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.

Medicine, Judges, and Lingering Illness

As you would expect, I said, from someone who does not know that Asclepius did not reveal this kind of medicine to his descendants out of ignorance or inexperience, but because he knew that in every well-ordered city each person has some task assigned to him which he must perform, and no one has the leisure to be sick and under treatment for his whole life. This is something we notice, absurdly enough, in the case of craftsmen, but fail to notice in the case of the rich and those who seem to be prosperous.

How so? He asked.

A carpenter, I said, when he is sick, expects to get a drug from the doctor that will make him vomit up the disease, or to be purged from below, or to be treated with cautery or the knife and so be rid of it; but if someone prescribes him a long regimen — wrapping his head in felt caps and all that goes with them — he quickly says that he has no leisure to be sick and that it is not worth living like that, attending to his illness and neglecting the work in front of him. And after that, having said goodbye to such a doctor, he goes back to his usual regimen, and once he has recovered his health he lives carrying on his own affairs; but if his body is not equal to bearing it, he dies and is rid of his troubles.

Yes, he said, for a person like that it does seem fitting to use medicine that way.

Is that, I said, because he had some work to do, and if he did not do it, life was not worth living?

Clearly, he said.

But the rich man, as we say, has no such work set before him, of a kind that makes life unlivable if he is forced to give it up.

No, that is certainly not said of him.

You have surely heard, I said, how Phocylides says that once a man already has a livelihood, he should practice virtue.

I think, he said, even before that too.

Let us not quarrel with him about this, I said, but let us instead teach ourselves whether the rich man must practice this, and life is not worth living for him if he does not — or whether nursing an illness is an impediment to the carpenter's attention to his craft, and to the other crafts, but no impediment at all to Phocylides' injunction.

Yes, by Zeus, he said. This excessive care of the body that goes beyond gymnastic is pretty much the biggest obstacle of all; for it makes trouble for household management, for military service, and for holding settled office in the city.

But the biggest thing is that it also makes any kind of learning difficult, along with reflection and private study, since it is forever suspecting some headache or dizziness and blaming philosophy for bringing it on, so that wherever virtue is practiced and tested by such study, this excessive care is a hindrance every time; for it always makes a person think he is sick, and, as if in labor, never stop worrying about his body.

That is likely, he said.

So shall we not say that Asclepius, knowing all this, revealed medicine for those who are healthy in body by nature and regimen but have some localized disease within them — treating this sort of constitution by expelling their illness with drugs and surgery, then prescribing their usual regimen so as not to damage their civic duties — but that for bodies diseased through and through, he did not attempt to prolong a wretched life by regimens that drain a little here and pour in a little there, nor to let such people beget children as sickly as themselves, but instead held that a man unable to live out his natural span should not be treated, on the ground that this profits neither himself nor the city?

You are making Asclepius out to be a statesman, he said.

Clearly, I said — and as for his sons, since he was that kind of man, do not you see how at Troy too they showed themselves good in battle, and practiced medicine in the way I mean? And surely you remember that for Menelaus too, from the wound Pandarus gave him— they sucked out the blood and sprinkled soothing remedies on it, but as to what he should eat or drink after that, they prescribed nothing more than they did for Eurypylus, since they thought the drugs were enough to heal men who, before their wounds, were healthy and disciplined in their regimen, even if it happened that they drank a posset on the spot, whereas for a man sickly and undisciplined by nature they thought life was of no benefit either to himself or to others, and that the craft should not exist for such people, nor should they be treated, not even if they were richer than Midas.

You are making Asclepius's sons out to be quite refined people, he said.

It is fitting, I said — and yet, disagreeing with us here, the tragic poets and Pindar say that Asclepius was the son of Apollo, but that, persuaded by gold, he healed a rich man who was already at the point of death, and that this is precisely why he was struck by lightning. But we, in accordance with what has been said before, will not believe them on both counts; rather, we will say that if he was a son of a god, he was not greedy for gain; but if he was greedy for gain, he was not a son of a god.

