afraid of death? Or do you think anyone could ever become courageous while holding this terror within himself?

By Zeus, he said, not I.

What then? Do you think that someone who believes the things in Hades exist and are terrible will be unafraid of death, and will choose death in battle over defeat and slavery?

Not at all.

It seems, then, that we must supervise those who undertake to tell these tales as well, and ask them not to disparage what is in Hades so flatly, but rather to praise it, since what they say would be neither true nor of any use to men who are going to fight.

We must indeed, he said.

We shall erase, then, I said, beginning from this verse, all such passages— I would rather be a serf, laboring for hire for another, a landless man with little to live on, than be ruler over all the dead who have perished— and this: and the house would show itself to mortals and immortals, dreadful, dank, the very thing the gods themselves detest— and: Ah me, so there is, even in the house of Hades, a soul and a phantom, but no mind in it at all— and this: that he alone has understanding, but the others flit about as shadows— and: his soul, flying forth from his limbs, went down to Hades, bewailing its fate, leaving behind manhood and youth— and this: … and the soul went beneath the earth, like smoke, gibbering as it went … and: and as when bats, in the recess of a wondrous cave, fly about shrieking, whenever one falls from the cluster on the rock, and they cling to one another, so these went together, shrieking. All these things, and everything like them, we will beg Homer and the other poets not to take offense if we cut out — not on the grounds that they lack poetic quality or fail to delight most listeners, but rather, the finer the poetry, the less fit it is for the ears of boys and men who must live as free people, dreading slavery more than death.

Quite so.

Then all the terrible and frightening names connected with these things must also be discarded — Cocytus and Styx, and the dead below, and the bloodless ones, and everything else named in this fashion that is supposed to make everyone who hears it shudder. And perhaps that serves well enough for some other purpose; but on behalf of the guardians we are afraid that a shudder of this kind will make them more feverish and softer than they ought to be.

And we are right to fear it, he said.

Then must they be removed?

Yes.

And must the opposite pattern to these be both spoken and composed?

Clearly.

And shall we then remove the wailings and lamentations of men of note?

It is necessary, he said, if the earlier ones were too.

Consider, then, I said, whether we will be right to remove them or not. We do say that the decent man will not think it terrible that another decent man, who is in fact his comrade, has died.

Yes, we do say that.

Then he would not lament on behalf of that man, as though he had suffered something terrible.

Certainly not.

But surely we also say this, that such a man is above all self-sufficient in himself for living well, and that, unlike others, he least of all needs anyone else.

True, he said.

Then it is least terrible for him to be deprived of a son or a brother or possessions or anything else of that kind.

Least of all, indeed.

Then he will least of all lament, and will bear it as calmly as possible, whenever such a misfortune overtakes him.

Very much so.

Then we would rightly remove the dirges of famous men, and give them instead to women — and not even to worthy women — and to such men as are base, so that those whom we say we are raising to guard the country will find it repugnant to behave like them.

Rightly, he said.

Again, then, we shall ask Homer and the other poets not to portray Achilles, son of a goddess, as— now lying on his side, and now again on his back, and now on his face, … and at other times springing upright and roaming distracted along the shore of the barren sea, or taking the sooty dust in both hands and pouring it down over his head, or weeping and wailing in every other way, and to every degree, that the poet gave him, or as Priam, near kin to the gods, imploring, and— rolling in the dung, calling out each man by name. And still more than these we shall ask them not, at any rate, to make the gods lament and say— Ah me, wretched, ah me, who bore the bravest of men to misfortune— but if they portray the gods at all, let them not dare to imitate even the greatest of the gods so unlike himself as to make him say— Ah me, he says, truly a dear man, pursued around the city, I see with my eyes, and my heart grieves— and— Ah, ah, woe is me, that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, is fated to be slain by Patroclus, son of Menoetius. For if, dear Adeimantus, our young men were to hear such things told in earnest and not laugh at them as unworthy of being said, a man would hardly consider himself — mere human that he is — above such conduct, and reproach himself, should the impulse come to him to say or do anything of the kind; instead, feeling no shame and exercising no restraint, he would sing many dirges and lamentations over small misfortunes.

That is most true, he said.

But it must not be so, as our argument just now showed us; and we must be persuaded by it, until someone convinces us with a finer one.

No, it must not, indeed.

But surely they must not be lovers of laughter either. For pretty much whenever someone gives way to violent laughter, that condition looks for a violent change as well.

I think so, he said.

Then, if anyone portrays men of account overcome by laughter, it must not be accepted — and much less so, if it is gods.

Truthfulness, Moderation, and What May Be Said of Men

Far more so, he said.

