Republic

And truly, I said, many other considerations assure me that we were entirely right in our organization of the state, and especially, I think, in the matter of poetry.[*](In Book III. On the whole question see Introd. Max. Tyr. Diss. 23 Εἰ καλῶς Πλάτων Ὅμηρον τῆς Πολιτείας παρῃτήσατο, and 32 ἔστι καθ’ Ὅμηρον αἵρεσις. Strabo i. 2 3. Athenaeus v. 12. 187 says that Plato himself in the Symposium wrote worse things than the poets whom he banishes. Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 138, thinks that the return to the poets in Book X. is intended to justify the poetry of Plato’s dialogues. On the banishment of the poets and Homer cf. also Minucius Felix (Halm), pp. 32-33, Tertullian (Oehler), lib. ii. c. 7, Olympiodorus, Hermann vi. p. 367, Augustine, De civ. Dei, ii. xiv.) What about it? he said. In refusing to admit[*](Supra 394 D, 568 B, and on 398 A-B, 607 A.) at all so much of it as is imitative[*](In the narrower sense. Cf. Vol. I. p. 224, note c, on 392 D, and What Plato Said, p. 561.); for that it is certainly not to be received is, I think, still more plainly apparent now that we have distinguished the several parts[*](Lit. species. Cf. 435 B ff., 445 C, 580 D, 588 B ff., Phaedr. 271 D, Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 42.) of the soul. What do you mean? Why, between ourselves[*](Cf. Gorg. 462 B, Protag. 309 A, 339 E.)—for you will not betray me to the tragic poets and all other imitators—that kind of art seems to be a corruption[*](Cf. 605 C, Meno 91 C, Laws 890 B.) of the mind of all listeners who do not possess, as an antidote[*](φάρμακον: this passage is the source of Plutarch’s view of literature in education; see Quomodo adolescens poetas audire debeat 15 C.) a knowledge of its real nature. What is your idea in saying this? he said. I must speak out, I said, though a certain love and reverence for Homer[*](Isoc. ii. 48-49 is perhaps imitating this. For Homer as a source of tragedy cf. also 598 D, 605 C-D, 607 A, 602 B, Theaet. 152 E, schol. Trendelenburg, pp. 75 ff.; Dryden, Discourse on Epic Poetry: The origin of the stage was from the epic poem . . . those episodes of Homer which were proper for the state the poets amplifies each into an action, etc. Cf. Aristot. Poet. 1448 b 35 f., Diog. Laert. iv. 40, and 393 A ff.) that has possessed me from a boy would stay me from speaking. For he appears to have been the first teacher and beginner of all these beauties of tragedy. Yet all the same we must not honor a man above truth,[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 532, on Phaedo 91 C, Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1096 a 16 ἄμφοιν γὰρ ὄντοιν φίλοιν ὅσιον προτιμᾶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, Henri-Pierre Cazac, Polémique d’Aristote contre la théorie platonicienne des Idées, p. 11, n.: Platon lui-même, critiquant Homère, . . . fait une semblabe réflexion, On doit plus d’égards à la vérité qu’à un homme. Cousin croit, après Camérarius, que c’est là l’origine du mot célèbre d’Aristote. Cf. St. Augustine, De civ. Dei. x. 30 homini praeposuit veritatem.) but, as I say, speak our minds. By all means, he said. Listen, then, or rather, answer my question. Ask it, he said. Could you tell me in general what imitation is? For neither do I myself quite apprehend what it would be at. It is likely, then,[*](For ἦ που Cf. Phaedo 84 D.) he said, that I should apprehend!

It would be nothing strange, said I, since it often happens that the dimmer vision sees things in advance of the keener.[*](Perhaps a slight failure in Attic courtesy. Cf. Laws 715 D-E, and for ὀξύτερον βλεπόντων927 B, Euthydem. 281 D, Rep. 404 A, Themist. Orat. ii. p. 32 C. Cf. the saying πολλάκι καὶ κηποῦρος ἀνὴρ μάλα καίριον εἶπεν.) That is so, he said; but in your presence I could not even be eager to try to state anything that appears to me, but do you yourself consider it. Shall we, then, start the inquiry at this point by our customary procedure[*](Cf. Phaedo 76 D, 100 B, Phileb. 16 D, 479 E, Thompson on Meno 72 D. See Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. ii. 1. p. 660. The intentional simplicity of Plato’s positing of the concept here (cf. 597 A), and his transition from the concept to the idea, has been mistaken for a primitive aspect of his thought by many interpreters. It is quite uncritical to use Aristot. Met. 991 b 6 ff. to prove that Plato’s later theory of ideas did not recognize ideas of artefacts, and therefore that this passage represents an earlier phase of the theory. He deliberately expresses the theory as simply as possible, and a manufactured object suits his purpose here as it does in Cratyl. 389. See also ibid, Introd. pp. xxii-xxiii.)? We are in the habit, I take it, of positing a single idea or form[*](Forms with a capital letter is even more misleading than ideas.) in the case of the various multiplicities to which we give the same name. Do you not understand? I do. In the present case, then, let us take any multiplicity you please; for example, there are many couches and tables. Of course. But these utensils imply, I suppose, only two ideas or forms, one of a couch and one of a table. Yes. And are we not also in the habit of saying that the craftsman who produces either of them fixes his eyes[*](Cf. Cratyl. 389 A-B. There is no contradiction, as many say, with 472 D.) on the idea or form, and so makes in the one case the couches and in the other the tables that we use, and similarly of other things? For surely no craftsman makes the idea itself. How could he? By no means. But now consider what name you would give to this craftsman. What one? Him who makes all the things[*](Cf. Emerson, The Poet: and therefore the rich poets—as Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Raphael—have no limits to their riches except the limits of their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the streets ready to render an image of every created thing. (Cf. 596 D-E κάτοπτρον περιφέρειν and Julian, Or. v. 163 D.) Empedocles, fr. 23 (Diels i.3 pp. 234-235): ὡς δ’ ὁπόταν γραφέες . . . δένδρεά τε κτίζοντε καὶ ἀνέρας ἠδὲ γυναῖκας . . . ) that all handicraftsmen severally produce. A truly clever and wondrous man you tell of. Ah, but wait,[*](Climax beyond climax. Cf. on 508 E p. 104, note c.) and you will say so indeed, for this same handicraftsman is not only able to make all implements, but he produces all plants and animals, including himself,[*](It is a tempting error to refer this to God, as I once did, and as Wilamowitz, Platon. i. p. 604 does. So Cudworth, True Intel. System of the Universe, vol. ii. p. 70: Lastly, he is called ὃς πάντα τά τε ἄλλα ἐργάζεται, καὶ ἑαυτόν, he that causeth or produceth both all other things, and even himself. But the producer of everything, including himself, is the imitator generalized and then exemplified by the painter and the poet. Cf. Soph. 234 A-B.) and thereto earth and heaven and the gods and all things in heaven and in Hades under the earth. A most marvellous sophist,[*](Eurip. Hippol. 921 δεινὸν σοφιστὴν εἶπας.) he said. Are you incredulous? said I. Tell me, do you deny altogether the possibility of such a craftsman, or do you admit that in a sense there could be such a creator of all these things, and in another sense not? Or do you not perceive that you yourself would be able to make all these things in a way? And in what way,[*](καὶ τίς is sceptical as in Aristoph. Acharn. 86.) I ask you, he said. There is no difficulty, said I, but it is something that the craftsman can make everywhere and quickly. You could do it most quickly if you should choose to take a mirror and carry it about everywhere. You will speedily produce the sun and all the things in the sky, and speedily the earth and yourself and the other animals and implements and plants and all the objects of which we just now spoke. Yes, he said, the appearance of them, but not the reality and the truth. Excellent, said I, and you come to the aid of the argument opportunely. For I take it that the painter too belongs to this class of producers, does he not? Of course. But you will say, I suppose, that his creations are not real and true. And yet, after a fashion, the painter[*](Art is deception. Diels ii.3 p. 339, Dialex. 3 (10) ἐν γὰρ τραγωιδοποιίᾳ καὶ ζωγραφίᾳ ὅστις κε πλεῖστα ἐξαπατῇ ὅμοια τοῖς ἀληθινοῖς ποιέων, οὗτος ἄριστος, Xen. Mem. iii. 10. 1 γραφική ἐστιν εἰκασία τῶν ὁρωμένων. Cf. Plut. Quomodo adolescens 17 F-18 A on painting and poetry. There are many specious resemblances between Plato’s ideas on art and morality and those of the lunatic fringe of Platonism. Cf. Jane Harrison, Ancient Art and Ritual, pp. 21-22, Charles F. Andrews, Mahatma Gandhi’s Ideas, p. 332. William Temple, Plato and Christianity, p. 89: In the tenth book of the Republic he says that, whereas the artificer in making any material object imitates the eternal idea, an artist only imitates the imitation (595 A-598 D); but in Book V he said that we do not blame an artist who depicts a face more beautiful than any actual human face either is or ever could be (472 D). But this does not affect Plato’s main point here, that the artist imitates the real world, not the world of ideas. The artist’s imitation may fall short of or better its model. But the model is not the (Platonic) idea.) too makes a couch, does he not? Yes, he said, the appearance of one, he too.