Quite right, he said, as far as that goes. But what do you say about this, Socrates? Should not we have good doctors in the city? And presumably the best such doctors would be those who have treated the most healthy people and the most sick ones, and likewise the best judges, in turn, would be those who have had dealings with natures of every kind.

Yes indeed, I said, I mean good ones. But do you know whom I consider such people?

I will, if you tell me, he said.

But I will try, I said; you, though, put two unlike matters into a single question.

How so? He asked.

Doctors, I said, would become most skilled if, starting from childhood, in addition to learning the craft they had dealings with as many and as diseased bodies as possible, and if they themselves suffered every illness and were not entirely healthy by nature. For I do not think they treat body with body — since otherwise it would never be possible for bodies themselves to be, or to become, bad — but rather soul treats body, and it is not possible for a soul that has become and remains bad to treat anything well.

Rightly said, he said.

But a judge, my friend, governs soul with soul, and it is not right for that soul to have been raised among wicked souls from youth and to have kept company with them, and to have gone through committing every injustice itself, so that it can shrewdly infer other people's wrongs from its own, the way one infers diseases of the body; rather, it must have grown up inexperienced in and untouched by bad character while still young, if it is to judge just matters soundly by being itself fine and good. That is exactly why decent people, while young, appear simple-minded and are easily deceived by unjust people, since they do not have within themselves examples that correspond to what the wicked feel.

Yes, indeed, he said, that is very much what happens to them.

For this very reason, I said, the good judge must be not young but old, a late learner of what injustice is like — not having perceived it as something native, present in his own soul, but having studied it over a long time as something foreign in foreign souls, so as to discern clearly what sort of evil it is by nature, making use of knowledge, not of experience of his own.

That kind of judge, he said, does seem to be a most noble one, at any rate.

And good too, I said, which is what you were asking; for whoever has a good soul is good. But that clever, suspicious fellow — who has himself done much wrong and thinks himself cunning and wise — whenever he is among people like himself, appears clever, being extremely wary and looking to the models within himself; but whenever he comes near good men, and men now older, he appears foolish in turn, distrusting at the wrong moments and failing to recognize a sound character, since he has no model of that kind in himself. But since he meets with wicked people more often than with decent ones, he ends up seeming wise rather than ignorant, both to himself and to others.

That is absolutely true, he said.

So then, I said, we should not look for that sort of person as our good and wise judge, but for the one described earlier; for wickedness could never come to know both virtue and itself, whereas virtue, as a nature is educated over time, will come to know both itself and wickedness together. So it is this person, as it seems to me, who becomes wise, not the bad one.

I think so too, he said.

So then, will not you legislate for the city both the kind of medicine we described and this kind of judicial practice together, ones that will care for those citizens who are well-formed in body and soul, but as for those who are not, will let die the ones who are so in body, while those who are badly formed and incurable in soul they will put to death themselves?

This has certainly been shown to be the best course, he said, both for the sufferers themselves and for the city.

And as for the young, I said, it is clear that they will be careful about ever needing to resort to the courts, so long as they make use of that simple musical education which we said produces moderation.

What else? He said.

Music and Gymnastic Together Temper the Soul

Then will not the musical man, if he wishes, catch gymnastic too by following these same tracks, so that he has no need of medicine beyond what is unavoidable?

I think so.

And as for the exercises and hardships themselves, he will engage in them with an eye to the spirited element of his nature and to rousing it, rather than for strength, not treating diet and toil the way other athletes do, for the sake of bodily power.

Quite right, he said.

Then, I said, Glaucon, do not those who establish education through music and gymnastic do so not for the reason some suppose, that the body might be tended by the one and the soul by the other?

Well, what else? He said.

They are likely, I said, to establish both mainly for the sake of the soul.

How so?

Do you not notice, I said, how the mind itself is disposed in those who consort with gymnastic throughout life but never touch music? Or again, how those who are disposed the opposite way turn out?

What do you mean, he asked?

Savagery and hardness, I said, and again softness and gentleness—

I do, he said — because those who indulge in unmixed gymnastic turn out more savage than is proper, while those who give themselves to music turn softer than is good for them.

