Imitation: Three Removes From the Truth

And indeed, I said, many other things about it make me think that we founded the city altogether rightly, and not least do I say so when I reflect on poetry.

What sort of thing? He said.

Our refusing to admit any of it that is imitative; for now, more than ever and more plainly, as it seems to me, it is clear that it must not be admitted, since the kinds of the soul have each been distinguished separately.

How do you mean?

Speaking just among you here — for you will not report me to the tragic poets and all the other imitators — all such things seem to be a maiming of the understanding of those who hear them, of all who lack the remedy of knowing what they really are.

And with what in mind, he said, do you say that?

It must be said, I replied; and yet a certain affection and reverence for Homer, which I have had since childhood, holds me back from saying it. For he seems to have been the first teacher and leader of all these fine tragic poets. But a man must not be honored above the truth, so, as I say, it must be said.

Quite so, he said.

Listen, then — or rather, answer.

Ask.

Could you tell me at all what imitation actually is? For I do not altogether grasp, myself, what it is supposed to be.

So I'm the one who will grasp it, he said.

That's nothing strange, I said, since in many cases those who see more dimly have seen things sooner than those whose sight is keener.

That is so, he said; but with you present, I would not even be able to bring myself to say what appears to me, if anything does — so look at it yourself.

Do you want us, then, to begin our inquiry here, from our usual method? For we are accustomed to positing some single form for each set of many things to which we apply the same name. Or don't you follow?

I follow.

Let us, then, posit now whichever of the many things you like. For instance, if you like, there are surely many beds and tables.

Of course.

But there are, I think, two forms for these implements — one of a bed, one of a table.

Yes.

And don't we also usually say that the craftsman of each implement, with his eye on the form, makes in that way the things we use — the one beds, the other tables — and likewise for everything else? For surely no craftsman makes the form itself — how could he?

Not at all.

But consider this other craftsman too — say what you would call him.

Which one?

The one who makes everything that each and every artisan makes.

That's an extraordinary and amazing man you're talking about.

Not yet, but soon you will say so even more. For this same artisan is able to make not only all implements, but also everything that grows out of the earth; and he fashions all living creatures, himself along with the rest, and besides these he fashions earth and sky and gods and everything in the sky and everything under the earth in Hades.

That's an utterly amazing sophist you're talking about, he said.

You don't believe me? I said. Tell me — does it seem to you that there could be no such craftsman at all, or that he might become the maker of all these things in one way, but not in another? Or don't you realize that you yourself would be able to make all these things too, in a certain way?

And what, he said, is this way?

It's not difficult, I said — in fact it can be produced in many ways, and quickly, but the quickest way, I suppose, is this: if you're willing to take a mirror and carry it around everywhere, you will quickly make the sun and the things in the sky, quickly the earth, and quickly yourself and the other animals and implements and plants and everything else that was just mentioned.

Yes, he said, things that appear, but surely not things that really are, in truth.

Good, I said, and you come exactly to the point that was needed. For the painter too, I think, is one of these sorts of craftsmen. Isn't he?

Of course he is.

But you will say, I think, that what he makes is not true. And yet in a certain way the painter too makes a bed — or does he not?

Yes, he said, he too makes only an apparent one.

And what about the bed-maker? Weren't you just saying that he does not make the form, which we say is what a bed is, but rather a particular bed?

Yes, I did say that.

So if he does not make what really is, he would not be making that which is, but something like that which is, though not itself a thing that is — and if someone were to say that the bed-maker's work, or that of any other artisan, is completely real, wouldn't he risk speaking untruly?

He would not be, he said, at least as it would seem to those who spend their time on arguments of this kind.

Then let us not be surprised if this too turns out to be something dim in relation to truth.

No, let's not.

Do you want us, then, I said, to use these very examples to investigate this imitator — what exactly he is?

If you like, he said.

So these turn out to be three beds in all: one that exists in nature, which we would say, I think, god made. Or who else?

No one, I think.

And one that the carpenter made.

Yes, he said.

And one that the painter made. Isn't that so?

Let it be so.

Painter, bed-maker, god — these three preside over three forms of beds.

Yes, three.

Now god, whether because he did not wish it, or because some necessity lay upon him not to produce more than one bed in nature, made in just this way that one alone, the very thing that a bed is; and two or more such were neither planted by god, nor will they ever grow.

How so? He asked.

Because, I said, if he made only two, then once again a single one would appear, whose form both of those two would in turn possess, and that one would be what a bed is, and not the two.

Right, he said.

So god, I think, knowing this, and wanting to be really the maker of a bed that really is, and not the maker of some particular bed nor some particular bed-maker, made it grow as one by nature.

It seems so.

Do you want us, then, to call him the grower of this, or something of that sort?

That's fair, he said, at least since it is by nature that he has made this and everything else too.

And what about the carpenter? Isn't he a craftsman of a bed?

Yes.

And is the painter too a craftsman and maker of that kind of thing?

Not at all.

Then what will you say he is, in relation to a bed?

This, he said, seems to me the most fitting name for him — an imitator of what those others are craftsmen of.

Very well, I said; so you call an imitator the one who is third in generation from nature?

Certainly, he said.

Then the tragic poet too will be this, if indeed he is an imitator — third by nature from the king and from the truth — and so will all the other imitators.

So it seems.

We have, then, agreed about the imitator. But tell me this about the painter: does he seem to you to try to imitate each of those things themselves as they are in nature, or the works of the craftsmen?

The works of the craftsmen, he said.

As they are, or as they appear? That, too, you must still determine.

What do you mean? He asked.

Like this: does a bed, whether you view it from the side or straight on or from any angle at all, become in any way different from itself, or does it not differ at all, but only look different? And likewise for everything else?

Just so, he said; it appears different, but it does not differ at all.

Consider this very point: which of the two is painting directed at, in each case? Is it to imitate the thing as it is, in reality, or the thing as it appears — is it an imitation of appearance, or of truth?

Of appearance, he said.

The imitative craft, then, is far removed from the truth, and it seems that this is why it produces everything — because it grasps only a small part of each thing, and that part is a mere image. For instance, we say, the painter will paint us a shoemaker, a carpenter, the other craftsmen, without understanding anything of any of their crafts — but nevertheless, if he were a good painter, by painting a carpenter and showing it from a distance, he could deceive children and foolish people into thinking it was truly a carpenter.