What of the cabinet-maker? Were you not just now saying that he does not make the idea or form which we say is the real couch, the couch in itself,[*](ὃ ἔστι belongs to the terminology of ideas. Cf. Phaedo 74 D, 75 B, 75 D, Rep. 507 B.) but only some particular couch?Yes, I was.Then if he does not make that which really is, he could not be said to make real being but something that resembles real being but is not that. But if anyone should say that being in the complete sense[*](τελέως . . . ὄν: Cf. 477 A, and Soph. 248 E παντελῶς ὄντι.) belongs to the work of the cabinet-maker or to that of any other handicraftsman, it seems that he would say what is not true.That would be the view, he said, of those who are versed[*](An indirect reference to Plato and his school like the friends of ideas in Soph. 248 A.) in this kind of reasoning. We must not be surprised, then, if this too is only a dim adumbration in comparison with reality. No, we must not. Shall we, then, use these very examples in our quest for the true nature of this imitator? If you please, he said. We get, then, these three couches, one, that in nature[*](Cf. 597 C, 598 A, 501 B φύσει, Phaedo 103 B, Parmen. 132 D.) which, I take it, we would say that God produces,[*](Proclus says that this is not seriously meant (apud Beckmann, Num Plato artifactorum Ideas statuerit, p. 12). Cf. Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. ii. 1, p. 666, who interprets the passage correctly; A. E. Taylor, in Mind, xii. p. 5 Plato’s meaning has been supposed to be adequately indicted by such half-jocular instances as that of the idea of a bed or table in Republic x., etc.) or who else? No one, I think. And then there was one which the carpenter made. Yes, he said. And one which the painter. Is not that so? So be it. The painter, then, the cabinet-maker, and God, there are these three presiding over three kinds of couches. Yes,three. Now God,whether because he so willed or because some compulsion was laid upon him[*](In Tim. 31 A the same argument is used for the creation of one world ἵνα . . . κατὰ τὴν μόνωσιν ὅμοιον ᾖ τῷ παντελεῖ ζώῳ. See my De Plat. Idearum doct. p. 39. Cf. Renan, Dialogues Phil. p. 25: Pour forger les premières tenailles, dit le Talmud, il fallut des tenailles. Dieu les créa.) not to make more than one couch in nature, so wrought and created one only,[*](The famous argument of the third man. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 585, on Parmen. 132 A and Introd. p. xxiii.) the couch which really and in itself is. But two or more such were never created by God and never will come into being. How so? he said. Because, said I, if he should make only two, there would again appear one of which they both would possess the form or idea, and that would be the couch that really is in and of itself, and not the other two. Right, he said. God, then, I take it, knowing this and wishing to be the real author of the couch that has real being and not of some particular couch, nor yet a particular cabinet-maker, produced it in nature unique. So it seems. Shall we, then, call him its true and natural begetter, or something of the kind? That would certainly be right, he said, since it is by and in nature[*](Cf. Soph. 265 E θήσω τὰ μὲν φύσει λεγόμενα ποιεῖσθαι θείᾳ τέχνῃ, Hooker, Eccles. Pol. i. 3. 4 those things which Nature is said to do are by divine art preformed, using nature as an instrument, Browne, apud J. Texte, Etudes de littérature européenne, p. 65 la nature est l’art de Dieu, Cic. De nat. deor. ii. 13 deoque tribuenda, id est mundo, De leg. i. 7. 21, Seneca, De benef. iv. 7 quid enim aliud est natura quam deus? Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Philos. ii. 115 Herder uses the word Nature in his book in order to avoid the frequent mention of the name of God.) that he has made this and all other things. And what of the carpenter? Shall we not call him the creator of a couch? Yes. Shall we also say that the painter is the creator and maker of that sort of thing? By no means. What will you say he is in relation to the couch? This, said he, seems to me the most reasonable designation for him, that he is the imitator of the thing which those others produce. Very good, said I; the producer of the product three removes[*](Cf. 587 C, Phaedr. 248 E, where the imitator is sixth in the scale.) from nature you call the imitator? By all means, he said. This, then, will apply to the maker of tragedies also, if he is an imitator and is in his nature three removes from the king and the truth, as are all other imitators. It would seem so.

We are in agreement, then, about the imitator. But tell me now this about the painter. Do you think that what he tries to imitate is in each case that thing itself in nature or the works of the craftsmen?The works of the craftsmen, he said. Is it the reality of them or the appearance? Define that further point.[*](Cf. Gorg. 488 D, Soph. 222 C.) What do you mean? he said. This: Does a couch differ from itself according as you view it from the side or the front or in any other way? Or does it differ not at all in fact though it appears different, and so of other things? That is the way of it, he said: it appears other but differs not at all. Consider, then, this very point. To which is painting directed in every case, to the imitation of reality as it is[*](Cf. Soph. 263 B, Cratyl. 385 B, Euthydem. 284 C.) or of appearance as it appears? Is it an imitation of a phantasm or of the truth? Of a phantasm,[*](Cf. 599 A, Soph. 232 A, 234 E, 236 B, Prot. 356 D.) he said. Then the mimetic art is far removed[*](Cf. 581 E.) from truth, and this, it seems, is the reason why it can produce everything, because it touches or lays hold of only a small part of the object and that a phantom[*](For εἴδωλον cf. p. 197, note e.); as, for example, a painter, we say, will paint us a cobbler, a carpenter, and other craftsmen, though he himself has no expertness in any of these arts,[*](Commentators sometimes miss the illogical idiom. So Adam once proposed to emend τεχνῶν to τεχνίτων, but later withdrew this suggestion in his note on the passage. Cf. 373 C, Critias 111 E, and my paper in T.A.P.A. xlvii. (1916) pp. 205-234.) but nevertheless if he were a good painter, by exhibiting at a distance his picture of a carpenter he would deceive children and foolish men,[*](Cf. Soph. 234 B.) and make them believe it to be a real carpenter. Why not? But for all that, my friend, this, I take it, is what we ought to bear in mind in all such cases: When anyone reports to us of someone, that he has met a man who knows all the crafts and everything else[*](So Dryden, Essay on Satire: Shakespeare . . . Homer . . . in either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural philosophy without knowing that they ever studied them, and the beautiful rhapsody of Andrew Lang, Letters to Dead Authors, p. 238: They believe not that one human soul has known every art, and all the thoughts of women as of men, etc. Pope, pref. to his translation of the Iliad: If we reflect upon those innumerable knowledges, those secrets of nature and physical philosophy which Homer is generally supposed to have wrapped up in his allegories, what a new and ample scene of wonder may this consideration afford us. Cf. Xen. Symp. 4. 6. Brunetière, Epoques, p. 105, says: Corneille . . . se piquait de connaître à fond l’art de la politique et celui de la guerre. For the impossibility of universal knowledge Cf. Soph. 233 A, Charm. 170 B, Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 146 on Hipp. Min. 366 C ff. Cf. also Ion 536 E, 541 B, 540 B, and Tim. 19 D. Tate, Plato and Allegorical Interpretation, Class. Quarterly, Jan. 1930, p. 2 says: The true poet is for Plato philosopher as well as poet. He must know the truth. This ignores the ἄρα in 598 E. Plato there is not stating his own opinion but giving the arguments of those who claim omniscience for the poet. Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 313 n. 1 completely misunderstands and misinterprets the passage. Cf. Class. Phil. xxvii. (1932) p. 85. E.E. Sikes, The Greek View of Poetry, p. 175, says Rymer held that a poet is obliged to know all arts and sciences. Aristotle from a different point of view says we expect the wise man to know everything in the sense in which that is possible, Met. 982 a 8.) that men severally know, and that there is nothing that he does not know[*](Cf. οὐδενὸς ὅτου οὐχί Charm. 175 C, οὐδὲν ὅτι οὐ Ala. I 105 E, Phil. 54 B, Phaedo 110 E, Euthyph. 3 C, Euthydem. 294 D, Isoc. Panegyr. 14, Herod. v. 97.) more exactly than anybody else, our tacit rejoinder must be that he is a simple fellow, who apparently has met some magician or sleight-of-hand man and imitator and has been deceived by him into the belief that he is all-wise,[*](πάσσοφος is generally ironical in Plato. Cf. What Plato Said, p. 489, on Lysis 216 A.) because of his own inability to put to the proof and distinguish knowledge, ignorance[*](For ἀνεπιστημοσύνην Cf. Theaet. 199 E f.) and imitation. Most true, he said. Then, said I, have we not next to scrutinize tragedy and its leader Homer,[*](For Homer as tragedian cf. on 595 B-C, p. 420, note a.) since some people tell us that these poets know all the arts and all things human pertaining to virtue and vice, and all things divine? For the good poet, if he is to poetize things rightly, must, they argue, create with knowledge or else be unable to create.

So we must consider whether these critics have not fallen in with such imitators and been deceived by them, so that looking upon their works they cannot perceive that these are three removes from reality, and easy to produce without knowledge of the truth. For it is phantoms,[*](Cf. on 598 B.) not realities, that they produce. Or is there something in their claim, and do good poets really know the things about which the multitude fancy they speak well?We certainly must examine the matter, he said. Do you suppose, then, that if a man were able to produce both the exemplar and the semblance, he would be eager to abandon himself to the fashioning of phantoms[*](Cf. 598 B.) and set this in the forefront of his life as the best thing he had? I do not. But, I take it, if he had genuine knowledge of the things he imitates he would far rather devote himself to real things[*](Cf. Petit de Julleville, Hist. lit. francaise vii. p. 233, on the poet Lamartine’s desire to be a practical statesman, and ibid: Quand on m’apprendrait que le divin Homère a refusé les charges municipales de Smyrne ou de Colophon, je ne croirais jamais qu’il eût pu mieux mériter de la Grèce en administrant son bourg natal qu’en composant l’Iliade et l’Odyssée.) than to the imitation of them, and would endeavor to leave after him many noble deeds[*](But Cf. Symp. 209 D.) and works as memorials of himself, and would be more eager to be the theme of praise than the praiser. I think so, he said; for there is no parity in the honor and the gain. Let us not, then, demand a reckoning[*](For the challenge to the poet to specify his knowledge Cf. Ion 536 E f.) from Homer or any other of the poets on other matters by asking them, if any one of them was a physician and not merely an imitator of a physician’s talk, what men any poet, old or new, is reported to have restored to health as Asclepius did, or what disciples of the medical art he left after him as Asclepius did his descendants; and let us dismiss the other arts and not question them about them; but concerning the greatest and finest things of which Homer undertakes to speak, wars and generalship[*](Cf. Ion 541 A f.) and the administration of cities and the education of men, it surely is fair to question him and ask, Friend Homer, if you are not at the third remove from truth and reality in human excellence, being merely that creator of phantoms whom we defined as the imitator, but if you are even in the second place and were capable of knowing what pursuits make men better or worse in private or public life, tell us what city was better governed owing to you,[*](Cf. Gorg. 515 B, Laches 186 B.) even as Lacedaemon was because of Lycurgus,[*](Cf. Laws 630 D, 632 D, 858 E, Symp. 209 D, Phaedr. 258 B, Minos 318 C, Herod. i. 65-66, Xen. Rep. Lac. 1. 2 and passim, Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus. ) and many other cities great and small because of other legislators. But what city credits you with having been a good legislator and having benefited them? Italy and Sicily say this of Charondas and we of Solon.[*](Cf. Symp. 209 D, Phaedr. 258 B, 278 C, Charm. 155 A, 157 E, Prot. 343 A, Tim. 20 E ff., Herod. i. 29 ff. and 86, ii. 177, v. 113, Aristot. Ath. Pol. v. ff., Diog. Laert. i. 45 ff., Plutarch, Life of Solon,Freeman, The Work and Life of Solon. ) But who says it of you? Will he be able to name any? I think not, said Glaucon; at any rate none is mentioned even by the Homerids themselves.