Then we will not accept such things about the gods from Homer either— inextinguishable laughter broke out among the blessed gods, as they watched Hephaestus hurrying through the halls— not to be accepted, by your own argument.

If you want to put it down as mine, he said—for it certainly must not be accepted.

But indeed truth too must be prized highly. For if we were right just now in saying that falsehood is truly useless to the gods, but useful to human beings as a kind of medicine, clearly such a thing must be given to doctors, and ordinary people must not touch it.

Clearly, he said.

It belongs, then, to the rulers of the city, if to anyone, to lie for the sake of enemies or citizens, for the city's benefit, but all the rest must not touch such a thing; rather, we will say that for a private person to lie to such rulers is the same fault as, or a greater one than, a sick man's failing to tell his doctor, or a man in training his trainer, the truth about the condition of his own body, or someone's not telling a helmsman the real situation of the ship and the crew—how he himself or one of his fellow sailors is faring.

Very true, he said.

If then he catches anyone else in the city lying— … among those who are craftsmen, a seer, or a healer of ills, or a shaper of timbers— he will punish him for introducing a practice as subversive and ruinous to a city as it would be to a ship.

Provided, he said, that the deed follows the word.

What next? Will our young men not need moderation?

How could they not?

And for the multitude, are not these the greatest parts of moderation: being obedient to rulers, and being themselves masters of the pleasures of drink and sex and food?

So it seems to me.

Such things, I think, we will say are well spoken, the sort of thing Diomedes says in Homer— Good fellow, sit in silence, and yield to my word, and what follows on from that— … the Achaeans advanced, breathing fury, in silence, in fear of their commanders, … and whatever else is of that kind.

Well said.

What next? Are things like these— You drunken sot, with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer— and what comes after them—are these well said, and all the other insolent outbursts of private men against rulers that anyone has uttered in prose or in verse?

Not well said.

For I do not think such things are fitting for the young to hear, at least with a view to moderation; though if they afford some other pleasure, that is no surprise. Or how does it seem to you?

It seems so to me, he said.

What next? To portray the wisest of men as saying that this seems to him the finest of all things, when— … beside them the tables are heaped full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer, drawing wine from the bowl, carries it round and pours it into the cups— does that seem to you a fit thing for a young man to hear, with a view to his self-mastery? Or take the line— to die of hunger is the most pitiful thing, and to meet one's end that way? Or take Zeus, who, while the other gods and men were sleeping, alone stayed awake over the plans he had made, yet easily forgot all of it because of his desire for sex, and was so overwhelmed at the sight of Hera that he did not even want to go to their chamber, but wanted to lie with her right there on the ground, saying that he was gripped by desire as he had never been, not even when they first came together as lovers without their parents' knowing—or take also the binding of Ares and Aphrodite by Hephaestus for similar reasons.

By Zeus, no, he said—that does not seem fitting to me.

But wherever, I said, endurance in the face of everything is both told of and displayed by men of note, that we must watch and hear, such as this— he struck his breast, and rebuked his heart with these words: Hold firm, my heart; you have borne something more shameless than this before.

Certainly, he said.

Nor indeed must we allow our men to be bribe-takers or lovers of money.

By no means.

Nor should they sing that— gifts persuade the gods, and gifts persuade revered kings— nor should Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, be praised for speaking with restraint when he advised him to defend the Achaeans once he had taken gifts, but not to lay aside his wrath without them. Nor will we consider it fitting, nor will we agree, that Achilles himself was so fond of money that he took gifts from Agamemnon, and, after taking payment, released the corpse, but was otherwise unwilling to do so.

It is certainly not right, he said, to praise such things.

And I hesitate, I said, for Homer's sake, to say that it is not even pious to assert these things about Achilles, or to believe them when others say so—and likewise how he spoke to Apollo— You have hurt me, Far-Worker, most destructive of all the gods; I would take vengeance on you, if only I had the power— and how he defied the river, though it was a god, and stood ready to fight it, and again how he said of the sacred hair of the other river, Spercheius, that he would give it to the hero Patroclus to carry with him, though Patroclus was already dead, and that he actually did this—none of it is to be believed; 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 shall deny was truly told, nor shall we allow our people to be persuaded that Achilles, son of a goddess and of Peleus, who was most moderate of men and third in descent from Zeus, and who was raised by Chiron the wisest of all, was so full of turmoil as to harbor in himself two opposed afflictions, illiberality together with love of money, and, besides these, arrogance toward gods and men.

You are right, he said.

Let us then, I said, neither believe these things nor allow them to be said—that Theseus, son of Poseidon, and Pirithous, son of Zeus, set out on such dreadful abductions, nor that any other child of a god and hero would ever have dared such terrible and impious deeds, of the sort now falsely charged against them—but let us compel the poets to say either that these are not their deeds, or that these men are not children of gods, and not to assert both, nor let them attempt to persuade our young that the gods beget evil, and that heroes are no better than men; for, as we said before, these things are neither pious nor true, since we have shown, I believe, that it is impossible for evil to come from the gods.