Of course he could.

But here, my friend, is what I think we must bear in mind about all such cases: whenever someone reports to us that he has met a man who knows all the crafts, and everything else that each individual person knows, with nothing that he does not know more precisely than anyone, we must suppose that the person telling us this is rather naive, and that, it seems, he has been deceived by meeting some wizard and imitator, so that the man seemed to him to be all-wise, because he himself was unable to distinguish knowledge, ignorance, and imitation.

The Imitator Knows Nothing

Most true, he said.

Then, I said, after this we must examine tragedy and its leader, Homer, since we hear from some that these men know all crafts, and all human matters relating to virtue and vice, and even the divine things; for the good poet, if he is to compose well about the things he composes, must necessarily compose with knowledge, or else be unable to compose at all. So we must examine whether, in encountering these imitators, they have been deceived and, seeing their works, do not perceive that these are three removes from reality and easy to produce for one who does not know the truth — for they produce phantoms, not realities — or whether there is also something in what they say, and the good poets really do know the things about which they seem, to the many, to speak well.

Yes indeed, he said, it must be examined.

Do you think, then, that if someone were able to make both things — the thing to be imitated and the image of it — he would let himself take the making of images seriously and set that up as the best thing in his own life?

I do not.

But surely, I think, if he really had knowledge of the truth about the very things he imitates, he would be far more serious about the deeds themselves than about the imitations, and would try to leave behind many fine achievements of his own as monuments, and would be more eager to be the one praised than the one praising.

I think so, he said; for the honor and the benefit are not equal.

So then, let us not require an account from Homer or any other of the poets about the other matters, asking whether any of them was actually a doctor and not merely an imitator of doctors' talk, or whom any poet, old or new, is said to have made healthy, as Asclepius did, or what pupils in medicine he left behind, as Asclepius left his descendants; nor again let us ask them about the other crafts, but let all that go — yet about the greatest and finest things Homer undertakes to speak of, wars and generalship and the governance of cities, and the education of man, it is surely fair to question him, asking: dear Homer, if you are not third from the truth where virtue is concerned — a maker of an image, which is what we defined an imitator to be — but are second, and were able to recognize what practices make men better or worse, in private and in public life, tell us which city was better governed because of you, as Sparta was because of Lycurgus, and as many cities, great and small, were because of many other men? But what city credits you with having been a good lawgiver and having benefited it? Italy and Sicily credit Charondas, and we credit Solon; but you — who credits you? Will he be able to name anyone?

I do not think so, said Glaucon; at any rate nothing of the sort is told, even by the Homeridae themselves.

But is any war in Homer's time remembered as having been well fought under his command or his counsel?

None.

But what of the many shrewd and inventive ideas for the crafts or for other undertakings that are told of a wise man's practical work, as again in the case of Thales of Miletus and Anacharsis the Scythian?

Nothing of the sort at all.

But then, if not in public life, is Homer, while he was alive, said to have been a leader in education for certain people in private, who loved him for his company and handed down to those after them a certain Homeric way of life — just as Pythagoras himself was especially loved for this, and his successors, even now, calling their way of life Pythagorean, seem somehow to stand out from the rest?

Nor is anything of that sort said either, he said. For Creophylus, Socrates, Homer's companion, would perhaps appear even more laughable than his name where education is concerned, if what is said about Homer is true. For it is said that Homer was much neglected by that very man, while he was alive.

So it is indeed said, I replied. But do you think, Glaucon, that if Homer had really been able to educate men and make them better — being able, in these matters, not merely to imitate but to know — he would not have made many companions and been honored and loved by them, given that Protagoras of Abdera, and Prodicus of Ceos, and a great many others, are able to convince their contemporaries, by meeting with them privately, that they will not be able to manage even their own household or city unless these men themselves oversee their education, and are so intensely loved for this wisdom that their companions all but carry them around on their heads — whereas his own contemporaries would have let Homer, if he really had been able to benefit men in respect of virtue, or Hesiod, go about merely reciting their verses, rather than clinging to them more than to gold, and compelling them to stay at home with them, or, if they could not persuade them, following them about themselves wherever they went as attendants, until they had received a sufficient share of education?

In every way, he said, you seem to me, Socrates, to speak the truth.

Then shall we lay it down, beginning from Homer, that all the poetic imitators are imitators of images of virtue and of the other things they compose about, and do not touch the truth, but, as we were just saying, the painter will make something that seems to be a shoemaker, though he himself understands nothing of shoemaking — and he makes it for people who understand no more than he does, and who judge only from colors and shapes?

Yes indeed.

So too, I think, we shall say that the poet, understanding nothing but only imitating, lays a kind of coloring, in names and phrases, over each of the crafts, so that to others just like him, who judge from the words alone, it seems — whether someone speaks about shoemaking in meter and rhythm and harmony, or about generalship, or about anything else whatsoever — that it is very well spoken; so great by nature is the enchantment these very things possess. For I think you know how the poets' works appear when stripped of the colors of music and spoken just by themselves. For you have surely seen it.

I have, he said.

Then, said I, it is like the faces of people who are youthful but not beautiful, the way they appear once their bloom has faded?

Very much so, he said.

Come now, consider this: the maker of the image, the imitator, we say, understands nothing of what is, but only of what appears — is that not so?

Yes.

Then let us not leave the matter half-stated, but look at it properly.

Speak, he said.

A painter, we say, will paint reins and a bit?

Yes.

But a leatherworker and a smith will make them?

Certainly.

Does the painter, then, understand what the reins and the bit ought to be like? Or not even the makers, the smith and the leatherworker, but only the one who knows how to use them, the horseman?

Most true.

Shall we not say, then, that this holds for everything?

How so?

That for each thing there are these three crafts — one that will use it, one that will make it, one that will imitate it?

Yes.

Then the virtue and beauty and rightness of each implement and living creature and action are relative to nothing other than the use for which each has been made or has naturally arisen?

So it is.