Well, then, is there any tradition of a war in Homer’s time that was well conducted by his command or counsel?None.Well, then, as might be expected of a man wise in practical affairs, are many and ingenious inventions[*](On the literature of inventions, εὑρήματα, see Newman ii. p. 382 on Aristot. Pol. 1274 b 4. Cf. Virgil, Aen. vi. 663 inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes, and Symp. 209 A.) for the arts and business of life reported of Homer as they are of Thales[*](Diog. Laert. i. 23-27.) the Milesian and Anacharsis[*](Diog. Laert. i. 105 says he was reported to be the inventor of the anchor and the potter’s wheel.) the Scythian?Nothing whatever of the sort.Well, then, if no public service is credited to him, is Homer reported while he lived to have been a guide in education to men who took pleasure in associating with him and transmitted to posterity a certain Homeric way of life[*](In the (spurious?) seventh epistle, 328 A, Plato speaks of the life and λόγος advocated by himself. Cf. Novotny, Plato’s Epistles, p. 168.) just as Pythagoras[*](Diels i3 pp. 27 f.) was himself especially honored for this, and his successors, even to this day, denominating a certain way of life the Pythagorean,[*](Cf. ὀρφικοὶ . . . βίοι Laws 782 C.) are distinguished among their contemporaries?No, nothing of this sort either is reported; for Creophylos,[*](Of the beef-clan. The scholiast says he was a Chian and an epic poet. See Callimachus’s epigram apud Sext. Empir., Bekker, p. 609 (Adv. Math. i. 48), and Suidas s. v. κρεώφυλος ) Socrates, the friend of Homer, would perhaps be even more ridiculous than his name[*](Modern Greeks also are often very sensitive to the etymology of proper names. Cf. also on 580 B, p. 369, note d.) as a representative of Homeric culture and education, if what is said about Homer is true. For the tradition is that Homer was completely neglected in his own lifetime by that friend of the flesh.Why, yes, that is the tradition, said I; but do you suppose, Glaucon, that, if Homer had really been able to educate men[*](See on 540 B, p. 230, note d.) and make them better and had possessed not the art of imitation but real knowledge, he would not have acquired many companions and been honored and loved by them? But are we to believe that while Protagoras[*](Cf. Prot. 315 A-B, 316 C.) of Abdera and Prodicus[*](See What Plato Said, p. 486, on Laches 197 D.) of Ceos and many others are able by private teaching to impress upon their contemporaries the conviction that they will not be capable of governing their homes or the city[*](For διοικεῖν Cf. Protag. 318 E.) unless they put them in charge of their education, and make themselves so beloved for this wisdom[*](See Thompson on Meno 70 B.) that their companions all but[*](On μόνον οὐκ Cf. Menex. 235 C, Ax. 365 B.) carry them about on their shoulders,[*](Stallbaum refers to Themist. Orat. xxii. p. 254 A ὃν ἡμεῖς διὰ ταύτην τὴν φαντασίαν μόνον οὐκ ἐπὶ ταῖς κεφαλαῖς περιφέρομεν, Erasmus, Chiliad iv. Cent. 7 n. 98 p. 794, and the German idiom einen auf den Händen tragen.) yet, forsooth, that Homer’s contemporaries, if he had been able to help men to achieve excellence,[*](Cf. Protag. 328 B.) would have suffered him or Hesiod to roam about rhapsodizing and would not have clung to them far rather than to their gold,[*](The article perhaps gives the word a contemptuous significance. So Meno 89 B τὸ χρυσίον.) and constrained them to dwell with them[*](οἴκοι εἶναι: J. J. Hartman, Ad Platonis Remp. 600 E, Mnem. 1916, p. 45, would change εἶναι to μεῖναι. But cf. Cic. Att. vii. 10 erimus una.) in their homes, or failing to persuade them, would themselves have escorted them wheresoever they went until they should have sufficiently imbibed their culture? What you say seems to me to be altogether true, Socrates, he said.

Shall we, then, lay it down that all the poetic tribe, beginning with Homer,[*](Cf. 366 E. Gorg. 471 C-D, Symp. 173 D.) are imitators of images of excellence and of the other things that they create,[*](Or about which they versify, playing with the double meaning of ποιεῖν.) and do not lay hold on truth? but, as we were just now saying, the painter will fashion, himself knowing nothing of the cobbler’s art, what appears to be a cobbler to him and likewise to those who know nothing but judge only by forms and colors[*](For the association of χρώματα and σχήματα Cf. Phileb. 12 E. 47 A, 51 B, Laws 669 A, Soph. 251 A, Meno 75 A with Apelt’s note, Cratyl. 431 C, Gorg. 465 B, Phaedo 100 D, Aristot. Poet. 1447 a 18-19.)?Certainly.And similarly, I suppose, we shall say that the poet himself, knowing nothing but how to imitate, lays on with words and phrases[*](Cf. Symp. 198 B, Apol. 17 C. The explicit discrimination of ὀνόματα as names of agents and ῥήματα as names of actions is peculiar to Soph. 262. But Cf. Cratyl. 431 B, 425 A, Theaet. 206 D. And in Soph. 257 B ῥήματι is used generally. See Unity of Plato’s Thought, pp. 56-57. Cf. Euthydem. 304 E with Symp. 187 A, Phaedr. 228 D, 271 C and my note in Class. Phil. xvii. (1922) p. 262.) the colors of the several arts in such fashion that others equally ignorant, who see things only through words,[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 593 on Soph. 240 A.) will deem his words most excellent, whether he speak in rhythm, meter and harmony about cobbling or generalship or anything whatever. So mighty is the spell[*](Cf. 607 C, Laws 840 C, Protag. 315 A-B.) that these adornments naturally exercise; though when they are stripped bare of their musical coloring and taken by themselves,[*](Cf. Gorg. 502 C εἴ τις περιέλοι τῆς ποιήσεως πάσης τό τε μέλος καὶ τὸν ῥυθμόν, 392, Ion 530 b, Epicharmus apud Diog. Laert. iii. 17 περιδύσας τὸ μέτρον ὃ νῦν ἔχει, Aeschines, In Ctes. 136 περιελόντες τοῦ ποιητοῦ τὸ μέτρον, Isoc. Evag. 11 τὸ δὲ μέτρον διαλύσῃ with Horace, Sat. i. 4. 62 invenias etiam disiecti membra poetae, Aristot. Rhet. 1404 a 24 ἐπεὶ δ’ οἱ ποιηταὶ λέγοντες εὐήθη διὰ τὴν λέξιν ἐδόκουν πορίσασθαι τήνδε τὴν δόξαν. Sext. Empir., Bekker, pp. 665-666 (Adv. Math. ii. 288), says that the ideas of poets are inferior to those of the ordinary layman. Cf. also Julian, Or. ii. 78 D, Coleridge, Table Talk: If you take from Virgil his diction and metre what do you leave him?) I think you know what sort of a showing these sayings of the poets make. For you, I believe, have observed them.I have, he said. Do they not, said I, resemble the faces of adolescents, young but not really beautiful, when the bloom of youth abandons them?[*](Aristot. Rhet. 1406 b 36 f. refers to this. Cf. Tyrtaeus 8 (6). 28 ὄφρ’ ἐρατῆς ἥβης ἀγλαὸν ἄνθος ἔχῃ, Mimnermus i. 4 ἥβης ἄνθη γίγνεται ἁρπαλέα; Theognis 1305: παιδείας πλουηράτου ἄνθος ὠκύτερον σταδίου Xen. Symp. 8. 14 τὸ μὲν τῆς ὥρας ἄνθος ταχὺ δήπου παρακμάζει, Plato, Symp. 183 E τῷ τοῦ σώματος ἄνθει λήγοντι ) By all means, he said. Come, then, said I, consider this point: The creator of the phantom, the imitator, we say, knows nothing of the reality but only the appearance. Is not that so? Yes. Let us not, then, leave it half said but consider it fully. Speak on, he said. The painter, we say, will paint both reins and a bit. Yes. But the maker[*](The δέ γε has almost the effect of a retort.) will be the cobbler and the smith. Certainly. Does the painter, then, know the proper quality of reins and bit? Or does not even the maker, the cobbler and the smith, know that, but only the man who understands the use of these things, the horseman[*](Cf. Aristot. Eth. Nic. 1094 a 10-11 καθάπερ ὑπὸ τὴν ἱππικὴν ἡ χαλινοποιικὴ. . .)? Most true. And shall we not say that the same holds true of everything? What do you mean? That there are some three arts concerned with everything, the user’s art,[*](For the idea that the user knows best see Cratyl. 390 B, Euthydem. 289 B, Phaedr. 274 E. Zeller, Aristotle(Eng.) ii. p. 247, attributes this pertinent observation to Aristotle. Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1277 b 30 αὐλητὴς ὁ χρώμενος. See 1282 a 21, 1289 a 17. Coleridge, Table Talk: In general those who do things for others know more about them than those for whom they are done. A groom knows more about horses than his master. But Hazlitt disagrees with Plato’s view.) the maker’s, and the imitator’s. Yes. Now do not the excellence, the beauty, the rightness[*](So in Laws 669 A-B, Plato says that the competent judge of a work of art must know three things, first, what it is, second, that it is true and right, and third, that it is good.) of every implement, living thing, and action refer solely to the use[*](For the reference of beauty to use see Hipp. Maj. 295 C ff.) for which each is made or by nature adapted? That is so. It quite necessarily follows, then, that the user of anything is the one who knows most of it by experience, and that he reports to the maker the good or bad effects in use of the thing he uses. As, for example, the flute-player reports to the flute-maker which flutes respond and serve rightly in flute-playing, and will order the kind that must be made, and the other will obey and serve him. Of course. The one, then, possessing knowledge, reports about the goodness or the badness of the flutes, and the other, believing, will make them. Yes.