And indeed, I said, it is the spirited part of one's nature that would produce savagery — rightly reared, it would be brave, but stretched more tightly than it should, it would naturally turn hard and harsh.

I think so, he said.

And what about this? Would not the philosophic nature possess gentleness — softer than it should be if let too slack, but gentle and well-ordered if reared well?

That is so.

And we say that the guardians must have both these natures.

Yes, they must.

Then must they not be attuned to one another?

How could they not?

And is not the soul of one who is well attuned moderate and brave?

Certainly.

And the soul of one who is not attuned, cowardly and boorish?

Very much so.

So when someone lets music pipe into his soul and pour through it, through his ears as through a funnel, those sweet and soft and plaintive harmonies we were just now speaking of, and spends his whole life humming and delighting in song, such a man, at first, if he had any spirit in him, softens it like iron and makes it useful instead of useless and hard; but when he does not let up but keeps charming it without relief, from that point on he melts and dissolves it away, until he has melted out the spirit entirely and cut the sinews from his soul, as it were, and made a soft spearman.

Quite so, he said.

And if, I said, he takes hold of a spiritless nature from the start, he accomplishes this quickly; but if the nature is spirited, by weakening its spirit he makes it prone to sudden swings, easily provoked and easily quenched by small things. So instead of being spirited, they become irritable and short-tempered, full of peevishness.

Exactly so.

And what if, in turn, he toils much at gymnastic and feasts very well, but does not touch music or philosophy? Does he not, first, being in good bodily condition, become filled with high spirit and confidence, and grow braver than he was before?

Very much so.

But what happens when he does nothing else and has no share in the Muse at all? Does not whatever love of learning was in his soul, since it tastes no study and inquires into nothing, and takes no part in reasoned discourse or the rest of music, become weak and deaf and blind, since it is neither roused nor nourished, and his perceptions are never purified?

So it is, he said.

Such a man, I think, becomes a hater of reasoned discourse and unmusical, and no longer makes any use of persuasion through argument, but goes about everything by force and savagery like a wild beast, and lives in ignorance and clumsiness, without rhythm and without grace.

That is altogether so, he said.

Then since these two things exist, it seems, I would say some god has given two crafts to mankind — music and gymnastic — directed at the spirited part and the philosophic part, not at soul and body, except incidentally, but at those two, so that they might be attuned to each other, stretched and slackened to the proper degree.

So it seems, he said.

Then the man who blends gymnastic with music most beautifully and brings them to bear on the soul in the best measure — him we would most rightly call the most fully musical and best attuned, far more than the man who tunes strings together with one another.

With good reason, Socrates, he said.

Then in our city too, Glaucon, will there not always be need of some such overseer, if the constitution is to be preserved?

Selecting the Rulers, and the Noble Lie

It will indeed be necessary, so far as that is at all possible.

These, then, would be the outlines of education and upbringing. For why should one go through the particulars of such things — dances, and hunting and the chase, and gymnastic and equestrian contests? For it is more or less clear that these must follow from what has been said, and are no longer hard to discover.

Perhaps not hard, he said.

Well then, I said — what ought we to distinguish next? Is it not the question of these same men themselves — which of them shall rule, and which be ruled?

Of course.

Is it not clear that the rulers must be older, and the ruled younger?

Clear.

And clear too that the rulers must be the best of them?

That too.

And are not the best farmers the ones most skilled at farming?

Yes.

So now, since they must be the best of the guardians, must they not be the ones most skilled at guarding the city?

Yes.

Must they not then be sensible and capable for this, and moreover devoted to the care of the city?

That is so.

And a person would care most for that which he happens to love.

Necessarily.

And indeed he would love most that whose interest he believed to be the same as his own, [especially] when he thought that if it fared well he himself fared well too, and if not, the opposite.

So it is, he said.

We must therefore choose, from among the other guardians, such men as appear to us, on the closest observation, to hold to this above all throughout their whole life: whatever they judge to benefit the city they do with all eagerness, and whatever they judge not to, they are unwilling to do by any means.

Yes, for such men would be fit for it, he said.