It is quite necessary, then, that the one who uses each thing be the most experienced with it, and that he report to the maker what good or bad effects it has in the use he puts it to; just as, I suppose, a flute player reports to the flute maker about the flutes that serve him well in playing, and will instruct him what sort to make, and the other will comply.

How could it not?

So the one who knows reports about good and bad flutes, while the other will make them, trusting him?

Yes.

Then, regarding the same implement, the maker will have correct belief about what is fine and bad in it, from associating with the one who knows and being compelled to listen to the one who knows, while the user has knowledge.

Certainly.

But the imitator — will he have knowledge, from using them, about the things he depicts, whether they are fine and correct or not; or correct opinion, from being necessarily in the company of the one who knows and instructed in what he ought to depict?

Neither.

So the imitator will neither know nor have correct opinion about the things he imitates, with respect to what is fine or bad in them.

It seems not.

The one who imitates in poetry would be a fine one indeed, as regards wisdom about the things he composes.

Not entirely.

But he will imitate all the same, not knowing about each thing in what way it is bad or good; but, as it seems, whatever appears fine to the many, who know nothing, this is what he will imitate.

What else?

This much, then, as it appears, has been fairly well agreed between us: that the one who imitates knows nothing worth mentioning about the things he imitates, but that imitation is a kind of play and not a serious matter, and that those who take up tragic poetry, in iambics and in epic verse, are all imitators to the greatest degree possible.

Yes indeed.

Imitation Appeals to the Inferior Part

By Zeus, I said, is this business of imitating not concerned with something a third remove from the truth? Is that not so?

Yes.

And in relation to what element in a human being does it have the power that it has?

What sort of thing do you mean?

This sort of thing: the same magnitude, I suppose, does not appear equal to us through sight when seen from nearby and from far off.

No, it doesn't.

And the same things appear bent and straight when seen in water and out of it, and concave and convex too, owing to the eye's wandering, again, over colors, and it is plain that this whole disturbance is present in our soul; and it is this very affection of our nature that scene-painting exploits and, in doing so, falls nothing short of sorcery, as do conjuring and the many other such devices.

True.

Then didn't measuring and counting and weighing prove to be the most welcome aids against these things, so that what rules in us is not what appears larger or smaller or more or heavier, but what has calculated and measured — or indeed weighed?

How could it be otherwise?

But this, at least, would be the work of the rational part in the soul.

Yes, of that.

But to this part, often, when it has measured and declared that some things are larger or smaller than others, or equal, the opposite appears at the same time about the same things.

Yes.

Now didn't we say that it is impossible for the same thing to hold contrary opinions about the same things at the same time?

And we were right to say so.

Then the part of the soul that judges contrary to measure could not be the same as the part that judges according to measure.

No, indeed it could not.

But surely the part that trusts in measure and calculation would be the best part of the soul.

Of course.

Then whatever opposes this must be one of the inferior things in us.

Necessarily.

Wanting, then, to secure agreement on this point, I was saying that painting, and imitation generally, produces its work far from the truth, and further, that it keeps company with that in us which is far from practical wisdom, and is its comrade and friend for no healthy or true purpose.

Absolutely, he said.

Then imitation, itself inferior, consorting with what is inferior, begets inferior offspring.

So it seems.

Which imitation, I said — the kind concerned only with sight, or also the kind concerned with hearing, which we call poetry?

Likely this one too, he said.

Then let us not rely, I said, on the mere likelihood we draw from painting, but let us go once more to that very part of the mind with which poetry's imitation keeps company, and see whether it is inferior or worth taking seriously.

We must indeed.

Let us set it out this way: we say that imitation imitates people performing actions, whether forced or voluntary, and, as a result of what they do, thinking they have fared well or badly, and in all this feeling either pain or joy. Was there anything besides this?

Nothing.

Is a person, then, of one mind in all these situations? Or, just as in the case of sight he was at odds with himself and held opposing opinions about the same things at the same time, does he likewise, in his actions, quarrel and fight with himself? But I recall that there is no need for us to reach agreement on this point now; for in our earlier discussions we agreed sufficiently on all this — that our soul is full of countless such contradictions occurring at once.

Rightly, he said.

Rightly so, I said; but what we left aside then now seems to me necessary to examine fully.

What is that? He said.

A decent man, I said, who meets with a misfortune of this kind — losing a son, say, or something else he values most — will bear it, as we said even then, I believe, more easily than other men.

Certainly.

But now let us examine this — whether he will feel no distress at all, or whether that is impossible, and he will instead be measured somehow in his grief.

That is closer to the truth, he said.

Now tell me this about him: do you think he will fight and resist his grief more when he is seen by his equals, or when he is by himself, alone in some deserted place?

There will be a great difference, he said, when he is seen.

But when he is alone, I imagine, he will dare to say many things that would shame him if someone heard him, and will do many things he would not want anyone to see him doing.

That is so, he said.

Now isn't it reason and law that bid him resist, while it is the suffering itself that draws him toward grief?

True.

And since opposite pulls arise in a person about the same thing at the same time, we say that these must be two things.

How could it be otherwise?

Is not one of them ready to obey the law, wherever the law directs?

How so?

The law says, I believe, that it is best to keep as calm as possible amid misfortunes and not to be indignant, since it is not clear what is good and what is bad in such things, nor does taking it hard get one anywhere, nor is anything human worthy of great seriousness, while grief stands in the way of the very thing that must come to our aid as quickly as possible in such cases.

What, he asked, do you mean by that?

I mean, I said, deliberating about what has happened, and — as in a throw of dice — arranging one's affairs according to how they have fallen, in whatever way reason determines would be best, rather than, like children who have stumbled, clinging to the hurt place and wasting time in crying out; but always habituating the soul to turn as quickly as possible to healing and setting right what has fallen and grown sick, banishing lament by the physician's craft.

That, at any rate, he said, would be the most correct way to face one's misfortunes.

Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to follow this reasoning.

Clearly.

And the part that draws us toward remembering our suffering and toward lamentation, and can never get enough of it, shall we not say is irrational, idle, and a friend of cowardice?

We shall indeed say so.

Then the indignant type surely admits of much and varied imitation, while the prudent and quiet character — being always nearly the same as itself — is neither easy to imitate, nor, when it is imitated, easy to grasp, especially for a festival crowd, men of all kinds gathered together in theaters; for the imitation, I suppose, is then of a feeling foreign to them.