Then in respect of the same implement the maker will have right belief[*](πίστιν ὀρθήν is used because of πιστεύων above. It is a slightly derogatory synonym of δόξαν ὀρθήν below, 602 A. Cf. 511 E.) about its excellence and defects from association with the man who knows and being compelled to listen to him, but the user will have true knowledge.Certainly.And will the imitator from experience or use have knowledge whether the things he portrays are or are not beautiful and right, or will he, from compulsory association with the man who knows and taking orders from him for the right making of them, have right opinion[*](This does not contradict book V. 477-478. For right opinion and knowledge cf. 430 B and What Plato Said, p. 517, on Meno 98 A-B.)?Neither.Then the imitator will neither know nor opine rightly concerning the beauty or the badness of his imitations.It seems not.Most charming,[*](χαρίεις is ironical like χαριέντως in 426 A and καλόν in Theaet. 183 A, but Glaucon in his answer takes it seriously.) then, would be the state of mind of the poetical imitator in respect of true wisdom about his creations.Not at all.Yet still he will none the less[*](Note the accumulation of particles in the Greek. Similarly in 619 B, Phaedo 59 D, 61 E, 62 B, 64 A, Parmen. 127 D, Demosth. xxiii. 101, De cor. 282, Pind. Pyth. iv. 64 A, Isoc. Peace 1, Aristot. De gen. et corr. 332 a 3, Iliad vii. 360.) imitate, though in every case he does not know in what way the thing is bad or good. But, as it seems, the thing he will imitate will be the thing that appears beautiful to the ignorant multitude.Why, what else?On this, then, as it seems, we are fairly agreed, that the imitator knows nothing worth mentioning of the things he imitates, but that imitation is a form of play,[*](Cf. on 536 C, p. 214, note b.) not to be taken seriously,[*](Cf. 608 A.) and that those who attempt tragic poetry, whether in iambics or heroic verse,[*](For ἐν ἔπεσι cf. 607 A, 379 A, Meno 95 D.) are all altogether imitators.By all means.In heaven’s name, then, this business of imitation is concerned with the third remove from truth, is it not?Yes.And now again, to what element[*](The antithesis of περί and πρός marks the transition.) in man is its function and potency related?Of what are you speaking?Of this: The same magnitude, I presume, viewed from near and from far[*](Cf. Protag. 356 A, 523 C.) does not appear equal.Why, no.And the same things appear bent and straight[*](Cf. Tennyson (The Higher Pantheism) For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool. For the illusions of sense, and measurement as a means of correcting them Cf. Phileb. 41 E-42 A f., 55 E, Protag. 356 C-D, Euthyphro 7 C.) to those who view them in water and out, or concave and convex, owing to similar errors of vision about colors, and there is obviously every confusion of this sort in our souls. And so scene-painting in its exploitation[*](ἐπιθεμένη helps to personify σκιαγραφία. Cf. Gorg. 464 C.) of this weakness of our nature falls nothing short of witchcraft,[*](Adam’s leaves no magic art untried is misleading. ἀπολείπειν is here used as in 504 C. For the idiomatic οὐδὲν ἀπολείπει see p. 200, note b, on 533 A.) and so do jugglery and many other such contrivances.True.And have not measuring and numbering and weighing[*](Cf. Xen. Mem. i. 1. 9.) proved to be most gracious aids to prevent the domination in our soul of the apparently[*](Cf. Protag. 356 D ἡ τοῦ φαινομένου δύναμις ) greater or less or more or heavier, and to give the control to that which has reckoned[*](λογισάμενον: Cf. Laws 644 D, Crito 46 B.) and numbered or even weighed?Certainly.But this surely would be the function[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 36, note a. Of course some of the modern connotations of function are unknown to Plato.) of the part of the soul that reasons and calculates.[*](For λογιστικοῦ cf. on 439 D.)Why, yes, of that.And often when this has measured[*](See p. 448, note c, and my Platonism and the History of Science, p. 176.) and declares that certain things are larger or that some are smaller than the others or equal, there is at the same time an appearance of the contrary.Yes.And did we not say[*](436 B, Vol. I. p. 383.) that it is impossible for the same thing at one time to hold contradictory opinions about the same thing?And we were right in affirming that.

The part of the soul, then, that opines in contradiction of measurement could not be the same with that which conforms to it.Why, no.But, further, that which puts its trust in measurement and reckoning must be the best part of the soul.Surely.Then that which opposes it must belong to the inferior elements of the soul.Necessarily.This, then, was what I wished to have agreed upon when I said that poetry, and in general the mimetic art, produces a product that is far removed from truth in the accomplishment of its task, and associates with the part in us that is remote from intelligence, and is its companion and friend[*](Cf. 604 D, Phaedr. 253 D and E.) for no sound and true purpose.[*](Cf. Lysias ix. 4 ἐπὶ μηδενὶ ὑγιεῖ and for the idiom οὐδὲν ὑγιές on 523 B, p. 153, note f.)By all means, said he. Mimetic art, then, is an inferior thing cohabiting with an inferior and engendering inferior offspring.[*](Cf. 496 A, and on 489 D, p. 26, note b.) It seems so. Does that, said I, hold only for vision or does it apply also to hearing and to what we call poetry? Presumably, he said, to that also. Let us not, then, trust solely to the plausible analogy[*](Cf. Phaedo 92 D διὰ τῶν εἰκότων.) from painting, but let us approach in turn that part of the mind to which mimetic poetry appeals and see whether it is the inferior or the nobly serious part. So we must. Let us, then, put the question thus: Mimetic poetry, we say, imitates human beings acting under compulsion or voluntarily,[*](Cf. 399 A-B, Laws 655 D, 814 E ff., Aristot. Poet. 1448 A 1-2 ἐπεὶ δὲ μιμοῦνται οἱ μιμούμενοι πράττοντας ἀνάγκη δὲ τούτους ἢ σπουδαίους ἢ φαύλους εἶναι, ibid. 1449 b 36-37 f.) and as a result of their actions supposing themselves to have fared well or ill and in all this feeling either grief or joy. Did we find anything else but this? Nothing. Is a man, then, in all this of one mind with himself, or just as in the domain of sight there was faction and strife and he held within himself contrary opinions at the same time about the same things,[*](See What Plato Said, p. 505, on Gorg. 482 A-B.) so also in our actions there is division and strife[*](Cf. 554 D, and p. 394, note e, on 586 E.) of the man with himself? But I recall that there is no need now of our seeking agreement on this point, for in our former discussion[*](439 B ff.) we were sufficiently agreed that our soul at any one moment teems with countless such self-contradictions. Rightly, he said. Yes, rightly, said I; but what we then omitted[*](Plato sometimes pretends to remedy an omission or to correct himself by an afterthought. So in Book V. 449 B-C ff., and Tim. 65 C.) must now, I think, be set forth. What is that? he said. When a good and reasonable man, said I, experiences such a stroke of fortune as the loss of a son or anything else that he holds most dear, we said, I believe, then too,[*](387 D-E.) that he will bear it more easily than the other sort. Assuredly. But now let us consider this: Will he feel no pain, or, since that is impossible, shall we say that he will in some sort be moderate[*](This suggests the doctrine of μετριοπάθεια as opposed to the Stoic ἀπάθεια. Joel ii. 161 thinks the passage a polemic against Antisthenes. Seneca, Epist. xcix. 15 seems to agree with Plato rather than with the Stoics: inhumanitas est ista non virtus. So Plutarch, Cons. ad Apol. 3 (102 cf.). See also ibid. 22 (112 E-F). Cf. Horace, Odes ii. 3. 1 aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem, and also Laws 732 C, 960 A.) in his grief? That, he said, is rather the truth.

