Republic

And education must make use of both, but first of the false?I don’t understand your meaning.Don’t you understand, I said, that we begin by telling children fables, and the fable is, taken as a whole, false, but there is truth in it also? And we make use of fable with children before gymnastics. That is so. That, then, is what I meant by saying that we must take up music before gymnastics. You were right, he said. Do you not know, then, that the beginning in every task is the chief thing,[*](Cf. Laws 753 E, 765 E, Antiphon, fr. 134 Blass.) especially for any creature that is young and tender[*](Cf. Laws 664 B, and Shelley’s Specious names,Learned in soft childhood’s unsuspecting hour, perhaps derived from the educational philosophy of Rousseau.)? For it is then that it is best molded and takes the impression[*](The image became a commonplace. Cf. Theaetetus 191 D, Horace Epistles ii. 32. 8, the Stoic τύπωσις ἐν ψυχῇ, and Byron’s Wax to receive and marble to retain.) that one wishes to stamp upon it. Quite so. Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer[*](Cf. the censorship proposed in Laws 656 C. Plato’s criticism of the mythology is anticipated in part by Euripides, Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and Pythagoras. Cf. Decharme, Euripides and the Spirit of his Dramas, translated by James Loeb, chap. ii. Many of the Christian Fathers repeated his criticism almost verbatim.) our children to listen to any chance stories fashioned by any chance teachers and so to take into their minds opinions for the most part contrary to those that we shall think it desirable for them to hold when they are grown up? By no manner of means will we allow it. We must begin, then, it seems, by a censorship over our storymakers, and what they do well we must pass and what not, reject. And the stories on the accepted list we will induce nurses and mothers to tell to the children and so shape their souls by these stories far rather than their bodies by their hands. But most of the stories they now tell we must reject. What sort of stories? he said. The example of the greater stories, I said, will show us the lesser also. For surely the pattern must be the same and the greater and the less must have a like tendency. Don’t you think so? I do, he said; but I don’t apprehend which you mean by the greater, either. Those, I said, that Hesiod[*](Theogony 154-181.) and Homer and the other poets related. These, methinks, composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind. Of what sort? he said; and what in them do you find fault? With that, I said, which one ought first and chiefly to blame, especially if the lie is not a pretty one. What is that? When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models. It is certainly right to condemn things like that, he said; but just what do we mean and what particular things?

There is, first of all, I said, the greatest lie about the things of greatest concernment, which was no pretty invention of him who told how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did to Cronos, and how Cronos in turn took his revenge; and then there are the doings and sufferings of Cronos at the hands of his son. Even if they were true I should not think that they ought to be thus lightly told to thoughtless young persons. But the best way would be to bury them in silence, and if there were some necessity[*](Conservative feeling or caution prevents Plato from proscribing absolutely what may be a necccessary part of traditional or mystical religion.) for relating them, that only a very small audience should be admitted under pledge of secrecy and after sacrificing, not a pig,[*](The ordinary sacrifice at the Eleusinian mysteries. Cf. Aristophanes Acharn. 747, Peace 374-375; Walter Pater, Demeter and the Pig.) but some huge and unprocurable victim, to the end that as few as possible should have heard these tales. Why, yes, said he, such stories are hard sayings. Yes, and they are not to be told, Adeimantus, in our city, nor is it to be said in the hearing of a young man, that in doing the utmost wrong he would do nothing to surprise anybody, nor again in punishing his father’s[*](Plato does not sympathize with the Samuel Butlers of his day.) wrong-doings to the limit, but would only be following the example of the first and greatest of the gods.[*](The argument, whether used in jest or earnest, was a commonplace. Cf. Schmidt, Ethik der Griechen, i. 137, Laws 941 B, Aeschylus Eumenides 640-641, Terence Eunuchus 590 At quem deum! . . . ego homuncio hoc non facerem. The Neoplatonists met the criticism of Plato and the Christian Fathers by allegorizing or refining away the immoral parts of the mythology, but St. Augustine cleverly retorts (De Civ. Dei, ii. 7): Omnes enim . . . cultores talium deorum . . . magis intuentur quid Iupiter fecerit quam quid docuerit Plato.) No, by heaven, said he, I do not myself think that they are fit to be told. Neither must we admit at all, said I, that gods war with gods[*](Cf. the protest in the Euthyphro 6 B, beautifully translated by Ruskin, Aratra Pentelici 107: And think you that there is verily war with each other among the gods? And dreadful enmities and battles, such as the poets have told, and such as our painters set forth in graven sculpture to adorn all our sacred rites and holy places. Yes, and in the great Panathenaia themselves the Peplus full of such wild picturing, is carried up into the Acropolis—shall we say that these things are true, oh Euthyphron, right-minded friend?) and plot against one another and contend—for it is not true either— if we wish our future guardians to deem nothing more shameful than lightly to fall out with one another; still less must we make battles of gods and giants the subject for them of stories and embroideries,[*](On the Panathenaic πέπλος of Athena.) and other enmities many and manifold of gods and heroes toward their kith and kin. But if there is any likelihood of our persuading them that no citizen ever quarrelled with his fellow-citizen and that the very idea of it is an impiety, that is the sort of thing that ought rather to be said by their elders, men and women, to children from the beginning and as they grow older, and we must compel the poets to keep close to this in their compositions. But Hera’s fetterings[*](The title of a play by Epicharmus. The hurling of Hephaestus, Iliad i. 586-594.) by her son and the hurling out of heaven of Hephaestus by his father when he was trying to save his mother from a beating, and the battles of the gods[*]( Iliad xx. 1-74; xxi. 385-513.) in Homer’s verse are things that we must not admit into our city either wrought in allegory[*](ὑπόνοια: the older word for allegory; Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. 19 E. For the allegorical interpretation of Homer in Plato’s time cf. Jebb, Homer, p. 89, and Mrs. Anne Bates Hersman’s Chicago Dissertation: Studies in Greek Allegorical Interpretation.) or without allegory. For the young are not able to distinguish what is and what is not allegory, but whatever opinions are taken into the mind at that age are wont to prove indelible and unalterable. For which reason, maybe, we should do our utmost that the first stories that they hear should be so composed as to bring the fairest lessons of virtue to their ears. Yes, that is reasonable, he said; but if again someone should ask us to be specific and say what these compositions may be and what are the tales, what could we name?