Absolutely.

It is clear, then, that the imitative poet is not naturally suited to this part of the soul, and that his wisdom is not set on pleasing it, if he means to win a good reputation among the many, but is suited rather to the indignant and variable character, because it is easy to imitate.

Clearly.

So we might now justly lay hold of him, and set him down as the counterpart of the painter — for he resembles him both in producing work that is inferior with respect to truth, and in keeping company with a similarly inferior part of the soul rather than with the best part, and in this too he has become like him. And so we would now be right not to admit him into a city that is to be well governed, because he rouses this part of the soul and nourishes it, and by making it strong destroys the rational part — just as in a city, when someone makes wicked men powerful and hands the city over to them while ruining the more decent; in the same way, we shall say, the imitative poet implants a bad constitution privately in each person's soul, by gratifying the mindless part of it, which discerns neither the greater nor the less, but regards the same things now as great, now as small, fashioning images of images and standing very far indeed from the truth.

The Charm of Poetry, and the Old Quarrel

Quite so.

Yet we have not so far brought against it the gravest charge. For that it is capable of corrupting even decent people — apart from a very few — is surely altogether dreadful.

Why would it not, if indeed it does this?

Listen and consider. For surely, when the best of us listen to Homer or one of the other tragic poets imitating one of the heroes in grief and drawing out a long speech in his lamentations, or singing and beating their breasts, you know that we feel delight and, giving ourselves over, follow along in sympathy, and earnestly praise as a good poet whoever affects us most in this way.

I know it well — how could I not?

But when a grief of our own comes to one of us, do you notice, in turn, that we pride ourselves on the opposite — if we are able to keep quiet and endure it — since this is a man's part, while that which we praised before is a woman's?

I do, he said.

Then is it a fine thing, I said, that this praise holds — that in seeing a man of a kind one would not think worthy to be oneself, but would be ashamed to be, one feels no disgust but takes delight and praises him?

No, by Zeus, he said — it does not seem reasonable.

Yes, I said — if you were to look at it from that angle.

In what way?

If you were to reflect that the part which is then forcibly held in check amid our own private misfortunes, and hungers to weep and lament fully and have its fill of it, being by nature the sort of thing that desires these things, is the very part that is filled and gladdened by the poets, while the part of us that is by nature best, since it has not been adequately trained by reason or by habit, relaxes its guard over this tearful part — seeing that it is watching another's sufferings, and that there is no shame to itself in praising and pitying another man who, though he claims to be good, grieves when he ought not — but instead reckons that it gains something by this, namely the pleasure, and would not consent to be deprived of it by holding the whole poem in contempt. For I think that few people reason that the enjoyment taken from others' griefs necessarily carries over into one's own; for once one has nourished the pitying impulse to be strong on those occasions, it is not easy to restrain it in one's own sufferings.

Very true, he said.

Is not the same account true also of the comic? That is, if you yourself would be ashamed to play the clown, but in comic imitation, or even hearing it privately, you take great delight in it and do not hate it as low, are you not doing the very same thing you did in the case of pity? For the impulse in yourself that wants to play the clown, which you were holding back by reason for fear of a reputation for buffoonery, you now let loose again; and by giving it free rein there, you have often, without realizing it, been carried away in your own affairs to the point of becoming a comedian.

Very much so, he said.

And indeed the same holds for sexual desire, and spirit, and all the appetitive things, and the painful and pleasant things in the soul, which we say accompany us in every action — that poetic imitation produces such effects in us; for it nourishes and waters these things when they ought to be left to wither, and sets them up as rulers over us, when they ought to be ruled if we are to become better and happier instead of worse and more wretched.

I cannot say otherwise, he said.

So then, Glaucon, I said, whenever you meet admirers of Homer who say that this poet has educated Greece, and that for the management and education of human affairs he is worth taking up and learning from, and that one should order one's whole life by this poet and live so, you must love and welcome them as the best men they are capable of being, and grant that Homer is the most poetic of poets and the first of the tragedians, but you must know that only so much of poetry as consists of hymns to the gods and praises of good men is to be admitted into the city; for if you admit the sweetened Muse, in lyric or epic verse, pleasure and pain will reign as kings in your city instead of law and the argument that has always, by common consent, been held to be best.

Very true, he said.

Let this, then, I said, stand as our defense concerning poetry, now that we have brought it back to mind — that it was reasonable of us to send it away from the city then, being the sort of thing it is; for the argument compelled us. But let us say to it, so that it does not condemn us for some harshness and boorishness, that there is an old quarrel between philosophy and poetry; for indeed there is "that yelping bitch, barking at her master," and "great amid the empty chatter of fools," and "the mob of the over-wise holding sway," and "the subtle thinkers who are, for all that, paupers," and countless other signs of this ancient opposition between the two. Nevertheless, let it be said that we, at least, would gladly welcome it back if pleasure-seeking poetry and imitation could offer any argument that it ought to have a place in a well-ordered city, since we are indeed conscious in ourselves of being charmed by it; but it is not holy to betray what seems to be true. Is it not so, my friend — are you not charmed by it too, and especially when you view it through Homer?

Very much indeed.

Then is it not just that it should return in this way, having offered its defense in lyric verse or some other meter?

Quite so.

And we might indeed grant, too, to its champions — those who are not themselves poets, but lovers of poetry — to speak on its behalf without meter, arguing that it is not only pleasant but also beneficial to constitutions and to human life; and we will listen favorably. For we shall surely profit, if it turns out to be not only pleasant but also beneficial.

How, he said, could we fail to profit?

But if it cannot, my dear friend and companion, then — just as those who have once fallen in erotic love with someone, if they come to believe that the erotic love is not beneficial, hold themselves back from it by force, though reluctantly — so too shall we, because of the erotic love for such poetry that has grown in us through the upbringing of noble constitutions, be well disposed toward its proving to be as good and as true as possible; but as long as it is not able to make its defense, we shall listen to it while chanting to ourselves, as a charm, this very account we are giving, guarding against falling back again into that erotic love of childhood, the erotic love of the many. We shall sing, then, that such poetry is not to be taken seriously, as though it grasped truth and were a serious thing, but that whoever listens to it must be on his guard, fearing for the constitution within himself, and must hold to exactly what we have said about poetry.