Tell me now this about him: Do you think he will be more likely to resist and fight against his grief when he is observed by his equals or when he is in solitude alone by himself?He will be much more restrained, he said, when he is on view. But when left alone, I fancy, he will permit himself many utterances which, if heard by another, would put him to shame, and will do many things which he would not consent to have another see him doing. So it is, he said. Now is it not reason and law that exhorts him to resist, while that which urges him to give way to his grief is the bare feeling itself? True. And where there are two opposite impulses[*](Cf. Laws 645 A, Phaedr. 238 C, and for the conflict in the soul also Rep. 439 B ff.) in a man at the same time about the same thing we say that there must needs be two things[*](The conflict proves that for practical purposes the soul has parts. Cf. 436 B ff.) in him. Of course. And is not the one prepared to follow the guidance of the law as the law leads and directs? How so? The law, I suppose, declares that it is best to keep quiet as far as possible in calamity and not to chafe and repine, because we cannot know what is really good and evil in such things[*](Cf. Apology, in fine.) and it advantages us nothing to take them hard, and nothing in mortal life is worthy of great concern,[*](Cf. Laws 803 B and Class. Phil. ix. p. 353, n. 3, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 143.) and our grieving checks[*](Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 99, refers to Saxo’s tale of the different effect which the news of the murder of Regner Lodbrog produced on his sons: he in whom the emotion was the weakest had the greatest energy for action.) the very thing we need to come to our aid as quickly as possible in such case. What thing, he said, do you mean? To deliberate,[*](Cf. Herod. i. 20 πρὸς τὸ παρεὸν βουλεύηται.) I said, about what has happened to us, and, as it were in the fall of the dice,[*](Cf. Eurip. Electra 639 and fr. 175 πρὸς τὸ πῖπτον, Iph. Aul. 1343 and Hippol. 718 πρὸς τὰ νῦν πεπτωκότα, Epictet. ii. 5. 3. See also Stallbaum ad loc.) to determine the movements of our affairs with reference to the numbers that turn up, in the way that reason indicates[*](Cf. 440 B, 607 B, Herod. i. 132.) would be the best, and, instead of stumbling like children, clapping one’s hands to the stricken spot[*](Cf. Demosthenes’ description of how barbarians box iv. 40 (51), ἀεὶ τῆς πληγῆς ἔχεται.) and wasting the time in wailing, ever to accustom the soul to devote itself at once to the curing of the hurt and the raising up of what has fallen, banishing threnody[*](Cf. Soph. Ajax 582 θρηνεῖν ἐπῳδὰς πρὸς τομῶντι πήματι with Ovid, Met. i. 190: sed immedicabile vulnus Ense recidendum est.) by therapy. That certainly, he said, would be the best way to face misfortune and deal with it. Then, we say, the best part of us is willing to conform to these precepts of reason. Obviously. And shall we not say that the part of us that leads us to dwell in memory on our suffering and impels us to lamentation, and cannot get enough of that sort of thing, is the irrational and idle part of us, the associate of cowardice[*](Cf. on 603 B, p. 450, note a.)? Yes, we will say that. And does not the fretful part of us present[*](ἔχει in the sense of involves, admits of, as frequently in Aristotle’s Metaphysics. ) many and varied occasions for imitation, while the intelligent and temperate disposition, always remaining approximately the same, is neither easy to imitate nor to be understood when imitated, especially by a nondescript mob assembled in the theater? For the representation imitates a type that is alien to them.

By all means.And is it not obvious that the nature of the mimetic poet is not related to this better part of the soul and his cunning is not framed[*](For πέπηγεν cf. 530 D.) to please it, if he is to win favor with the multitude, but is devoted to the fretful and complicated type of character because it is easy to imitate?It is obvious.This consideration, then, makes it right for us to proceed to lay hold of him and set him down as the counterpart[*](ἀντίστροφον is used as in Aristot. Rhet. 1354 a 1.) of the painter; for he resembles him in that his creations are inferior in respect of reality; and the fact that his appeal is to the inferior part of the soul and not to the best part is another point of resemblance. And so we may at last say that we should be justified in not admitting him into a well-ordered state, because he stimulates and fosters this element in the soul, and by strengthening it tends to destroy the rational part, just as when in a state[*](Cf. p. 412, note d.) one puts bad men in power and turns the city over to them and ruins the better sort. Precisely in the same manner we shall say that the mimetic poet sets up in each individual soul a vicious constitution by fashioning phantoms far removed from reality, and by currying favor with the senseless element that cannot distinguish the greater from the less, but calls the same thing now one, now the other.By all means.But we have not yet brought our chief accusation against it. Its power to corrupt, with rare exceptions, even the better sort is surely the chief cause for alarm.How could it be otherwise, if it really does that? Listen and reflect. I think you know that the very best of us, when we hear Homer[*](Cf. p. 420, note a, on 595 B-C.) or some other of the makers of tragedy imitating one of the heroes who is in grief,[*](For ἐν πένθει cf. Soph. El. 290, 846, Herod. i. 46.) and is delivering a long tirade in his lamentations or chanting and beating his breast, feel pleasure,[*](Cf. Phileb. 48 A.) and abandon ourselves and accompany the representation with sympathy and eagerness,[*](See the description in Ion 535 E, and Laws 800 D.) and we praise as an excellent poet the one who most strongly affects us in this way.I do know it, of course.But when in our own lives some affliction comes to us, you are also aware that we plume ourselves upon the opposite, on our ability to remain calm and endure, in the belief that this is the conduct of a man, and what we were praising in the theatre that of a woman.[*](This is qualified in 387 E-388 A by οὐδὲ ταύταις σπουδαίαις. Cf. also 398 E.)I do note that.Do you think, then, said I, that this praise is rightfully bestowed when, contemplating a character that we would not accept but would be ashamed of in ourselves, we do not abominate it but take pleasure and approve? No, by Zeus, he said, it does not seem reasonable.

Oh yes,[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 509, note b, on 473 E.) said I, if you would consider it in this way. In what way? If you would reflect that the part of the soul that in the former case, in our own misfortunes,[*](Cf. Isoc. Panegyr. 168 for a different application.) was forcibly restrained, and that has hungered for tears and a good cry[*](This contains a hint of one possible meaning of the Aristotelian doctrine of κάθαρσις, Poet. 1449 b 27-28. Cf. κουφίζεσθαι μεθ’ ἡδονῆς Pol. 1342 a 14, and my review of Finsler, Platon u. d. Aristot. Poetik, Class. Phil. iii. p. 462. But the tone of the Platonic passage is more like that of Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies: And the human nature of us imperatively requiring awe and sorrow of some kind, for the noble grief we should have borne with our fellows, and the pure tears we should have wept with them, we gloat over the pathos of the police court and gather the night dew of the grave.) and satisfaction, because it is its nature to desire these things, is the element in us that the poets satisfy and delight, and that the best element in our nature, since it has never been properly educated by reason or even by habit, then relaxes its guard[*](This anticipates the idea of the censor in modern psychology.) over the plaintive part, inasmuch as this is contemplating the woes of others and it is no shame to it to praise and pity another who, claiming to be a good man, abandons himself to excess in his grief; but it thinks this vicarious pleasure is so much clear gain,[*](Cf. τῇ δ’ ἀσφαλείᾳ κερδανεῖς Eurip. Herc. Fur. 604, which is frequently misinterpreted; Herod. viii. 60. 3.) and would not consent to forfeit it by disdaining the poem altogether. That is, I think, because few are capable of reflecting that what we enjoy in others will inevitably react upon ourselves.[*](For the psychology Cf. Laws 656 B and on 385 C-D.) For after feeding fat[*](Cf. 442 A.) the emotion of pity there, it is not easy to restrain it in our own sufferings. Most true, he said. Does not the same principle apply to the laughable,[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 211, note f, La Bruyère, Des Ouvrages de l’esprit (Oeuvres, ed. M. G. Servois, i. p. 137): D’où vient que l’on rit si librement au théâtre, et que l’on a honte d’y pleurer?) namely,that if in comic representations,[*](In the Laws 816 D-E Plato says that the citizens must witness such performances since the serious cannot be learned without the laughable, nor anything without its opposite; but they may not take part in them. That is left to slaves and foreigners. Cf. also Vol. I. p. 239, note B, on 396 E.) or for that matter in private talk,[*](I.e. as opposed to public performances. Cf. Euthydem. 305 D ἐν δὲ ἰδίοις λόγοις, Theaet. 177 B, Soph. 232 C ἔν γε ταῖς ἰδίαις συνουσίαις, and Soph. 222 C προσομιλητικήν with Quintil. iii. 4. 4. Wilamowitz, Antigonos von Karystos, p. 285, fantastically says that it means prose and refers to Sophron. He compares 366 E. But see Laws 935 B-C.) you take intense pleasure in buffooneries that you would blush to practise yourself, and do not detest them as base, you are doing the same thing as in the case of the pathetic? For here again what your reason, for fear of the reputation of buffoonery, restrained in yourself when it fain would play the clown, you release in turn, and so, fostering its youthful impudence, let yourself go so far that often ere you are aware you become yourself a comedian in private. Yes, indeed, he said. And so in regard to the emotions of sex and anger, and all the appetites and pains and pleasures of the soul which we say accompany all our actions,[*](Cf. 603 C.) the effect of poetic imitation is the same. For it waters[*](Cf. 550 B.) and fosters these feelings when what we ought to do is to dry them up, and it establishes them as our rulers when they ought to be ruled, to the end that we may be better and happier men instead of worse and more miserable. I cannot deny it, said he. Then, Glaucon, said I, when you meet encomiasts of Homer who tell us that this poet has been the educator of Hellas,[*](Isocrates, Panegyr. 159, says Homer was given a place in education because he celebrated those who fought against the barbarians. Cf. also Aristoph. Frogs 1034 ff.) and that for the conduct and refinement[*](The same conjunction is implied in Protagoras’s teaching, Protag. 318 E and 317 B.) of human life he is worthy of our study and devotion, and that we should order our entire lives by the guidance of this poet, we must love[*](For the μέν Cf. Symp. 180 E, Herod. vii. 102.) and salute them as doing the best they can,[*](The condescending tone is that of Euthydem. 306 C-D.) and concede to them that Homer is the most poetic[*](Aristotle, Poet. 1453 a 29, says that Euripides is τραγικώτατος of poets.) of poets and the first of tragedians,[*](Cf. 605 C, 595 B-C.) but we must know the truth, that we can admit no poetry into our city save only hymns to the gods and the praises of good men.[*](Cf. Laws 801 D-E, 829 C-D, 397 C-D, 459 E, 468 D, Friedländer, Platon, i. p. 142, and my review of Pater, Plato and Platonism, in The Dial, 14 (1893) p. 211.)