Of course.

And indeed they are harmful to those who hear them; for everyone will forgive himself for being wicked, once persuaded that such things are done, and were done, even by— … those close in kin to the gods, ⟨those⟩ near to Zeus, whose ancestral altar, on the ridge of Ida, stands in the upper air, and— the blood of the divine has not yet faded from them. For this reason, such tales must be stopped, lest they breed in our young too great a readiness for wickedness.

Quite so, he said.

What kind of discourse, then, I said, is still left for us, in determining what sort should be told and what should not? For it has been stated how we must speak about the gods, and about spirits and heroes and those in Hades.

Certainly.

Then would what remains not be about human beings?

Clearly so.

It is impossible, my friend, for us to determine this, at any rate for the present.

How so?

Because I think we shall have to say that both poets and prose-writers speak badly about human beings in the most important matters, in that many unjust men are happy, while just men are wretched, and that doing wrong is profitable if it goes undetected, while justice is a good belonging to another but a loss to oneself; and we shall forbid them to say such things, and require them instead to sing and tell tales of the opposite. Or do you not think so?

I know it very well, he said.

Then if you agree that I speak rightly, shall I say that you have agreed to what we have long been seeking?

You have grasped it correctly, he said.

Diction: Narrative, Imitation, and the Mixed Kind

Then as for human beings, that stories of this sort must be told about them — is that something we shall agree on only once we have discovered what justice is, and how it is by nature advantageous to the one who has it, whether or not he is thought to be such a man?

Very true, he said.

Let the matter of content, then, have its end; the matter of diction, I think, is what must be examined next, and then our inquiry into both what must be said and how it must be said will be complete.

And Adeimantus said, I do not understand what you mean by this.

But indeed you must, I said; perhaps you will grasp it better this way. Is it not true that everything said by storytellers or poets turns out to be narrative concerning things that have happened, are happening, or are going to happen?

What else, he said, could it be?

Then do they not carry it through either by plain narrative, or by narrative through imitation, or by both together?

And this too, he said, I still need to understand more clearly.

I seem, I said, to be a ridiculous and unclear teacher; so then, like people who are no good at speaking, I will not take it as a whole but take up one part of it and try in that to make my meaning clear to you. And tell me: do you know the opening of the Iliad, where the poet says that Chryses begs Agamemnon to release his daughter, that Agamemnon grows angry, and that Chryses, since he is getting nowhere, prays against the Achaeans to the god?

I do.

Do you know, then, that up to these verses— …and he pleaded with all the Achaeans, but above all with the two sons of Atreus, orderers of the host— it is the poet himself who speaks, and he does not try to turn our thought elsewhere, as if someone other than himself were the speaker; but after this he speaks as though he himself were Chryses, and tries his very best to make us think that it is not Homer who is speaking but the priest, an old man. And in just this way he has composed nearly all the rest of his narrative, concerning the sufferings both in Troy and in Ithaca and throughout the whole Odyssey.

Quite so, he said.

Then is it not narrative both when he delivers the speeches themselves and when he gives what falls between the speeches?

How could it not be?

But when he delivers some speech as though he were someone else, shall we not then say that he likens himself as closely as possible, in his own diction, to whatever person he has announced beforehand as about to speak?

We shall say so; why would we not?

Then to liken oneself to another, whether in voice or in bearing, is surely to imitate that person to whom one likens oneself?

What else could it be?

In such a case, then, it seems, both this poet and the other poets carry out their narrative through imitation.

Quite so.

But if the poet were nowhere to conceal himself, then his whole composition and narrative would have come about without imitation. And so that you will not say again that you do not understand, I will explain how this would come about. For if Homer, after saying that Chryses came bringing ransom for his daughter and as a suppliant of the Achaeans, and above all of their kings, had gone on speaking after this not as though he had become Chryses but still as Homer, you know that it would not have been imitation but plain narrative. It would have gone something like this — I will put it without meter, for I am no poet — the priest came and prayed that the gods would grant that they, having taken Troy, should themselves come home safe, and that they would release his daughter to him, accepting the ransom and showing reverence for the god. When he had said this, the rest of them showed reverence and gave their assent, but Agamemnon grew fierce, commanding him to leave at once and never come back, lest his staff and the garlands of the god should fail to protect him; and he said that, before his daughter should be released, she would grow old in Argos together with him — and he ordered him to depart and not provoke him, so that he might reach home safely. And the old man, hearing this, was afraid and went away in silence; but withdrawing from the camp he prayed at length to Apollo, calling on the god by his titles, and reminding him, and claiming a return for any pleasing gift he had ever made him, whether in the building of temples or in the sacrifices at his shrines; and for the sake of these he prayed that the Achaeans should pay for his tears with the god's arrows. In this way, I said, my friend, plain narrative comes about without imitation.