It seems to me that we must watch them at every stage of life, to see whether they remain guardians of this conviction, and are not, whether bewitched or forced, made to cast out and forget the opinion that one must do what is best for the city.

What kind of casting-out do you mean, he said?

I will tell you, I said. It seems to me that an opinion leaves the mind either willingly or unwillingly — willingly in the case of the false opinion of one changing his mind, and unwillingly always in the case of the true one.

The willing kind, he said, I understand; but I need to learn about the unwilling kind.

What then? Do you not yourself believe, I said, that men are deprived of good things unwillingly, but of bad things willingly? Or is not being deceived about the truth a bad thing, and holding to the truth a good one? Or does it not seem to you that holding an opinion of things as they are is the same as holding to the truth?

You are right, he said, and it seems to me that men are deprived of a true opinion unwillingly.

Then is it not by being robbed, or bewitched, or forced, that this happens to them?

I do not understand even now, he said.

I am in danger of speaking like a tragedian, I said. For those who are talked out of it, and those who forget, I call robbed — since from the one, time takes it away unnoticed, and from the other, argument does; surely you understand that now?

Yes.

And those whom some pain or distress makes change their opinion, I call forced.

That too I understand, he said, and you are right.

And bewitched, I think, you too would call those who change their opinion, either charmed by pleasure or scared by some fear.

Yes, he said, everything that deceives seems to bewitch.

So then, as I was just saying, we must look for whoever are the best guardians of the conviction within them: that whatever they always judge to be best for the city must be done [by them]. We must watch them, then, right from childhood, setting them tasks in which one would be most likely to forget such a thing, or to be deceived out of it, and we must approve the one who remembers and is hard to deceive, and reject the one who is not. Is that not so?

Yes.

And we must set them, in turn, labors and pains and contests, in which the same things must be watched.

Right, he said.

Then, I said, we must also set up for them a third kind of contest, one of bewitchment, and observe them — just as men lead colts amid noises and uproar to see whether they are fearful, so must young men be led into certain terrors and then, in turn, changed over into pleasures, testing them far more thoroughly than gold is tested in fire — to see whether each shows himself hard to bewitch and graceful in everything, a good guardian of himself and of the music he was taught, keeping himself rhythmic and well-attuned throughout all these trials, being of such a kind as would be most useful both to himself and to the city. And whoever is tested throughout — as a boy, as a young man, and as a man — and comes through always unspoiled, must be established as a ruler of the city and a guardian, and must be given honors both in life and in death, receiving the greatest privileges in burial and in other memorials; but whoever is not of this kind must be rejected. Something of this kind, Glaucon, I said, seems to me to be the selection and establishment of the rulers and guardians — spoken of, that is, in outline, and not with precision.

It appears to me that way too, he said.

Then is it truly most correct to call these men complete guardians, against enemies from without and against friends within — so that the one sort will have no wish, and the other no power, to do wrong — and to call the young men, whom we have until now been calling guardians, auxiliaries and helpers to the convictions of the rulers?

It seems so to me, he said.

What device, then, I said, might we find — among those useful falsehoods we were just now speaking of, told when they are needed — by which we might tell one noble falsehood and persuade, best of all, the rulers themselves, or failing that, the rest of the city?

What sort? He asked.

Nothing new, I said, but something Phoenician — a thing that has already happened in many places before now, as the poets tell us and have persuaded people, though it has not happened in our own time, and I do not know whether it could happen, and it would take no small persuasion to bring anyone to believe it.

You seem, he said, reluctant to tell it.

And you will think, I said, that I am reluctant with very good reason, once I have told it.

Tell it, he said, and do not be afraid.

I will tell it then — though I do not know with what daring or what words I shall say it — and I will try to persuade, first, the rulers themselves and the soldiers, and then the rest of the city as well, that all this upbringing and education we gave them was, as it were, something they only dreamed was happening to them and around them, while in truth, at that time, they were being formed and reared beneath the earth, they themselves and their weapons and the rest of their equipment being fashioned there too, and that when they were completely finished, the earth, being their mother, sent them up, and that now they must think of the land in which they live as a mother and a nurse, and take counsel for it and defend it, should anyone attack it, and must think of the rest of the citizens as their brothers, born of the same earth.