For if you grant admission to the honeyed muse[*](Cf. Laws 802 C τῆς γλυκείας Μούσης. See Finsler, Platon u. d. aristot. Poetik, pp. 61-62.) in lyric or epic, pleasure and pain will be lords of your city instead of law and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general reason as the best.Most true, he said. Let us, then, conclude our return to the topic of poetry and our apology, and affirm that we really had good grounds then for dismissing her from our city, since such was her character. For reason constrained us.[*](See on 604 C, p. 455, note h.) And let us further say to her, lest she condemn us for harshness and rusticity, that there is from of old a quarrel[*](For the quarrel between philosophy and poetry Cf. Laws 967 C-D, Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 136. It still goes on in modern times.) between philosophy and poetry. For such expressions as

the yelping hound barking at her master and mighty in the idle babble

of fools,

the mob that masters those who are too wise for their own good,

But if not, my friend, even as men who have fallen in love, if they think that the love is not good for them, hard though it be,[*](βίᾳ μέν, ὅμως δέ: Cf. Epist. iii. 316 E, and vii. 325 A, and Raeder, Rhein. Mus. lxi. p. 470, Aristoph. Clouds 1363 μόλις μὲν ἀλλ’ ὅμως, Eurip. Phoen. 1421 μόλις μέν, ἐξέτεινε δ’, and also Soph. Antig. 1105, O.T. 998, Eurip. Bacch. 1027, Hec. 843, Or. 1023, El. 753, Phoen. 1069, I.A. 688, 904.) nevertheless refrain, so we, owing to the love of this kind of poetry inbred in us by our education in these fine[*](Ironical, as καλλίστη in 562 A.) polities of ours, will gladly have the best possible case made out for her goodness and truth, but so long as she is unable to make good her defence we shall chant over to ourselves[*](For ἐπᾴδοντες Cf. Phaedo 114 D, 77 E.) as we listen the reasons that we have given as a counter-charm to her spell, to preserve us from slipping back into the childish loves of the multitude; for we have come to see that we must not take such poetry seriously as a serious thing[*](Cf. 602 B.) that lays hold on truth, but that he who lends an ear to it must be on his guard fearing for the polity in his soul[*](Cf. on 591 E, p. 412, note d.) and must believe what we have said about poetry.By all means, he said, I concur. Yes, for great is the struggle,[*](Cf. Phaedo 114 C, 107 C, Phaedr. 247 B, Gorg. 526 E, Blaydes on Aristoph. Peace 276, and for the whole sentence Phaedo 83 B-C, 465 D, 618 B-C f. and p. 404, note d, on 589 E.) I said, dear Glaucon, a far greater contest than we think it, that determines whether a man prove good or bad, so that not the lure of honor or wealth or any office, no, nor of poetry either, should incite us[*](ἐπαρθέντα: cf. 416 C.) to be careless of righteousness and all excellence. I agree with you, he replied, in view of what we have set forth, and I think that anyone else would do so too. And yet, said I, the greatest rewards of virtue and the prizes proposed for her we have not set forth. You must have in mind an inconceivable[*](Cf. 404 C, 509 A, 548 B, 588 a, Apol. 41 C, Charm. 155 D.) magnitude, he replied, if there are other things greater than those of which we have spoken.[*](Clement, Strom. iv. p. 496 B ὁθούνεκ’ ἀρετὴ τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις μόνη οὐκ ἐκ θυραίων τἀπίχειρα λαμβάνει, αὐτὴ δ’ ἑαυτὴν ἆθλα τῶν πόνων ἔχει. )? For surely the whole time from the boy to the old man would be small compared with all time.[*](Cf. on 496 A, p. 9, mote f and 498 D.) Nay, it is nothing, he said. What then? Do you think that an immortal thing[*](For the colorless use of πρᾶγμα see What Plato Said, p. 497, on Protag. 330 C-D. Cf. Shakes. Hamlet,I. iv. 67 being a thing immortal as itself.) ought to be seriously concerned for such a little time, and not rather for all time? I think so, he said; but what is this that you have in mind? Have you never perceived, said I, that our soul is immortal and never perishes? And he, looking me full in the face[*](ἐμβλέψας: Cf. Charmides 155 C.) in amazement,[*](Glaucon is surprised in spite of 498 D. Many uncertain inferences have been drawn from the fact that in spite of the Phaedo and Phaedrus(245 C ff.) interlocutors in Plato are always surprised at the idea of immortality. Cf. ibid, Introd. p. lxiv.) said, No, by Zeus, not I; but are you able to declare this? I certainly ought to be,[*](For the idiomatic εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ cf. 430 ECharm. 156 A, Menex. 236 B, 612 D.) said I, and I think you too can, for it is nothing hard. It is for me, he said; and I would gladly hear from you this thing that is not hard.[*](Cf. Protag. 341 A τὸ χαλεπὸν τοῦτο, which is a little different, Herod. vii. 11 τὸ δεινὸν τὸ πείσομαι.) Listen, said I. Just speak on, he replied. You speak of[*](See Vol. I. p. 90, note a and What Plato Said, p. 567, on Cratyl. 385 B.) good and evil, do you not? I do. Is your notion of them the same as mine? What is it? That which destroys and corrupts in every case is the evil; that which preserves and benefits is the good. Yes, I think so, he said.

How about this: Do you say that there is for everything its special good and evil, as for example for the eyes ophthalmia, for the entire body disease, for grain mildew, rotting for wood, rust for bronze and iron, and, as I say, for practically everything its congenital evil and disease[*](Ruskin, Time and Tide 52 (Brantwood ed. p. 68): Every faculty of man’s soul, and every instinct of it by which he is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption,; Boethius, Cons. iii. 11 (L.C.L. trans. p. 283), things are destroyed by what is hostile; Aristot. Top. 124 a 28 εἰ γὰρ τὸ φθαρτικὸν διαλυτικόν.)?I do, he said. Then when one of these evils comes to anything does it not make the thing to which it attaches itself bad, and finally disintegrate and destroy it? Of course. Then the congenital evil of each thing and its own vice destroys it, or if that is not going to destroy it, nothing else remains that could; for obviously[*](γεvi termini. Cf. 379 A, Phaedo 106 D.) the good will never destroy anything, nor yet again will that which is neutral and neither good nor evil[*](See What Plato Said, p. 490, on Lysis 216 D.). How could it? he said. If, then, we discover[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 529, note a, on 478 D.) anything that has an evil which vitiates it, yet is not able to dissolve and destroy it, shall we not thereupon know that of a thing so constituted there can be no destruction? That seems likely, he said. Well, then, said I, has not the soul something that makes it evil? Indeed it has, he said, all the things that we were just now enumerating, injustice and licentiousness and cowardice and ignorance. Does any one of these things dissolve and destroy it? And reflect, lest we be misled by supposing that when an unjust and foolish man is taken in his injustice he is then destroyed by the injustice, which is the vice of soul. But conceive it thus: Just as the vice of body which is disease wastes and destroys it so that it no longer is a body at all,[*](Cf. Aristot. Pol. 1309 b 28 μηδὲ ῥῖνα ποιήσει φαίνεσθαι.) in like manner in all the examples of which we spoke it is the specific evil which, by attaching itself to the thing and dwelling in it with power to corrupt, reduces it to nonentity. Is not that so? Yes. Come, then, and consider the soul in the same way.[*](The argument that follows is strictly speaking a fallacy in that it confounds the soul with the physical principle of life. Cf. on 35 C and on 352 E, Gorg. 477 B-C, and ibid, Introd. p. lxvii. But Dean Inge, Platonism and Human Immortality (Aristot. Soc., 1919, p. 288) says: Plato’s argument, in the tenth book of the Republic, for the immortality of the soul, has found a place in scholastic theology, but is supposed to have been discredited by Kant. I venture to think that his argument, that the soul can only be destroyed by an enemy (so to speak) in pari materia, is sound. Physical evils, including death, cannot touch the soul. And wickedness does not, in our experience, dissolve the soul, nor is wickedness specially apparent when the soul (if it perishes at death) would be approaching dissolution. Cf. 610 C. Someone might object that wickedness does destroy the soul, conceived as a spiritual principle.) Do injustice and other wickedness dwelling in it, by their indwelling and attachment to it, corrupt and wither it till they bring it to death and separate it from the body? They certainly do not do that, he said. But surely, said I, it is unreasonable to suppose that the vice of something else destroys a thing while its own does not. Yes, unreasonable. For observe, Glaucon, said I, that we do not think it proper to say of the body either that it is destroyed by the badness of foods themselves, whether it be staleness or rottenness or whatever it is;[*](Plato generally disregards minor distinctions when they do not affect his point.)