I understand, he said.

Understand, then, I said, that the opposite of this comes about when someone removes what the poet says between the speeches and leaves only the exchanges.

This too I understand, he said — that this is what happens in tragedies.

You have understood quite rightly, I said, and I think I can now make clear to you what I was unable to before — that of poetry and storytelling one kind is wholly through imitation, as you say, namely tragedy and comedy; another is through the poet's own report — you would find this especially in dithyrambs; and yet another, in turn, is through both together, as in epic poetry, and in many other places besides, if you follow me.

But I do understand, he said, what you meant to say then.

And recall also what came before this — that we said the question of what must be said had already been settled, but the question of how it must be said still had to be examined.

I do remember.

This, then, was just what I meant — that we must come to an agreement whether we shall allow the poets to make their narratives for us by imitating, or by imitating some things and not others — and which are which — or not to imitate at all.

I suspect, he said, that you are considering whether we shall admit tragedy and comedy into the city, or not.

Perhaps, I said, and perhaps even more than these; for I myself do not yet know, but wherever the argument, like a wind, carries us, there we must go.

And you are right to say so, he said.

Whether the Guardians May Imitate

Now consider this too, Adeimantus: must our guardians be imitative or not — or does this too follow from what we said before, that each single person could practice one occupation well, but not many, and if he tried, in taking hold of many he would fail at all of them, so that he would be nowhere of note?

Why would it not?

Then does not the same argument hold about imitation too — that the same person is not able to imitate many things well, as he can one?

No, indeed not.

Then it is scarcely likely that the same person could at once practice any worthwhile occupation and also imitate many things and be imitative, since the same people cannot even imitate well at the same time two imitations that seem close to each other — for instance, composing both comedy and tragedy. Or did you not just now call these two imitations?

I did — and you are right that the same people cannot do it.

Nor indeed can the same be rhapsodes and actors at once.

True.

But surely the same people are not actors for both comedy and tragedy either — and all these are imitations. Or are they not?

They are imitations.

And beyond these, Adeimantus, it seems to me that human nature is chopped up into even smaller pieces than these, so that it is unable to imitate many things well, or to do the very things themselves of which the imitations are likenesses.

Very true, he said.

If then we are to preserve our first principle — that our guardians, released from all other crafts, must be exact craftsmen of the city's freedom and practice nothing else that does not bear on this — then surely they ought to do nothing else, nor imitate anything else; but if they do imitate, they should imitate, right from childhood, what is fitting for them: the brave, the moderate, the pious, the free, and everything of that kind, while doing none of what is unfree, nor being clever at imitating it, nor anything else shameful, lest from the imitation they come to reap the reality itself. Or have you not noticed that imitations, if they are kept up from youth far into life, settle into habits and nature, in body, voice, and mind alike?

Indeed I have, he said.

We will not, then, permit those we say we care for, who must become good men, to imitate — men though they are — a woman, young or old, reviling her husband, or quarreling with the gods and vaunting herself against them, thinking herself happy, or in the grip of misfortunes and griefs and dirges; and as for a woman who is sick, or in love, or in labor, we shall be very far indeed from allowing it.

Quite so, he said.

Nor indeed female or male slaves doing what is fit for slaves.

No, not that either.

Nor, it seems, bad men either — cowardly, doing the opposite of what we just described, reviling and mocking one another, speaking foully, drunk or sober, or whatever else such people do wrong in word and deed, against themselves and others; and I think they should not even be trained to make themselves like madmen in word or deed, for they must know both mad and wicked men and women, but must do none of these things, nor imitate them.

Very true, he said.

What about this? I said — must they imitate men forging bronze, or practicing some other craft, or rowing triremes, or calling out orders to the rowers, or anything else connected with such things?

And how could they? These are men, he said, who will not even be allowed to pay attention to any of it?

What about this? Will they imitate whinnying horses, and bellowing bulls, and roaring rivers, and crashing sea, and thunder, and all such things again?

But it is forbidden them, he said, either to be mad or to liken themselves to the mad.

If then, I said, I understand what you mean, there is a certain kind of diction and narration in which the truly good and noble man would narrate, whenever he needed to say something, and another kind again, unlike this one, to which the man of opposite birth and upbringing would always keep, and in which he would narrate.

What are these, then, he said?