I agree entirely, he said.

For the contest is great, I said, dear Glaucon — great, and greater than it seems — the contest of becoming good or bad; so that it is not worth a man's while, lifted up by honor or by money or by any office, or indeed by poetry, to neglect justice and the rest of virtue.

I agree with you, he said, on the basis of what we have gone through; and I think anyone else would too.

The Rewards of Justice, and the Immortal Soul

And yet, I said, we have not gone through the greatest rewards of virtue and the prizes set before it.

You are speaking of an inconceivable magnitude, he said, if there are other things greater than what has been said.

But what, I said, could become great in so short a time? For this whole span, from childhood to old age, would surely be a short one, set against all time.

Nothing, certainly, he said.

What then? Do you think that, in the case of an immortal thing, one need be in earnest only for so much time as this, and not for all time?

I think so, he said — but what do you mean by this?

Have you not perceived, I said, that our soul is immortal and never perishes?

And he, glancing at me in astonishment, said: by Zeus, not I — but can you say this?

Unless I am doing wrong, I said. And I think you can too — it is nothing difficult.

Not for me either, he said — but I should be glad to hear this easy thing from you.

You shall hear, I said.

Just speak, he said.

Is there something you call good, I said, and something evil?

I do, he said.

Do you think of them, then, as I do?

In what way?

That the evil is everything that destroys and corrupts, and the good is everything that preserves and benefits.

I do, he said.

But what of this? Do you say there is some evil and some good peculiar to each thing? For instance, ophthalmia for eyes, and disease for the whole body; blight for grain, rot for wood, rust for bronze and iron — and, as I say, for practically everything, some inborn evil and disease?

I do, he said.

Then whenever one of these attaches itself to something, does it not make the thing it attaches to bad, and in the end dissolve and destroy the whole of it?

How could it be otherwise?

So each thing's inborn evil, its own badness, destroys it — or, if this does not destroy it, then nothing else could ever still corrupt it. For the good would never destroy anything, nor again would that which is neither bad nor good.

How could it? He said.

If, then, we find something among existing things that has an evil making it bad, but this evil is unable to dissolve and destroy it, shall we not already know that for a thing so constituted there was no destruction?

That is likely, he said.

What then? Is there not, I said, something that makes the soul itself bad?

Very much so, he said — all those we just went through: injustice, licentiousness, cowardice, and ignorance.

Does any of these, then, dissolve and destroy it? And take care that we not be deceived into supposing that the unjust and foolish man, when caught in wrongdoing, has then been destroyed by his injustice, injustice being a badness of the soul. But consider it this way — just as the body's own badness, being disease, wastes and destroys it, and brings it to the point of not even being a body, so too all the things we just mentioned, through their own peculiar evil, which corrupts them by settling in and being present within them, arrive at not-being — is that not so?

Yes.

Come then, consider the soul too in the same way. Do injustice and the rest of vice, being in the soul, corrupt and wither it by their presence and by settling in it, until they lead it to death and separate it from the body?

Certainly not that, he said.

But surely this at least is unreasonable, I said — that a thing should be destroyed by another's badness and not by its own.

Unreasonable.

For consider, Glaucon, I said, that we do not think the body need perish even from the badness of the food itself — whether that badness is staleness, or rottenness, or whatever it may be; but if the badness of the food produces in the body a badness of body, we shall say that the body perished, on account of the food, by its own evil, which is a disease; whereas, the badness of food being one thing and the body another, we shall never allow that the body is corrupted by a foreign evil that has not produced in it its own inborn evil.

Again you speak most correctly, he said.

By the same reasoning, then, I said, unless a badness of body produces in the soul a badness of soul, let us never allow that the soul is destroyed by a foreign evil apart from its own badness — one thing by the evil of another.

That is reasonable, he said.

Let us, then, either refute this and show that we are not speaking rightly, or, as long as it remains unrefuted, let us never say that, because of fever, or some other disease, or slaughter, or even if someone should cut the whole body into the smallest possible pieces, the soul is on that account any more destroyed, until someone demonstrates that these sufferings of the body make the soul itself more unjust and more unholy; and when a foreign evil arises in one thing but each thing's own evil does not arise within it, let us allow no one to say that either the soul or anything else is destroyed.

But surely, he said, no one will ever show this — that the souls of the dying become more unjust because of death.

But if someone, I said, dares to meet this argument head-on and say that the dying man becomes worse and more unjust, so as not to be forced to admit that souls are immortal, we shall, I suppose, insist that, if the one who says this speaks truly, injustice is deadly to the one who has it, like a disease, and that those who catch it die by this very thing, which kills by its own nature — some very quickly, others more slowly — and not, as now, that the unjust die on this account at the hands of others who inflict the penalty.

By Zeus, he said, injustice will not, then, appear altogether terrible, if it is to be deadly to the one who has it — for that would be a release from evils — but rather, I think, it will appear quite the opposite: killing others, if that is even possible, while making the one who has it very much alive, and, besides being alive, sleepless as well; so far off, it seems, has it pitched its tent from being deadly.

Well put, I said. For since its own peculiar badness and its own peculiar evil are not enough to kill and destroy the soul, an evil appointed for the destruction of something else will hardly destroy the soul, or anything else, except that for which it is appointed.

Hardly, he said, as is likely.

So then, since it is destroyed by no evil at all, neither its own nor another's, it is clear that it must always exist; and if it always exists, it is immortal.

The Soul's True Nature, Like Glaucus

That is necessary, he said.

Let this, then, be so, I said; but if it is so, you realize that they would always be the same in number. For they could not become fewer, I suppose, since none is destroyed, nor again more; for if any of the immortal things whatever were to increase, you know that it would come to be out of the mortal, and everything would end up being immortal.

What you say is true.

But, I said, let us not think this — for the argument will not allow it — nor, again, that the soul is, in its truest nature, such as to be full of great variety and unlikeness and difference within itself.

What do you mean? He said.

It is not easy, I said, for something composed of many parts, and not put together in the best way, to be everlasting — as the soul just now appeared to us to be.

