Republic

What they will say is this: that such being his disposition the just man will have to endure the lash, the rack, chains, the branding-iron in his eyes, and finally, after every extremity of suffering, he will be crucified,[*](Or strictly impaled. Cf. Cicero De Rep. iii. 27. Writers on Plato and Christianity have often compared the fate of Plato’s just man with the crucifixion.) and so will learn his lesson that not to be but to seem just is what we ought to desire. And the saying of Aeschylus[*](Aesch. Seven 592-594) was, it seems, far more correctly applicable to the unjust man. For it is literally true, they will say, that the unjust man, as pursuing what clings closely to reality, to truth, and not regulating his life by opinion, desires not to seem but to be unjust,

1. Exploiting the deep furrows of his wit

1. From which there grows the fruit of counsels shrewd,

Aesch. Seven 592-594 first office and rule in the state because of his reputation for justice, then a wife from any family he chooses, and the giving of his children in marriage to whomsoever he pleases, dealings and partnerships with whom he will, and in all these transactions advantage and profit for himself because he has no squeamishness about committing injustice; and so they say that if he enters into lawsuits, public or private, he wins and gets the better of his opponents, and, getting the better,[*](Cf. on 343 D, 349 B.) is rich and benefits his friends and harms his enemies[*](Cf. 332 D.); and he performs sacrifices and dedicates votive offerings to the gods adequately and magnificently,[*](μεγαλοπρεπῶς. Usually a word of ironical connotation on Plato.) and he serves and pays court[*](Cf. Euthyphro 12 E ff. and 331 B, θεῷ θυσίας, where the respectable morality of the good Cephalus is virtually identical with this commercial view of religion.) to men whom he favors and to the gods far better than the just man, so that he may reasonably expect the favor of heaven[*](Cf. 352 B and 613 A-B.) also to fall rather to him than to the just. So much better they say, Socrates, is the life that is prepared for the unjust man from gods and men than that which awaits the just.When Glaucon had thus spoken, I had a mind to make some reply thereto, but his brother Adeimantus said, You surely don’t suppose, Socrates, that the statement of the case is complete? Why, what else? I said. The very most essential point, said he, has not been mentioned. Then, said I, as the proverb has it, Let a brother help a man[*](ἀδελφὸς ἀνδρὶ παρείη. The rhythm perhaps indicates a proverb of which the scholiast found the source in Odyssey xvi. 97.)—and so, if Glaucon omits any word or deed, do you come to his aid. Though for my part what he has already said is quite enough to overthrow me and incapacitate me for coming to the rescue of justice. Nonsense, he said, but listen to this further point. We must set forth the reasoning and the language of the opposite party, of those who commend justice and dispraise injustice, if what I conceive to be Glaucon’s meaning is to be made more clear.

Fathers, when they address exhortations to their sons, and all those who have others in their charge,[*](Who, in Quaker language, have a concern for, who have charge of souls. Cf. the admonitions of the father of Horace, Satire i. 4. 105 ff., Protagoras 325 D, Xenophon Cyr. i. 5. 9, Isocrates iii. 2, Terence Adelphi 414 f., Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. p. 187, and the letters of Lord Chesterfield, passim, as well as Plato himself, Laws 662 E.) urge the necessity of being just, not by praising justice itself, but the good repute with mankind that accrues from it, the object that they hold before us being that by seeming to be just the man may get from the reputation office and alliances and all the good things that Glaucon just now enumerated as coming to the unjust man from his good name. But those people draw out still further this topic of reputation. For, throwing in good standing with the gods, they have no lack of blessings to describe, which they affirm the gods give to pious men, even as the worthy Hesiod and Homer declare, the one that the gods make the oaks bear for the just:

Acorns on topmost branches and swarms of bees on their mid-trunks,

and he tells how the

Flocks of the fleece-bearing sheep are laden and weighted with soft wool,

Hes. WD 232ff. and of many other blessings akin to these; and similarly the other poet:

1. Even as when a good king, who rules in the fear of the high gods,
2. Upholds justice and right, and the black earth yields him her foison,

1. Barley and wheat, and his trees are laden and weighted with fair fruits,
2. Increase comes to his flocks and the ocean is teeming with fishes.

Hom. Od. 19.109 And Musaeus and his son[*](Cf. Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta, iv. p. 83. The son is possibly Eumolpus.) have[*](For the thought of the following cf. Emerson, Compensation: He (the preacher) assumed that judgement is not executed in this world; that the wicked are successful; that the good are miserable; and then urged from reason and scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the next life. No offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine.) a more excellent song[*](νεανικώτερα is in Plato often humorous and depreciative. Cf. 563 E νεανική.) than these of the blessings that the gods bestow on the righteous. For they conduct them to the house of Hades in their tale and arrange a symposium of the saints,[*](συμπόσιον τῶν ὁσίων. Jowett’s notion that this is a jingle is due to the English pronunciation of Greek.) where, reclined on couches crowned with wreaths, they entertain the time henceforth with wine, as if the fairest meed of virtue were an everlasting drunk. And others extend still further the rewards of virtue from the gods. For they say that the children’s children[*](Kern, ibid., quotes Servius ad Virgil, Aeneid iii. 98 et nati natorum and opines that Homer took Iliad xx. 308 from Orpheus.) of the pious and oath-keeping man and his race thereafter never fail. Such and such-like are their praises of justice. But the impious and the unjust they bury in mud[*](Cf. Zeller, Phil. d. Gr. i. pp. 56-57, 533 D, Phaedo 69 C, commentators on Aristophanes Frogs 146.) in the house of Hades and compel them to fetch water in a sieve,[*](Cf. my note on Horace, Odes iii. 11. 22, and, with an allegorical application, Gorgias 493 B.) and, while they still live, they bring them into evil repute, and all the sufferings that Glaucon enumerated as befalling just men who are thought to be unjust, these they recite about the unjust, but they have nothing else to say.[*](Plato teaches elsewhere that the real punishment of sin is to be cut off from communion with the good. Theaetetus 176 D-E, Laws 728 B, 367 A) Such is the praise and the censure of the just and of the unjust.