The moderate man, I said, it seems to me, whenever 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 not be ashamed of such imitation — imitating, above all, the good man acting safely and sensibly, but doing so less, and less willingly, when that man has been thrown off balance by sickness or love, or by drunkenness, or by some other misfortune; and whenever he comes upon someone unworthy of himself, he will not be willing to liken himself in earnest to the worse man, except perhaps briefly, when he does something good — but he will be ashamed, both because he is untrained at imitating such people, and because he is loath to mold and set himself into the patterns of worse men, holding it in contempt in his thought, except for the sake of play.

That's likely, he said.

Then he will use the kind of narration we went through a little earlier concerning Homer's verses, and his diction will partake of both — imitation and the rest of narration — but with only a small portion of imitation in a long stretch of speech? Or am I talking nonsense?

Quite so, he said — that must indeed be the pattern for such a speaker.

Then, I said, the man who is not like this, on the other hand — the more inferior he is, the more he will narrate everything, and think nothing beneath him, so that he will attempt to imitate everything in earnest and before a large audience: the things we just mentioned, thunder and the noise of winds and hail, and axles and pulleys, and the sounds of trumpets and flutes and pipes and every instrument, and further the cries of dogs and sheep and birds; and will not the whole of his diction then consist of imitation, in voice and gesture, with only a small part of it narration?

That too is necessary, he said.

These, then, I said, are the two kinds of diction I meant.

Yes, they are, he said.

Then one of the two has small variations, and if someone assigns a fitting harmony and rhythm to the diction, one who speaks it correctly comes very near to speaking throughout in the same way, and in a single harmony — for the variations are small — and indeed also in some correspondingly similar rhythm?

Quite so, he said, that is how it is.

But what of the kind belonging to the other? Does it not need the opposite — all the harmonies and all the rhythms — if it is in turn to be spoken fittingly, because it has variations of every sort of shape?

Very much so — that is how it is.

Do all the poets, then, and all those who say anything, hit upon one or the other of these two types of diction, or upon some blend mixed from both?

Necessarily, he said.

What then shall we do? I said — shall we admit all of these into our city, or one of the unmixed types, or the mixed one?

If my view prevails, he said, the unmixed imitator of the decent man.

But indeed, Adeimantus, the mixed one is pleasant too, and by far the most pleasant to children and their attendants is the type opposite to the one you choose, and to the great mass of people.

Yes, for it is the most pleasant.

But perhaps, I said, you would say it does not fit our constitution, because there is no double man among us, nor a manifold one, since each person does one thing.

No, indeed it does not fit.

Is it not for this reason that only in such a city will we find the shoemaker a shoemaker and not also a pilot besides his shoemaking, and the farmer a farmer and not also a judge besides his farming, and the soldier a soldier and not also a money-maker besides his soldiering, and everyone the same way?

True, he said.

So a man, it seems, capable through his skill of becoming all things and imitating every kind of thing, if he should come to our city wanting to display himself and his poems, we would bow down to him as someone sacred, wonderful, and pleasing, but we would tell him that there is no such man in our city, nor is it right that there should be, and we would send him off to another city, pouring myrrh over his head and crowning him with wool, while we ourselves would make use of the more austere and less pleasing poet and storyteller, for the sake of benefit, the one who would imitate for us the diction of the decent man and say what is said in those patterns which we laid down at the start, when we set about educating our soldiers.

Indeed, he said, that is what we would do, if it were up to us.

Now then, my friend, I said, the part of our music concerning speech and stories has, it seems, been fully completed for us; for both what must be said and how it must be said have been stated.

It seems so to me too, he said.

Modes and Rhythms

Well then, I said, what remains after this is the subject of the manner of song and of melodies?

Clearly.

Then would not anyone by now find for himself what we must say about them, what sort they should be, if indeed we are going to be in accord with what has already been said?

And Glaucon, laughing, said, Well now, Socrates, I am in danger of being outside the whole business — I am not well enough equipped at present to work out just what sort of things we ought to say; I do have my suspicions, though.

At any rate, I said, you are well enough equipped to say this much first — that a melody is composed of three things, words and harmony and rhythm.

Yes, he said, that much.

Then so far as it consists of words, surely it does not differ at all from unsung words in needing to be spoken in the same patterns we described just now, and in the same way?

True, he said.

And indeed harmony and rhythm must follow the words.

How could they not?

But surely we said that our words have no need at all of dirges and lamentations.

No indeed.

Which harmonies, then, are suited to dirges? Tell me — you are the musical one.

Mixolydian, he said, and Syntonolydian, and some such.

Then must these, I said, be removed? They are useless even for women who are meant to be decent, let alone for men.

Certainly.

And indeed drunkenness is most unbecoming for guardians, and softness, and idleness.