No wonder, he said, that you were so long ashamed to tell the falsehood.

Quite rightly so, I said; but all the same, hear the rest of the story too. You are all brothers, all of you in the city, we shall say to them, telling the story further — but the god, in forming you, mixed gold at birth into those of you who are fit to rule, and that is why they are the most honored; silver into the auxiliaries; and iron and bronze into the farmers and the other craftsmen. Now since you are all kindred, for the most part you will beget children like yourselves, but sometimes a silver child will be born from a golden parent, or a golden child from a silver one, and likewise all the rest from one another. So the god commands the rulers, first and above all, that of nothing shall they be such good guardians, and nothing shall they guard so closely, as their offspring, watching for whichever of these metals is mixed into their souls, and if a child of their own should be born with an admixture of bronze or iron, in no way shall they show it mercy, but shall give it the honor proper to its nature and thrust it out among the craftsmen or the farmers; and if, in turn, a child should be born of these with an admixture of gold or silver, they shall honor it and raise it up, some into the guard, others into the auxiliary force, since there is an oracle that the city will be destroyed whenever it is guarded by a man of iron or of bronze. Do you have any device, then, by which they might be persuaded of this story?

The Guardians' Way of Life: Nothing of Their Own

Not in the least, he said — not these men themselves; but perhaps their sons, and those who come after, and the rest of mankind in later ages.

But even this, I said, would be a good thing, tending to make them care more for the city and for one another — for I think I roughly understand what you mean.

Well, this will go wherever the report may carry it; but let us arm these earthborn men and lead them forth, with their rulers going in front. And when they arrive, let them look out over the city for the best place to make camp, from which they could best hold in check anyone within who was unwilling to obey the laws, and ward off anyone from without, if an enemy should come against the flock like a wolf; and once they have made camp and offered the sacrifices that are due, let them prepare their beds. Or how else?

Just so, he said.

Beds, then, of the sort that would keep out the winter cold and be adequate for the summer heat?

How could they not be? For you seem to me to be speaking of dwellings, he said.

Yes, I said, dwellings fit for soldiers, but not for money-makers.

And how, he said, do you mean this differs from that?

I will try to tell you, I said. For surely it is the most terrible and shameful thing of all for shepherds to raise dogs as helpers for their flocks of such a kind, and in such a fashion, that through indiscipline or hunger or some other bad habit the dogs themselves should turn to doing harm to the sheep, and become like wolves instead of dogs.

Terrible, he said — how could it not be?

Must we not guard in every way against our auxiliaries treating the citizens in any such way — since they are the stronger — and so coming to resemble savage masters instead of friendly allies?

We must guard against it, he said.

Would they not be furnished with the greatest safeguard, if they are truly well educated?

But surely they are, he said.

And I said: this point is not worth insisting on too strongly, dear Glaucon — but what we said just now is worth insisting on, that they need to receive the right education, whatever that may be, if they are going to have the most important thing for being gentle both to themselves and to those under their guard.

And rightly so, he said.

Besides this education, then, anyone with sense would say that their dwellings and the rest of their property must be furnished for them in such a way as neither to stop them from being the best guardians they can be, nor to incite them to do wrong to the rest of the citizens.

And he will say so truly.

Consider, then, I said, whether they must live and dwell in some such way as this, if they are going to be guardians of that kind: first, that no one should possess any private property at all, unless it is altogether necessary; next, that no one should have any dwelling or storeroom of the sort that not everyone who wishes may enter; that as for provisions — whatever moderate and brave men who are athletes of war require — they should agree on an amount and receive it from the other citizens as wages for their guardianship, enough that there is neither anything left over at the end of the year nor anything lacking; that they should go to common meals and live together as if they were encamped; and that as for gold and silver, they should be told that they always have the divine kind in their souls as a gift from the gods, and need nothing more of the human kind, and that it is not holy to defile the possession of that kind by mixing it with the possession of mortal gold, since many unholy things have come about because of the currency ordinary people use, while theirs remains undefiled; but that they alone among the people of the city are not permitted to handle or touch gold and silver, nor to come under the same roof with it, nor to wear it as an ornament, nor to drink from silver or gold. And living in this way they would be safe themselves and would keep the city safe; but whenever they acquire private land and houses and money of their own, they will become householders and farmers instead of guardians, and hostile masters instead of allies of the other citizens, and hating and being hated, plotting and being plotted against, they will pass their whole life fearing the enemies within far more, and more constantly, than those outside, and racing at that point already very close to their own ruin and that of the rest of the city as well. For all these reasons, then, I said, shall we say that the guardians must be provided for in this way as regards housing and everything else, and shall we lay this down as law, or not?