That certainly does not seem likely.

That the soul, then, is immortal, both the argument just given and the others would compel us to admit; but as for what it truly is, one must view it not as maimed by its association with the body and other evils, the way we now view it, but must contemplate it adequately by reasoning as it is when it becomes pure, and then one will find it far more beautiful, and will see justice and injustice, and everything we have just gone through, more clearly. But now we have spoken truly about it, as it appears in its present state; we have, however, viewed it in a certain condition, just as those who look at the sea-god Glaucus could no longer easily make out his original nature, because the old parts of his body are partly broken off, and partly ground down and altogether maimed by the waves, while other things have grown onto him — shells and seaweed and stones — so that he looks more like some wild beast than what he was by nature; so too we see the soul in just such a state, from countless evils. But we must look there, Glaucon.

Where? He said.

To its love of wisdom, and to what it lays hold of and what kind of company it longs for — seeing that it is akin to what is divine and immortal and to what always is — and to what it would become if it gave itself wholly to following such things, and were lifted by this impulse out of the sea it is now in, and had the rocks and shells knocked from around it, those that now, because it feasts on earth, have grown over it in such numbers, earthy and stony and wild, from those banquets that are called happy. And then one might see its true nature, whether it is many-formed or single-formed, or in whatever state and however it is; but for now we have, I think, gone through its experiences and kinds in human life well enough.

Quite so, he said.

Justice Rewarded, by Gods and by Men

Well then, I said, we settled the other matters in our argument, and did not praise justice for its wages or its repute, as you said Hesiod and Homer did, but found justice itself, for the soul itself, best, and that one must do just things whether one has the ring of Gyges or not, and along with such a ring the cap of Hades too?

Most true, he said.

Is it not now, then, I said, Glaucon, free of reproach to give back, besides those things, the wages also to justice and to the rest of virtue — as many and as great as it provides to the soul from men and from gods, both while the man still lives and after he has died?

Certainly, he said.

Will you, then, give me back what you borrowed in the argument?

What in particular?

I granted to you that the just man should seem unjust and the unjust man just; for you asked that, even if it were not possible for this to escape the notice of both gods and men, it must nevertheless be granted for the sake of the argument, so that justice itself might be judged against injustice itself. Or do you not remember?

I would indeed be committing an injustice, he said, if I did not.

Since, then, I said, they have been judged, I now claim back, on behalf of justice, the reputation it actually has from both gods and men, and ask that we agree it is thought of in this way, so that it too may carry off the prizes of victory, gaining from its reputation what it gives to those who possess it, since it has been shown to give the goods that come from actually being just, and not to deceive those who truly take hold of it.

What you ask is just, he said.

Then, I said, first you will grant me this — that the gods, at least, are not unaware what sort each of the two is?

We will grant it, he said.

And if they do not escape notice, the one would be dear to the gods, the other hateful to them, just as we agreed also at the beginning.

That is so.

And shall we not agree that for the man dear to the gods, whatever comes to him from the gods, all comes about in the best way possible, unless some necessary evil awaited him from an earlier fault?

Certainly.

This, then, is how one must think about the just man — whether he falls into poverty or into sicknesses or into any other of the things thought bad — that for him these things will end in some good, whether he is living or even after he has died. For the man who is willing to make it his earnest purpose to become just and, by practicing virtue, to be like a god so far as a man can, is surely never neglected by the gods.

It stands to reason, he said, that such a man should not be neglected by one like him.

Must we not, then, think the opposite of this concerning the unjust man?

Very much so.

Such, then, would be the prizes of victory from the gods for the just man.

So it seems to me, at any rate, he said.

But what, I said, of the rewards from men? Is it not so, if we must state the truth of the matter? Do not the clever and unjust act just like those runners who run well on the way out but not on the way back? At first they spring off sharply, but in the end they become ridiculous, their ears drooping on their shoulders, and they run off without a crown, while those who are true runners, once they reach the finish, take the prizes and are crowned. Is this not, for the most part, what happens with the just as well? Toward the end of each action and each association and of life itself, are they not held in good repute and do they not carry off the prizes from men?

Very much so.

Will you bear with me, then, if I say about these men the very things you yourself said about the unjust? For I will say that the just, once they have grown old, hold office in their own city if they wish to, marry from wherever they wish, and give their daughters in marriage to whomever they want; and everything that you said about the unjust, I now say about these men. And again, about the unjust — that most of them, even when they go undetected while young, are caught at the end of the race and become ridiculous, and, growing old, are wretchedly abused by strangers and citizens alike, scourged, and suffering what you yourself called crude, and you spoke truly — and then they will be racked and burned — take it that you have heard from me too all those things they suffer. But see whether you can bear what I am saying.

Quite so, he said; for what you say is just.

Such, then, I said, would be the prizes and wages and gifts that come to the just man while he lives, from both gods and men, in addition to those goods which justice itself provided.

Very much so, he said — fine and secure things.

These things, then, I said, are nothing either in number or in magnitude compared to those that await each of the two after he has died; and we must hear about them, so that each may fully receive what our argument owes him to hear.

The Myth of Er: The Journey, and the Spindle of Necessity

Do go on, he said, since there is not much else I would hear more gladly.