but when the badness of the foods themselves engenders in the body the defect of body, then we shall say that it is destroyed owing to these foods, but by[*](Cf. 610 D.) its own vice, which is disease. But the body being one thing and the foods something else, we shall never expect the body to be destroyed by their badness, that is by an alien evil that has not produced in it the evil that belongs to it by nature.You are entirely right, he replied. On the same principle, said I, if the badness of the body does not produce in the soul the soul’s badness we shall never expect the soul to be destroyed by an alien evil apart from its own defect—one thing, that is, by the evil of another. That is reasonable, he said. Either, then, we must refute this and show that we are mistaken, or,[*](For the challenge to refute or accept the argument Cf. Soph. 259 A, 257 A, Gorg. 467 B-C, 482 B, 508 A-B, Phileb. 60 D-E.) so long as it remains unrefuted, we must never say that by fever or any other disease, or yet by the knife at the throat or the chopping to bits of the entire body, there is any more likelihood of the soul perishing because of these things, until it is proved that owing to these affections of the body the soul itself becomes more unjust and unholy. But when an evil of something else occurs in a different thing and the evil that belongs to the thing is not engendered in it, we must not suffer it to be said that the soul or anything else is in this way destroyed. But you may be sure, he said, that nobody will ever prove this, that the souls of the dying are made more unjust by death. But if anyone, said I, dares to come to grips with the argument[*](Or to take the bull by the horns. For ὁμόσε ἰέναι see What Plato Said, p. 457, on Euthyph. 3 C. Cf. ἐγγὺς ἰόντες Phaedo 95 B.) and say, in order to avoid being forced to admit the soul’s immortality, that a dying man does become more wicked and unjust,[*](Herbert Spencer nearly does this: Death by starvation from inability to catch prey shows a falling short of conduct from its ideal. It recalls the argument with which Socrates catches Callicles in Gorg. 498 E, that if all pleasures are alike those who feel pleasure are good and those who feel pain are bad.) we will postulate that, if what he says is true, injustice must be fatal to its possessor as if it were a disease, and that those who catch it die because it kills them by its own inherent nature, those who have most of it quickest, and those who have less more slowly, and not, as now in fact happens, that the unjust die owing to this but by the action of others who inflict the penalty. Nay, by Zeus, he said, injustice will not appear a very terrible thing after all if it is going to be[*](For the future indicative after εἰ, usually minatory or monitory in tone, cf. Aristoph. Birds 759, Phileb. 25 D.) fatal to its possessor, for that would be a release from all troubles.[*](Cf. Phaedo 107 C, 84 B, Blaydes on Aristoph. Acharn. 757.) But I rather think it will prove to be quite the contrary, something that kills others when it can, but renders its possessor very lively indeed,[*](μάλα is humorous, as in 506 D, Euthydem 298 D, Symp. 189 A.) and not only lively but wakeful,[*](Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 32 ut iugulent hominem surgunt de nocte latrones.) so far, I ween, does it dwell[*](For the metaphor Cf. Proverbs viii. 12 σοφία κατεσκήνωσα βουλήν. Plato personifies injustice, as he does justice in 612 D,σκιαγραφία in 602 D, bravery in Laches 194 A,κολαστική in Soph. 229 A,κολακευτική Gorg. 464 C,σμικρότης Parmen. 150 A πονηρία Apol. 39 A-B, and many other abstract conceptions. See further Phileb. 63 A-B, 15 D, 24 A, Rep. 465 A-B, Laws 644 C, Cratyl. 438 D.) from deadliness. You say well, I replied; for when the natural vice and the evil proper to it cannot kill and destroy the soul, still less[*](σχολῇ: cf. 354 C, Phaedo 106 D.) will the evil appointed for the destruction of another thing destroy the soul or anything else, except that for which it is appointed.[*](Cf. 345 D.) Still less indeed, he said, in all probability.

Then since it is not destroyed by any evil whatever, either its own or alien, it is evident that it must necessarily exist always, and that if it always exists it is immortal.Necessarily, he said. Let this, then, I said, be assumed to be so. But if it is so, you will observe that these souls must always be the same. For if none perishes they could not, I suppose, become fewer nor yet more numerous.[*](Cf. Carveth Read, Man and His Superstitions p. 104: Plato thought that by a sort of law of psychic conservation there must always be the same number of souls in world. There must therefore be reincarnation. . . . ) For if any class of immortal things increased you are aware that its increase would come from the mortal and all things would end by becoming immortal.[*](Cf. Phaedo 72 C-D.) You say truly. But, said I, we must not suppose this, for reason will not suffer it nor yet must we think that in its truest nature the soul is the kind of thing that teems with infinite diversity and unlikeness and contradiction in and with itself.[*](The idea of self-contradiction is frequent in Plato. See What Plato said, p. 505, on Gorg. 482 B-C.) How am I to understand that? he said. It is not easy, said I, for a thing to be immortal that is composed of many elements[*](σύνθετον: Cf. Phaedo 78 C, Plotinus, Enneades i. 1. 12, Berkeley, Principles, 141: We have shown that the soul is indivisible, incorporeal, unextended; and it is consequently incorruptible. . . . cannot possibly affect an active, simple, uncompounded substance. See also Zeller, Ph. d. Gr. ii. 1, pp. 828-829.) not put together in the best way, as now appeared to us[*](603 D. see also Frutiger, Mythes de Platon, pp. 90 f.) to be the case with the soul. It is not likely. Well, then, that the soul is immortal our recent argument and our other[*](Such as are given in the Phaedo, Phaedrus, and perhaps elsewhere.) proofs would constrain us to admit. But to know its true nature we must view it not marred by communion with the body[*](Cf. also Phaedo 82 E, 83 D-E, 81 C, and Wisdom of Solomon ix 14 φθαρτὸν γὰρ σῶμα βαρύνει ψυχήν, καὶ βρίθει τὸ γεῶδες σκῆνος νοῦν πολυφρόντιδα, for the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things.) and other miseries as we now contemplate it, but consider adequately in the light of reason what it is when it is purified, and then you will find it to be a far more beautiful thing and will more clearly distinguish justice and injustice and all the matters that we have now discussed. But though we have stated the truth of its present appearance, its condition as we have now contemplated it resembles that of the sea-god Glaucus[*](See schol. Hermann vi. 362, Eurip. Or. 364 f., Apollonius, Argon. 1310 ff., Athenaeus 296 B and D, Anth. Pal. vi. 164, Frazer on Pausanias ix. 22. 7, Gädecker, Glaukos der Meeresgott, Göttingen, 1860.) whose first nature can hardly be made out by those who catch glimpses of him, because the original members of his body are broken off and mutilated and crushed and in every way marred by the waves, and other parts have attached themselves[*](Cf. Tim. 42 C προσφύντα.) to him, accretions of shells[*](Cf. Phaedr. 250 C ὀστρέου τρόπον δεδεσμευμένοι, Phaedo 110 A.) and sea-weed and rocks, so that he is more like any wild creature than what he was by nature—even such, I say, is our vision of the soul marred by countless evils. But we must look elsewhere, Glaucon. Where? said he. To its love of wisdom. And we must note the things of which it has apprehensions, and the associations for which it yearns, as being itself akin to the divine[*](Cf. Phaedo 79 D, Laws 899 D, and 494 D τὸ σιγγενὲς τῶν λόγων.) and the immortal and to eternal being, and so consider what it might be if it followed the gleam unreservedly and were raised by this impulse out of the depths of this sea in which it is now sunk, and were cleansed and scraped free[*](Cf. Phileb. 55 C περικρούωμεν, 519 A περιεκόπη.) of the rocks and barnacles which, because it now feasts on earth, cling to it in wild profusion of earthy and stony accretion by reason of these feastings that are accounted happy.[*](Cf. Charm. 158 A, Laws 695 A, 783 A. See λεγόμενα ἀγαθά491 C, 495 A, Laws 661 C.)

And then one might see whether in its real nature[*](Cf. Phaedo 246 A.In Tim. 72 D Plato says that only God knows the truth about the soul. See Laws 641 D, and Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 42.) it is manifold[*](Cf. Phaedr. 271 A.) or single in its simplicity, or what is the truth about it and how.[*](ὅπῃ καὶ ὅπως: cf. 621 B, Phaedo 100 D, Tim. 37 A-B, Laws 652 A, 834 E, 899 A and B.) But for the present we have, I think, fairly well described its sufferings and the forms it assumes in this human life of ours.We certainly have, he said. Then, said I, we have met all the other demands of the argument, and we have not invoked the rewards and reputes of justice as you said Homer and Hesiod[*](363 B-C.) do, but we have proved that justice in itself is the best thing for the soul itself, and that the soul ought to do justice whether it possess the ring of Gyges[*](359 D f.) or not,[*](Cf. 367 E.) or the helmet of Hades[*](Iliad v. 845, Blaydes on Aristoph. Acharn. 390.) to boot. Most true, he said. Then, said I, Glaucon, there can no longer be any objection,[*](Cf. Soph. 243 A, Laws 801 E ἄνευ φθόνων, Eurip. Hippol. 497 οὐκ ἐπίφθονον, Aeschines, De falsa legatione 167 (49). Friedländer, Platon, ii. p. 406 does object and finds the passage inconsistent with the idealism of 592 and with Laws 899 D ff. and 905 B. Cf. Renan, Averroes, pp. 156-157, Guyau, Esquisse d’une morale, pp. 140-141. See Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 80 and n. 612, Idea of Justice in Plato’s Republic, pp. 197-198. Gomperz, ignoring this passage and interpreting the Republic wholly from 367 E, strangely argues that Phaedo 107 C proves that the Phaedo must have been composed at a time when Plato was less sure of the coincidence of justice and happiness. A religious thinker may in his theodicy justify the ways of God to man by arguing that worldly happiness is not the real happiness, and yet elsewhere remark that, as a rule, the righteous is not forsaken even in this world. Cf. Psalm 37.25 ff., Prov. 10.3 and passim. See Renan, Hist. du Peuple d’Israel, p. 376: Il en est de ces passages comme de tant de préceptes de l’Evangile, insensés si on en fait des articles de code, excellents si on n’y voit, que l’expression hyperbolique de hauts sentiments moraux.) can there, to our assigning to justice and virtue generally, in addition, all the various rewards and wages that they bring to the soul from men and gods, both while the man still lives and, after his death? There certainly can be none, he said. Will you, then, return to me what you borrowed[*](Cf. Polit. 267 A.) in the argument? What, pray? I granted to you that the just man should seem and be thought to be unjust and the unjust just; for you thought that, even if the concealment of these things from gods and men was an impossibility in fact, nevertheless, it ought to be conceded for the sake of the argument,[*](τοῦ λόγου ἕνεκα: not the same as λόγου ἕνεκα. See on 581 C, p. 374, note a.) in order that the decision might be made between absolute justice and absolute injustice. Or do you not remember? It would be unjust of me,[*](Cf. εἰ μὴ ἀδικῶ 608 D.) he said, if I did not. Well, then, now that they have been compared and judged, I demand back from you in behalf of justice the repute that she in fact enjoys[*](For the idiom ὥσπερ ἔχει δόξης cf. 365 A ὡς . . . ἔχουσι τιμῆς, 389 C ὅπως . . . πράξεως ἔχει, Thucyd. i. 22 ὡς . . . μνήμης ἔχοι. For the thought cf. Isoc. viii. 33.) from gods and men, and I ask that we admit that she is thus esteemed in order that she may gather in the prizes[*](Cf. Phileb. 22 B and E.) which she wins from the seeming and bestows on her possessors, since she has been proved to bestow the blessings that come from the reality and not to deceive those who truly seek and win her. That is a just demand, he said. Then, said I, will not the first of these restorations be that the gods certainly[*](γεvi termini. Cf. 379 A and Class. Phil. x. p. 335.) are not unaware[*](Cf. 365 D.) of the true character of each of the two, the just and the unjust? We will restore that, he said. And if they are not concealed, the one will be dear to the gods[*](Cf. Phileb. 39 E.) and the other hateful to them, as we agreed in the beginning.[*](Cf. 352 B.) That is so.