How could they not be?

Which of the harmonies, then, are soft and suited to drinking parties?

Ionian, he said, and Lydian too — some of them are called relaxed.

Then, my friend, will you make any use of these for warlike men?

Not at all, he said — but it looks as though Dorian and Phrygian are what is left to you.

I do not know the harmonies myself, I said, but leave that harmony which would fittingly imitate the tones and accents of a brave man engaged in warlike action and in every violent undertaking, who meets failure, or goes toward wounds or death, or falls into some other misfortune, and who in all these circumstances wards off fortune steadily and with endurance; and leave another, in turn, for one engaged in a peaceful and unforced but voluntary action — persuading someone of something and making a request, whether of a god by prayer or of a person by teaching and admonition, or, on the contrary, submitting himself to another who requests or teaches or persuades him — and who, having acted accordingly as he intended, and not being carried away with pride, but conducting himself with moderation and measure in all these things, and being content with the outcome. These two harmonies, then — violent and voluntary, of the unfortunate, of the fortunate, of the moderate, of the brave — whichever ones will best imitate the sounds, leave those.

Well, he said, you are not asking to leave any others than the ones I just mentioned.

Then we shall have no need, I said, of many strings or of a pan-harmonic instrument in our songs and melodies.

It does not seem so to me, he said.

Then we will not keep craftsmen of trigons and pektides and all the instruments that are many-stringed and many-tuned.

No, it seems we will not.

What next? Will you admit makers of auloi or aulos-players into the city? Or is this not the most many-stringed thing of all, and do not the pan-harmonic instruments themselves happen to be an imitation of the aulos?

Clearly, he said.

The lyre, then, I said, and the kithara are left for you as useful in the city; and in the countryside, in turn, some sort of syrinx might be for the shepherds.

So at least, he said, our argument indicates.

We are doing nothing new, my friend, I said, in preferring Apollo and Apollo's instruments to Marsyas and his instruments.

No, by Zeus, he said, it does not seem to me that we are.

And by the dog, I said, without even noticing it, we have been purifying again the city we just now said was living in luxury.

Showing our moderation, at any rate, he said.

Come then, I said, let us purify what is left. For what follows next, in due order after the harmonies, would be the subject of rhythms — we should not pursue elaborate rhythms or every kind of metrical foot, but rather see what the rhythms of an orderly and courageous life are; and once we have seen those, we should compel the foot — and the melody too — to follow the words of such a life, and not the words to follow the foot and the melody. But which these rhythms actually are, it is your job, just as with the harmonies, to tell me.

But by Zeus, he said, I cannot say. As for the fact that there are some three kinds from which the metrical feet are woven, just as there are four among the notes, from which come all the harmonies — that I could say, having observed it; but which kinds are imitations of which sort of life, I am not able to say.

But these matters, I said, we shall take counsel over with Damon too — which feet suit illiberality and insolence, or madness and other vice, and which rhythms must be left for their opposites; and I think I have heard him — though not clearly — naming a certain compound enoplios, and the dactyl, and the heroic foot too, arranging it somehow, I do not know how, and setting it equal above and below, resolving into short and long, and, as I think, he called one an iamb and another a trochee, attaching to them lengths and shortnesses. And in some of these, I think, he criticized and praised the movements of the foot no less than the rhythms themselves — or perhaps some combination of both, I cannot say — but these matters, as I said, let us defer to Damon, since to sort them out is no small task. Or do you think otherwise?

By Zeus, not I.

But can you distinguish at least this much — that gracefulness and gracelessness follow good rhythm and bad rhythm?

How could I not?

Why Musical Training Matters: Grace, and the Right Love

But surely, of good rhythm and bad rhythm, the one follows and resembles fine speech, and the other follows its opposite, and likewise with good harmony and disharmony, if indeed rhythm and harmony follow speech, as was just said, rather than speech following them.

But surely, he said, these must follow speech.

And what of the manner of diction, I said, and speech itself? Does it not follow the character of the soul?

How could it not?

And the rest follow diction?

Yes.

Fine speech, then, and good harmony, and good grace, and good rhythm follow good nature — not the folly that we flatteringly nickname [as good nature], but the understanding truly and finely established in its character.

Absolutely, he said.

Must not the young then pursue these everywhere, if they are to do their own work?

They must indeed pursue them.

Painting, I suppose, is full of these, and every craft of that kind, and so is weaving, and embroidery, and building, and in turn all the working of other implements, and further the nature of bodies and of other growing things — for in all of these there is grace or the lack of it. And ungracefulness, and bad rhythm, and disharmony are kin to bad speech and bad character, while their opposites are kin to, and likenesses of, the opposite — a moderate and good character.