It is not, though, a tale of Alcinous that I shall tell you, I said, but the tale of a valiant man, Er son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth, who once died in war; when the dead were taken up on the tenth day, already decayed, he was taken up sound, and, carried home and about to be buried on the twelfth day, he came back to life as he lay on the pyre, and once revived he told what he had seen there. He said that when his soul went out of him it traveled with many others, and they came to a certain supernatural place, in which there were two chasms in the earth, adjoining each other, and, opposite them, two others in the heaven above. Judges sat between them, and these, whenever they had given judgment, ordered the just to travel the road to the right and upward through the heaven, with signs of the judgments passed fastened on them in front, and the unjust the road to the left and downward, these too wearing on their backs signs of everything they had done. And when he approached, they told him that he must become a messenger to mankind of the things there, and they urged him to listen and to observe everything in the place. He saw, then, at each of those two chasms — the one of heaven and the one of earth — souls departing once judgment had been given for them, and, at the other two, from one, souls going up out of the earth, full of squalor and dust, and from the other, different souls coming down pure from heaven. And the souls that kept arriving seemed to have come as if from a long journey, and, going off gladly into the meadow, camped there as though at a festival, and those who knew one another greeted each other, and the ones who had come from the earth asked the others about the things there, and those from heaven about what had befallen the others. And they told each other their stories: the ones from the earth, wailing and weeping, recalling how many things and what things they had suffered and seen in their journey beneath the earth — the journey lasted a thousand years — while the ones from heaven, in turn, told of delights and of sights of inconceivable beauty. Now to relate most of it, Glaucon, would take a long time; but he said the main point was this: for all the wrongs anyone had ever done, and to however many people, each had paid the penalty for all of them in turn, tenfold for each — this being reckoned by each period of a hundred years, human life being taken as that length — so that they might pay tenfold requital for the wrong, and, for instance, if some had been the cause of many deaths, either by betraying cities or armies, and had thrown men into slavery, or had been accessories to some other affliction, for all of these they received tenfold pains for each, and again, if they had done good deeds and had been just and pious, they received their due reward in the same proportion. And concerning those who had just been born and lived only a short time, he told other things not worth mentioning. And for impiety and piety toward the gods, and toward parents, and for murder by one's own hand, he described still greater recompenses.

For he said that he was present when one was asked by another where Ardiaeus the Great was. Now this Ardiaeus had been tyrant in a certain city of Pamphylia, a thousand years already before that time, having killed his aged father and his elder brother, and having done many other unholy things besides, as it was said. He said, then, that the one who was asked replied: "He has not come, nor will he come here. For indeed we witnessed this too, one of the terrible sights: when we were near the mouth, about to go up, and had gone through everything else as well, we suddenly caught sight of him and others — nearly all of them tyrants, though there were also some private men who had committed great wrongs — whom, though they thought they were now about to go up, the mouth would not receive, but it bellowed whenever one of those so incurably disposed toward wickedness, or who had not paid a sufficient penalty, tried to go up. At that point, he said, savage men, fiery to look at, standing by and recognizing the sound, seized some and led them off, and, having bound Ardiaeus and others hand and foot and head, they threw them down and flayed them, and dragged them out along the road, tearing them on thorn bushes, and explaining to all who passed by why this was done, and that they were being led away to be cast into Tartarus. There, then, he said, though many and varied fears had come upon us, this one surpassed the rest — each man's fear that the sound would come for him as he was going up — and each went up most gladly when it stayed silent." And such, then, were the judgments and punishments, and the benefits, in turn, corresponded to these. And when seven days had passed for each of them in the meadow, they had to rise up from there and set out on the eighth day, and arrive on the fourth day at a place from which they could see, from above, a straight light stretched through the whole of heaven and earth, like a column, most closely resembling the rainbow, but brighter and purer; and they reached it after advancing a day's journey, and saw there, at the middle of the light, the ends of its bonds stretched down from heaven — for this light was the bond of heaven, like the undergirding cables of triremes, holding its whole revolution together in this way — and from the ends stretched the spindle of Necessity, through which all the revolutions turned; its shaft and its hook were made of adamant, and the whorl was a mixture of this and other kinds of material. The nature of the whorl was as follows: its shape was like that of the ones here, but one must understand, from what he said, that it was of this kind — as if, within one great whorl, hollow and scooped out all the way through, another such whorl, smaller, lay fitted inside it, like buckets that fit into one another, and so, too, a third besides, and a fourth, and four others. For the whorls were eight in all, lying one within another, showing their rims as circles from above, and forming, around the shaft, the continuous surface of a single whorl; and the shaft itself was driven right through the middle of the eighth. Now the first and outermost whorl had the widest circle of rim; the second widest was that of the sixth; third was that of the fourth; fourth was that of the eighth; fifth was that of the seventh; sixth was that of the fifth; seventh was that of the third; and eighth was that of the second.

The Choice of Lives, and the River of Forgetfulness

And that of the largest was many-colored; that of the seventh, brightest; that of the eighth had its color from the light the seventh cast upon it; those of the second and fifth were similar to each other, more yellow than the rest; the third had the whitest color; the fourth was reddish; and the sixth was second in whiteness. And as it turned, the whole spindle revolved with a single motion, but within that revolving whole, the seven inner circles turned slowly in the direction opposite to the whole; of these, the eighth moved fastest, and next, keeping pace with one another, the seventh, sixth, and fifth; third in speed, as it appeared to them, came the fourth, circling back on itself; fourth came the third; and fifth, the second. And it turned upon the knees of Necessity. On each of its circles, above, stood a Siren, carried around with it, uttering a single sound, one note; and from all eight together a single harmony sounded in concord. And round about, seated at equal distances, three others, each on a throne, the daughters of Necessity, the Fates — Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos — dressed in white, with garlands on their heads, sang to the harmony of the Sirens: Lachesis of what has been, Clotho of what is, and Atropos of what is to come. And Clotho, touching it with her right hand, helped turn the outer revolution of the spindle, pausing from time to time; Atropos, with her left, did the same for the inner revolutions in turn; and Lachesis, in her turn, touched each with either hand. So they themselves, once they had arrived, had at once to go to Lachesis. A prophet first arranged them in order, then took from the lap of Lachesis lots and patterns of lives, mounted a high platform, and said—

"This is the word of Lachesis, maiden daughter of Necessity. Souls of a day, here begins another cycle of the mortal, death-bearing race. No guardian spirit will be allotted to you; you yourselves will choose a guardian spirit. Let whoever draws the first lot choose first a life that he will then be bound to by necessity. Virtue has no master; each of you will have more or less of it as you honor or dishonor it. The one who chooses bears the responsibility; the god bears none."

