Memorabilia

I am sure you have not visited them, and so cannot tell why the amount derived from them has fallen.No, indeed, I have not been there.To be sure: the district is considered unhealthy, and so when you have to offer advice on the problem, this excuse will serve.You’re chaffing me.

Ah, but there’s one problem I feel sure you haven’t overlooked: no doubt you have reckoned how long the corn grown in the country will maintain the population, and how much is needed annually, so that you may not be caught napping, should the city at any time be short, and may come to the rescue and relieve the city by giving expert advice about food.What an overwhelming task, if one has got to include such things as that in one’s duties!

But, you know, no one will ever manage even his own household successfully unless he knows all its needs and sees that they are all supplied. Seeing that our city contains more than ten thousand houses, and it is difficult to look after so many families at once, you must have tried to make a start by doing something for one, I mean your uncle’s? It needs it; and if you succeed with that one, you can set to work on a larger number. But if you can’t do anything for one, how are you going to succeed with many? If a man can’t carry one talent, it’s absurd for him to try to carry more than one, isn’t it?

Well, I could do something for uncle’s household if only he would listen to me.What? You can’t persuade your uncle, and yet you suppose you will be able to persuade all the Athenians, including your uncle, to listen to you?

Pray take care, Glaucon, that your daring ambition doesn’t lead to a fall! Don’t you see how risky it is to say or do what you don’t understand? Think of others whom you know to be the sort of men who say and do what they obviously don’t understand. Do you think they get praise or blame by it?

And think of those who understand what they say and what they do. You will find, I take it, that the men who are famous and admired always come from those who have the widest knowledge, and the infamous and despised from the most ignorant.

Therefore, if you want to win fame and admiration in public life, try to get a thorough knowledge of what you propose to do. If you enter on a public career with this advantage over others, I should not be surprised if you gained the object of your ambition quite easily.

Seeing that Glaucon’s son, Charmides, was a respectable man and far more capable than the politicians of the day, and nevertheless shrank from speaking in the assembly and taking a part in politics, he said: Tell me, Charmides, what would you think of a man who was capable of gaining a victory in the great games and consequently of winning honour for himself and adding to his country’s fame in the Greek world, and yet refused to compete?I should think him a poltroon and a coward, of course.

Then if a man were to shrink from state business though capable of discharging it with advantage to the state and honour to himself, wouldn’t it be reasonable to think him a coward?Perhaps; but why ask me that?Because I fancy that you shrink from work that is within your powers, work in which it is your duty as a citizen to take a hand.What makes you think so?

In what sort of work have you discovered my powers?In your intercourse with public men. Whenever they take counsel with you, I find that you give excellent advice, and whenever they make a mistake, your criticism is sound.

A private conversation is a very different thing from a crowded debate, Socrates.But, you know, a man who is good at figures counts as well in a crowd as in solitude; and those who play the harp best in private excel no less in a crowd.

But surely you see that bashfulness and timidity come natural to a man, and affect him far more powerfully in the presence of a multitude than in private society?Yes, and I mean to give you a lesson. The wisest do not make you bashful, and the strongest do not make you timid; yet you are ashamed to address an audience of mere dunces and weaklings. Who are they that make you ashamed?

The fullers or the cobblers or the builders or the smiths or the farmers or the merchants, or the traffickers in the market-place who think of nothing but buying cheap and selling dear? For these are the people who make up the Assembly.

You behave like a man who can beat trained athletes and is afraid of amateurs! You are at your ease when you talk with the first men in the state, some of whom despise you, and you are a far better talker than the ordinary run of politicians; and yet you are shy of addressing men who never gave a thought to public affairs and haven’t learnt to despise you — all because you fear ridicule!

Well, don’t you think the Assembly often laughs at sound argument?Yes, and so do the others; and that’s why I am surprised that you, who find it easy to manage them when they do it, think you will be quite unable to deal with the Assembly.