Absolutely, he said.

Must we then 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 too and prevent them from embodying this ill character — licentious, illiberal, and graceless — in images of living things, or in buildings, or in anything else that is crafted, and must the one who is unable to do so not be allowed to practice his craft among us, so that our guardians, being reared among images of vice as if in bad pasture, cropping and grazing a little each day from many sources, should not unknowingly gather it together into one great evil in their own soul; but rather we must seek out those craftsmen gifted enough to track down the nature of the fine and the graceful, so that our young, living as if in a healthy place, may profit from everything, from wherever, out of fine works, something should strike their sight or hearing, like a breeze bringing health from wholesome regions, and may be led, unaware, from childhood on, into likeness and friendship and harmony with fine reason?

Yes, he said, for they would be reared most finely that way.

Now is it not for these reasons, I said, Glaucon, that education in music is most sovereign — that rhythm and harmony sink deepest into the inside of the soul and take the strongest hold on it, bringing grace with them, and make a person graceful if he is reared correctly, and if not, the opposite? And is it not also that the one reared there as he should be would perceive most keenly whatever is left out and not finely crafted or not finely grown, and, rightly repelled by them, would praise the fine things instead and, delighting in them and taking them into his soul, would be nourished by them and become fine and good, while he would rightly blame and hate the shameful things even while still young, before he is able to grasp the reason for it, and when reason comes, he who is thus reared would welcome it, recognizing it above all through its kinship?

At any rate it seems so to me, he said — that for reasons like these, education lies in music.

So then, I said, just as with letters, we were satisfied about them at the point when the elements — few as they are — no longer escaped our notice, appearing throughout everything in which they occur, and we did not disregard them whether in something small or great, thinking there was no need to attend to them, but everywhere we were eager to distinguish them, on the ground that we would not be literate before we could do this—

True.

And is it not also true that we would not recognize images of letters, if they should appear somewhere in water or in mirrors, before we knew the letters themselves — but that this belongs to the same craft and the same practice?

Absolutely.

Then is not this what I mean, by the gods — that in just this way we shall not be musical either, neither we ourselves nor those we say we must educate as our guardians, until we recognize the kinds of moderation and courage and liberality and magnificence, and everything akin to these, and in turn their opposites, circulating everywhere, and perceive them present in whatever they are present in, both themselves and their images, and neither in small things nor in great ones disregard them, but believe this to belong to the same craft and the same practice?

Quite necessarily, he said.

So then, I said, when fine character in the soul coincides in someone with an outward form that agrees and chimes with it, both sharing in the same pattern — would that not be the finest sight for anyone able to behold it?

Very much so.

And surely the finest is also the most lovable?

How could it not be?

It is such people above all, then, that the musical person would love; but if someone were out of harmony, he would not love him.

He would not, he said, if the lack were in the soul; but if it were something in the body, he would put up with it, so as to be willing to welcome him.

I understand, I said — that you have, or have had, a favorite of this sort, and I grant the point. But tell me this: is there any partnership between moderation and excessive pleasure?

And how could there be? It drives one out of one's mind, he said, no less than pain does?

But with virtue in general?

Not at all.

And what about this? With insolence and licentiousness?

Most of all.

Can you name a greater or keener pleasure than that of sex?

I cannot, he said, nor a madder one either.

But is it not the nature of the right kind of love to love what is orderly and fine, moderately and musically?

Very much so, he said.

Then nothing mad, or akin to licentiousness, must be brought near the right kind of love?

Nothing must be brought near it.

Then this pleasure must not be brought near it either, nor may lover and beloved, if they love and are loved rightly, share in it together?

No indeed, by Zeus, he said, Socrates, it must not be brought near.

So then, it seems, you will lay down as law in the city we are founding that a lover may kiss, and be with, and touch his favorite as a father would his son, for the sake of what is fine, if he persuades him, but that otherwise he must associate with the one he is eager for in such a way that he never seems to go further than this; and if he does, he will be liable to the reproach of a lack of culture and of taste.

Gymnastic and the Body

So it is, he said.

Well then, I said, does our discussion of music seem to you, too, to have reached its end? It has certainly ended where it ought to end — for musical training, I think, must end in the erotic love of the beautiful.

I agree, he said.

After music, then, our young men are to be reared on gymnastic.

Of course.

In this too they must certainly be reared with care, from childhood throughout their life. It is somehow, I think, like this — consider it yourself too. For it does not seem to me that a good body, by its own virtue, makes a soul good, but on the contrary that a good soul, by its own virtue, renders the body as good as it can possibly be — so how does it seem to you?

So it seems to me too, he said.

Then, if we cared for the mind well enough and handed over to it the precise working-out of matters concerning the body, while we ourselves merely sketched the outlines, so as not to talk at excessive length, would we not be acting rightly?

