Republic

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.