Having said this, he threw the lots among them all, and each one picked up the lot that fell beside him — except Er, who was not allowed to; and to the one who picked it up, it was clear what number he had drawn. After this, he set out before them once more the patterns of lives on the ground, far more numerous than the souls present. They were of every kind; for there were the lives of all the animals, and indeed all the human lives too. Among them were tyrannies, some lasting to the end, others breaking apart partway through and ending in poverty, exile, and beggary; there were also the lives of men of high repute, some for their looks and beauty and the rest of their strength and skill in contests, others for their birth and their ancestors' virtues, and likewise lives of men without repute in these same respects, and of women too, in the same way. No fixed character of soul was attached to them, since a soul that chooses a different life necessarily becomes different itself; but the rest of these lives were mixed together with each other, and with wealth and poverty, some with sickness, some with health, and some stood midway between these. Here then, it seems, my dear Glaucon, lies the whole danger for a human being, and for this reason above all each of us must take care that, setting aside every other study, he becomes a seeker and a student of this one, if he can somehow learn and discover who will make him able and knowledgeable, so that he can tell a good life from a bad one and always, everywhere, choose the better from among those open to him; reckoning up all that has just been said, and how these things, combined with one another or kept apart, bear on the virtue of a life, so as to know what beauty mixed with poverty or with wealth, joined with which condition of soul, produces evil or good, and what noble birth and low birth, private life and rule, strength and weakness, quickness and slowness to learn, and all such things belonging to the soul by nature or acquired, produce when mixed together — so that, reasoning from all of these at once and looking to the nature of the soul, one is able to choose between the worse life and the better, calling worse whichever will lead the soul toward becoming more unjust, and better whichever leads it toward becoming more just. He will let everything else go; for we have seen that this is the best choice for a person, both living and once dead. One must hold to this judgment as unyieldingly as adamant on the way down to Hades, so that there too he remains unshaken by riches and evils of that kind, and does not fall into tyrannies and similar courses of action, working many incurable evils and himself suffering still greater ones — but instead always knows to choose the middle life among such things, and to flee the extremes on either side, both in this life, as far as possible, and in every life to come; for it is this way that a person becomes happiest.

And so, then too, the messenger from that place reported that the prophet had spoken thus: "Even for the one who comes forward last, if he chooses with understanding and lives with resolve, a life worth loving — not a bad one — awaits him. Let neither the one who chooses first grow careless, nor the one who chooses last lose heart."

When the prophet had said this, Er said that the one who had drawn the first lot came forward at once and chose the greatest tyranny, making the choice, in his folly and greed, without examining everything closely enough — not noticing that bound up in it was his fate to eat his own children, along with other evils; and when he had time to look it over calmly, he beat his breast and lamented his choice, not standing by what the prophet had foretold; for he did not blame himself for these evils, but chance and spirits and anything at all rather than himself. He was one of those who had come from heaven, having lived his earlier life under a well-ordered constitution, sharing in virtue by habit and without philosophy. And, broadly speaking, those who had come from heaven were caught out in such choices no less often, being unexercised in hardships; whereas most of those who had come from the earth, having themselves suffered and having seen others suffer, did not make their choices in haste. For this reason, then, most souls undergo a change between evils and goods also because of the chance of the lot; since, if someone always, whenever he arrives at life here, practiced philosophy in a sound way, and the lot for his choice did not fall among the last, it seems likely, from what is reported from that other place, that he would not only be happy here, but that his journey from here to there and back again would not be rough and underground, but smooth and through the heavens.

This, he said, was indeed a sight worth seeing — how each of the souls chose its life; for it was pitiful to see, and absurd, and wonderful all at once. For the most part they chose according to what they were used to in their former life. He said he saw the soul that had once been Orpheus choosing the life of a swan, unwilling, out of hatred for womankind because of his death at their hands, to be conceived in a woman and born; he saw the soul of Thamyras choosing that of a nightingale; and he saw a swan too changing over to take up a human life, and other musical creatures doing likewise. The soul that had drawn the twentieth lot chose the life of a lion; it was the soul of Ajax son of Telamon, which shrank from becoming a human because it remembered the judgment over the arms. Next after him came the soul of Agamemnon, and it too, out of hatred for the human race because of what it had suffered, exchanged its life for that of an eagle. The soul of Atalanta, drawing a lot somewhere in the middle, caught sight of the great honors given to an athlete, and could not pass them by, but took them. After her, he saw the soul of Epeius son of Panopeus passing into the nature of a craftswoman; and far off among the last, he saw the soul of Thersites, the buffoon, putting on the form of an ape. And it happened that the soul of Odysseus had drawn the last lot of all and came forward to choose; with the memory of his former hardships, his ambition had died away, and he went about for a long time searching for the life of a private man who kept out of everything, and with difficulty found one lying somewhere, neglected by all the others, and on seeing it he said that he would have done the same even if he had drawn the first lot, and he chose it gladly. And in the same way, souls passed from the other animals into human beings and into one another, the unjust changing into wild creatures and the just into tame ones, and every kind of mixture occurred.

Now when all the souls had chosen their lives, they came forward to Lachesis in the order in which they had drawn their lots; and she sent with each of them the spirit he had picked, to guard his life and fulfill what he had chosen. This spirit first led the soul to Clotho, under her hand and the turning of the spindle's whirl, confirming the fate that the soul had chosen when it drew its lot; then, having touched this, it led the soul on to the spinning of Atropos, making what had been spun irreversible; and from there, without turning back, the soul went beneath the throne of Necessity, and having passed through it, once the others too had passed through, they all journeyed to the plain of Lethe through terrible heat and stifling air; for it was bare of trees and of anything that the earth grows. So, as evening was already coming on, they camped beside the river Ameles, whose water no vessel can hold. Everyone was required to drink a certain measure of the water, but those not preserved by practical wisdom drank more than the measure; and everyone who drank it forgot everything. And when they had fallen asleep and it was the middle of the night, there came thunder and an earthquake, and from there, suddenly, they were carried up in different directions, each to his birth, shooting upward like stars. As for himself, he was kept from drinking the water; yet by what way and how he arrived in his body, he did not know, but suddenly, looking up, he saw himself at dawn lying on the funeral pyre.

And so, Glaucon, the story was saved and not lost, and it could save us too, if we are persuaded by it, and we shall cross the river of Lethe safely and not defile our soul. But if we are persuaded by me, believing the soul to be immortal and able to bear all evils and all goods, we shall always hold to the upward road and pursue justice together with practical wisdom in every way, so that we may be friends both to ourselves and to the gods, both while we remain here and when we collect the prizes of justice — like victors going about to gather them — and so may fare well both here and on the thousand-year journey we have gone through.