Certainly.

We have already said that they must abstain from drunkenness; for anyone at all, sooner than a guardian, may get drunk and not know where in the world he is.

Yes, he said, for it would be ridiculous for the guardian himself to need a guardian.

But what about food? These men, after all, are athletes competing in the greatest of contests. Or is that not so?

Yes.

Then would the condition of these ordinary athletes be fitting for them?

Perhaps.

But, I said, that condition is somehow sleepy, and precarious for health. Or do you not see that these athletes sleep their life away, and that if they depart even slightly from their prescribed regimen, they fall gravely and violently ill?

I do.

Our warrior athletes, I said, need some more refined kind of training, since they must be wakeful as watchdogs, and see and hear as keenly as possible, and, amid the many changes they undergo on campaign — of water and other food, of scorching heat and winter cold — must not be liable to break down in health.

So it seems to me.

Then would the best gymnastic be a kind of sister to the simple music we described a little earlier?

What do you mean?

A gymnastic that is simple and decent, I suppose, and especially the kind fit for war.

How so?

One could learn such things from Homer too, I said. For you know that, on campaign, in the feasts of the heroes he never feeds them on fish, even though they are camped by the sea on the Hellespont, nor on boiled meats but only roasted, which are surely the most convenient for soldiers; for pretty much everywhere, so to speak, it is easier to make use of fire itself than to carry pots and pans around.

Quite so.

Nor, I think, does Homer ever once mention seasonings. Or is this something even other athletes know — that a body meant to be in good condition must abstain from all such things?

And rightly so, he said — they know it, and they abstain.

Then, my friend, since these things seem right to you, you evidently do not commend a Syracusan table and the variety of Sicilian relishes.

I do not think I do.

Then you also disapprove of a Corinthian girl as a friend for men who are to be in good bodily condition.

Absolutely.

And the supposed delights of Attic pastries as well?

Necessarily.

For I think that if we compare this whole manner of eating and living to song and melody composed in every mode and every rhythm, we would be comparing it rightly.

Of course.

And there variety bred licentiousness, while here it breeds disease; whereas simplicity, in music, breeds moderation in souls, and in gymnastic, health in bodies?

Most true, he said.

And when licentiousness and disease multiply in a city, do not law courts and clinics open up in great numbers, and advocacy and medicine give themselves airs, when even many free men come to take them very seriously indeed?

How could it be otherwise?

Could you find any greater proof of a city's bad and shameful education than this — that it needs first-rate doctors and judges, not only for the common sort and the manual laborers, but even for those who claim to have been raised in the manner of free men? Or does it not seem shameful, and a great proof of a lack of education, to be forced to use justice imported from others, as though from masters and arbiters, for want of any of one's own?

The most shameful thing of all, he said.

Does it seem to you, I said, that there is something even more shameful than this — when a man not only wears away the greater part of his life in the courts, prosecuting and defending, but even, from sheer want of taste, is persuaded to preen himself on this very thing, as one clever at wrongdoing and able to twist and turn every way, to slip through every loophole and wriggle free, so as to escape justice, and all this for the sake of small and worthless matters, not knowing how much finer and better it would be to arrange his life so as never to need a drowsy judge at all?

No, he said, this is even more shameful than that.

And needing medicine, I said, not on account of wounds or the occasional seasonal illness that befalls one, but because, through idleness and the sort of regimen we have described, filling oneself up like a stagnant pond with fluids and vapors, and forcing the clever sons of Asclepius to fasten names like flatulence and catarrh onto diseases — does that not seem shameful?

Very much so, he said; these truly are strange and newfangled names for diseases.

Such names, I said, did not exist, I think, in the time of Asclepius. And I infer this because his sons, at Troy, when Eurypylus was wounded and given Pramnian wine with a good deal of barley meal sprinkled on it, and grated cheese besides — which are surely thought to cause phlegm — did not reproach the woman who gave it to him to drink, nor did they find fault with Patroclus, who was treating him.

And yet, he said, that is certainly a strange drink to give a man in his condition.

Not so strange, I said, if you consider that the sons of Asclepius, so they say, did not practice this nursemaid style of medicine we have now until Herodicus came along; but Herodicus, being a trainer, and then becoming sickly, mixed gymnastic with medicine, and wore down himself first and foremost, and many others afterward.

How so? He asked.

By making his death a long one, I said. For, tracking a disease that was fatal, he was not able, I think, to cure himself, but lived out his life treating himself to the neglect of everything else, tormented if he departed at all from his accustomed regimen, and, dying hard thanks to his own cleverness, arrived at old age.

A fine reward, he said, he won from his craft.