By all means, said Glaucon.

Book IV

Are the Guardians Happy? The Happiness of the Whole

And Adeimantus broke in: What then, Socrates, will you say in your defense, if someone claims that you are not making these men very happy at all, and this through their own doing — men to whom the city in truth belongs, while they get no good from the city, as others do, who own land and build fine, large houses, and acquire furnishings to suit them, and offer private sacrifices to the gods, and entertain guests, and indeed, as you were just now saying, possess gold and silver and everything that is thought needful for those who are going to be blessed? But plainly, one might say, they seem to sit in the city like hired auxiliaries, doing nothing but standing guard.

Yes, I said, and what is more, fed at a common table and not even receiving pay beyond their food, as the others do, so that not even if they wish to travel abroad on their own business will it be possible for them, nor to give money to mistresses, nor to spend it wherever else they might wish, in the way those who are thought to be happy spend it. You leave these and many other such things out of the charge.

Well, he said, let these too be added to the charge.

So what, you are asking, shall we say in our defense?

Yes.

By going along the same road, I said, we shall find, I think, what we ought to say. For we shall say that it would be no wonder if these men were happiest just as they are, but that in founding the city we are not looking to this, that some one class in it should be exceptionally happy, but that the whole city should be so as far as possible. For we thought that in such a city we would most find justice, and again in the worst-governed one injustice, and that by observing both we could judge the question we have long been seeking. Now then, as we suppose, we are molding the happy city, not marking off a few in it and setting them apart as such, but shaping the whole; and presently we shall examine the opposite kind of city. So then, just as if someone came up to us while we were painting a statue and found fault, saying that we do not apply the most beautiful colors to the most beautiful parts of the creature — for the eyes, the most beautiful part, are painted not with purple but with black — we would seem to answer him reasonably enough by saying: My good man, do not suppose that we ought to paint eyes so fine that they no longer look like eyes, nor the other parts either, but consider whether, by rendering to each its due, we make the whole beautiful; and so now too, do not force us to fasten on the guardians a happiness of that sort, which will make them anything rather than guardians. For we know how to dress the farmers in fine robes, deck them with gold, and bid them work the land for pleasure, and lay the potters down by the fire on their right side, drinking and feasting, their wheel set beside them, to make pottery whenever they please, and to make all the rest blessed in the same way, so that the whole city may be happy. But do not advise us in this way; for if we were to obey you, the farmer would no longer be a farmer, nor the potter a potter, nor would anyone else keep any of the roles out of which a city is made. But the case of the others matters less; for if cobblers turn out badly and are corrupted, and pretend to be what they are not, it is no terrible thing for the city, but when the guardians of the laws and of the city are not truly such but only seem to be, you see that they destroy the whole city root and branch, and, on the other hand, they alone hold the power to govern it well and make it happy. If then we are truly making guardians who do the least harm to the city, while he who says the other thing means some sort of happy farmers, feasting as if at a festival rather than living in a city, he would be talking about something other than a city. We must consider, then, whether it is with this in view that we are to appoint the guardians, so that the greatest possible happiness will come to be in them, or whether we must look rather to the city as a whole and watch for that happiness there, and must compel and persuade these auxiliaries and the guardians to do that other thing, so that they will be the best craftsmen of their own work, and all the others likewise, and so, with the whole city growing and being well founded, we must leave each class to partake of happiness in whatever way its nature allows.