And shall we not agree that all things that come from the gods work together for the best[*](This recalls the faith of Socrates in Apol. 41 C-D and Phaedo 63 B-C, and anticipates the theodicy of Laws 899 D ff., 904 D-E ff.) for him that is dear to the gods, apart from the inevitable evil caused by sin in a former life[*](Besides obvious analogies with Buddhism, this recalls Empedocles fr. 115, Diels i3 p. 267.)?By all means.This, then, must be our conviction about the just man, that whether he fall into poverty or disease or any other supposed evil, for him all these things will finally prove good, both in life and in death. For by the gods assuredly that man will never be neglected who is willing and eager to be righteous, and by the practice of virtue to be likened unto god[*](Cf. ὁμοίωσις θεῷ Theaet. 176 B, and What Plato Said, p. 578, p. 72, note d.) so far as that is possible for man.It is reasonable, he said, that such a one should not be neglected by his like.[*](Cf. Laws 716 C-D, 904 E.) And must we not think the opposite of the unjust man? Most emphatically. Such then are the prizes of victory which the gods bestow upon the just. So I think, at any rate, he said. But what, said I, does he receive from men? Is not this the case, if we are now to present the reality? Do not your smart but wicked men fare as those racers do who run well[*](For the order Cf. Laws 913 B λεγόμενον εὖ, Thucyd. i. 71. 7, Vahlen, Op. acad. i. 495-496. for the figure of the race cf. Eurip. El. 955, 1Corinthians ix. 24 f., Heb. xii. 1, Gal. ii. 2, v. 7, Phil. ii. 16.) from the scratch but not back from the turn? They bound nimbly away at the start, but in the end are laughed to scorn and run off the field uncrowned and with their ears on their shoulders.[*](English idiom would say, with their tails between their legs. Cf. Horace, Sat. i. 9. 20 dimitto auriculas. For the idea cf. also Laws 730 C-D, Demosth. ii. 10, and for εἰς τέλος, Laws 899 E πρὸς τέλος, Hesiod, Works and Days 216 ἐς τέλος ἐξελθοῦσα, Eurip. Ion 1621 εἰς τέλος γὰρ οἱ μὲν ἐσθλοὶ τυγχάνουσιν ἀξίων, for the good at last shall overcome, at last attain their right. (Way, Loeb tr.)) But the true runners when they have come to the goal receive the prizes and bear away the crown. Is not this the usual outcome for the just also, that towards the end of every action and association and of life as a whole they have honor and bear away the prizes from men? So it is indeed. Will you, then, bear with me if I say of them all that you said[*](Cf. Vol. I. pp. 125-127, 362 B-C.) of the unjust? For I am going to say that the just, when they become older, hold the offices in their own city if they choose, marry from what families they will, and give their children in marriage to what families they please, and everything that you said of the one I now repeat of the other; and in turn I will say of the unjust that the most of them, even if they escape detection in youth, at the end of their course are caught and derided, and their old age is made miserable by the contumelies of strangers and townsfolk. They are lashed and suffer all things[*](He turns the tables here as in Gorg. 527 A. The late punishment of the wicked became an ethical commonplace. Cf. Plutarch’s De sera numinis vindicta 1, also Job and Psalms passim.) which you truly said are unfit for ears polite.[*](Cf. 361 E ἀγροικοτέρως, and Gorg. 473 C.) Suppose yourself to have heard from me a repetition of all that they suffer. But, as I say, consider whether you will bear with me. Assuredly, he said, for what you say is just.

Such then while he lives are the prizes, the wages, and the gifts that the just man receives from gods and men in addition to those blessings which justice herself bestowed.And right fair and abiding rewards, he said. Well, these, I said, are nothing in number and magnitude compared with those that await both[*](i.e. the just and unjust man.) after death. And we must listen to the tale of them, said I, in order that each may have received in full[*](τελέως: cf. 361 A.) what is due to be said of him by our argument. Tell me, he said, since there are not many things to which I would more gladly listen. It is not, let me tell you, said I, the tale[*](See Proclus, In Remp.,Kroll ii. 96 ff., Macrob. in Somnium Scip. i. 2. The Epicurean Colotes highly disapproved of Plato’s method of putting his beliefs in this form. See Chassang, Histoire du roman, p. 15. See also Dieterich, Nekyia, pp. 114 ff., and Adam ad loc.) to Alcinous told[*](Odyssey ix.-xii. The term also became proverbial for a lengthy tale. See K. Tümpel, Ἀλκίνου ἀπόλογος, Philologus 52. 523 ff.) that I shall unfold, but the tale of a warrior bold,[*](Plato puns on the name Alcinous. For other puns on proper names see on 580 B. See Arthur Platt, Plato’s Republic, 614 B, Class. Review, 1911, pp. 13-14. For the ἀλλὰ μέν without a corresponding δέ he compares Aristoph. Acharn. 428 οὐ Βελλεροφόντης· ἀλλὰ κἀκεῖνος μὲν ἦ χωλός . . . (which Blaydes changed to ἀλλὰ μήν), Odyssey xv. 405 and Eryxias 308 B.) Er, the son of Armenius, by race a Pamphylian.[*](Perhaps we might say, of the tribe of Everyman. For the question of his identity see Platt, loc. cit.) He once upon a time was slain in battle, and when the corpses were taken up on the tenth day already decayed, was found intact, and having been brought home, at the moment of his funeral, on the twelfth day[*](Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, ch. iii., Plato’s historian of the other world lies twelve days incorrupted, while his soul was viewing the large stations of the dead, See also Rohde, Psyche ii.6 pp. 92-93.) as he lay upon the pyre, revived,[*](Stories of persons restored to life are fairly common in ancient literature. There are Eurydice and Alcestis in Greek mythology, in the Old Testament the son of the widow revived by Elijah (1Kings xvii. 17 ff. Cf. 2Kings iv. 34 ff. and xiii. 21), in the New Testament the daughter of Jairus (Matt. ix. 23 f.), the son of the widow of Nain (Luke vii. 11 ff.), and Lazarus(John xi.). but none of these recount their adventures. Cf. also Luke xvi. 31 If they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded through one rose from the dead. But in that very parable Lazarus is shown in Abraham’s bosom and the rich man in torment. See further, Proclus, In Remp. ii. pp. 113-116, Rohde, Psyche ii.6 p. 191.) and after coming to life related what, he said, he had seen in the world beyond. He said that when his soul[*](For the indirect reflexive cf. p. 507, note f, on 617 E.) went forth from his body he journeyed with a great company and that they came to a mysterious region[*](For the description of the place of judgement cf. also Gorg. 524 A. Cf. Phaedo 107 D, 113 D, where there is no description but simply the statement that the souls are brought to a place and judged. On the topography of the myth in general cf. Bréhier, La Philos. de Plot. pp. 28-29: Voyez, par exemple, la manière dont Numénius . . . interprète le mythe du Xe livre de Ia République, et comment il précise, avec Ia lourdeur d’un théologien, les traits que la poésie de Platon avait abandonnés à l’imagination du lecteur. Le lieu du jugement devient le centre du monde; le ciel platonicien devient Ia sphère des fixes; le lieu sonterrain où sont punies les âmes, ce sont les planètes; la bouche du ciel, par laquelle les âmes descendront à la naissance, est le tropique du Cancer; et c’est par le Capricorne qu’elles remontent.) where there were two openings side by side in the earth, and above and over against them in the heaven two others, and that judges were sitting[*](Cf. Gorg. 523 E f., 524 E-525 B, 526 B-C.) between these, and that after every judgement they bade the righteous journey to the right and upwards through the heaven with tokens attached[*](Gorg. 526 B.) to them in front of the judgement passed upon them, and the unjust to take the road to the left[*](Cf. Gorg. 525 A-B, 526 B. For right and left cf. the story of the last judgement, Matt. xxv. 33-34 and 41.) and downward, they too wearing behind signs of all that had befallen them, and that when he himself drew near they told him that he must be the messenger[*](Cf. the rich man’s request that a messenger be sent to his brethren, Luke xvi. 27-31.) to mankind to tell them of that other world,[*](ἐκεῖ: so in 330 D, 365 A, 498 C, Phaedo 61 E, 64 A, 67 B, 68 E, Apol. 40 E, 41 C, Crito 54 B, Symp. 192 E. In 500 D and Phaedr. 250 A it refers to the world of the ideas, in 516 C and 520 C to the world of the cave.) and they charged him to give ear and to observe everything in the place. And so he said that here he saw, by each opening of heaven and earth, the souls departing after judgement had been passed upon them, while, by the other pair of openings, there came up from the one in the earth souls full of squalor and dust, and from the second there came down from heaven a second procession of souls clean and pure, and that those which arrived from time to time appeared to have come as it were from a long journey and gladly departed to the meadow[*](Cf. Gorg. 524 A.) and encamped[*](Cf. 621 A, 610 E, and John i. 14 ἐσκήνωσεν.) there as at a festival,[*](Cf. 421 B.) and acquaintances greeted one another, and those which came from the earth questioned the others about conditions up yonder, and those from heaven asked how it fared with those others.