And I replied, Adeimantus, we are not poets,[*](The poet, like the rhetorician (Politicus 304 D), is a ministerial agent of the royal or political art. So virtually Aristotle, Politics 1336 b.) you and I at present, but founders of a state. And to founders it pertains to know the patterns on which poets must compose their fables and from which their poems must not be allowed to deviate; but the founders are not required themselves to compose fables. Right, he said; but this very thing—the patterns or norms of right speech about the gods, what would they be? Something like this, I said. The true quality of God we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse. We must. And is not God of course[*](The γε implies that God is good ex vi termini.) good in reality and always to be spoken of[*](It is charcteristic of Plato to distinguish the fact and the desirability of proclaiming it. The argument proceeds by the minute links which tempt to parody. Below τὸ ἀγαθόν, followed by οὐδ’ ἄρα . . . ὁ θεός, is in itself a refutation of the ontological identification in Plato of God and the Idea of Good. But the essential goodness of God is a commonplace of liberal and philosophical theology, from the Stoics to Whittier’s hymn, The Eternal Goodness.) as such? Certainly. But further, no good thing is harmful, is it? I think not. Can what is not harmful harm? By no means. Can that which does not harm do any evil? Not that either. But that which does no evil would not be cause of any evil either? How could it? Once more, is the good beneficent? Yes. It is the cause, then, of welfare? Yes. Then the good is not the cause of all things, but of things that are well it the cause—of things that are ill it is blameless. Entirely so, he said. Neither, then, could God, said I, since he is good, be, as the multitude say, the cause of all things, but for mankind he is the cause of few things, but of many things not the cause.[*](Anticipates the proclamation of the prophet in the final myth, 617 E: αἰτία ἑλομένου· θεὸς ἀναίτιος. The idea, elaborated in Cleanthes’ hymn to Zeus, may be traced back to the speech of the Homeric Zeus in Odyssey i. 33 ἐξ ἡμεῶν γάπ φασι κάκ’ ἔμμεναι. St. Thomas distinguishes: Deus est auctor mali quod est poena, non autem mali quod est culpa.) For good things are far fewer[*](A pessimistic commoplace more emphasized in the Laws than in the Republic. Cf. Laws 896 E, where the Manichean hypothesis of an evil world-soul is suggested.) with us than evil, and for the good we must assume no other cause than God, but the cause of evil we must look for in other things and not in God. What you say seems to me most true, he replied. Then, said I, we must not accept from Homer or any other poet the folly of such error as this about the gods when he says

1. Two urns stand on the floor of the palace of Zeus and are filled with
2. Dooms he allots, one of blessings, the other of gifts that are evil,

1. Now upon evil he chances and now again good is his portion,

1. Hunger devouring drives him, a wanderer over the wide world,

1. Zeus is dispenser alike of good and of evil to mortals.

But as to the violation of the oaths[*]( Iliad 4.69 ff.) and the truce by Pandarus, if anyone affirms it to have been brought about by the action of Athena and Zeus, we will not approve, nor that the strife and contention[*](ἔριν τε καὶ κρίσιν is used in Menexenus 237 C of the contest of the gods for Attica. Here it is generally taken of the Theomachy, Iliad xx. 1074, which begins with the summons of the gods to a council by Themis at the command of Zeus. It has also been understood, rather improbably, of the judgement of Paris.) of the gods was the doing of Themis and Zeus; nor again must we permit our youth to hear what Aeschylus says—

1. A god implants the guilty cause in men
2. When he would utterly destroy a house,

as, for example, a body by food and drink and toil, and plants[*](Cf. Laws 765 E.) by the heat of the sun and winds and similar influences—is it not true that the healthiest and strongest is least altered?Certainly.And is it not the soul that is bravest and most intelligent, that would be least disturbed[*](ταράξειε suggests the ἀταραξία of the sage in the later schools.) and altered by any external affection?Yes.And, again, it is surely true of all composite implements, edifices, and habiliments, by parity of reasoning, that those which are well made and in good condition are least liable to be changed by time and other influences.That is so.It is universally[*](πᾶν δή generalizes from the preceding exhaustive enumeration of cases. Cf. 382 E, Parmenides 139 A.) true, then, that that which is in the best state by nature or art or both admits least alteration by something else.So it seems.But God, surely, and everything that belongs to God is in every way in the best possible state.Of course.From this point of view, then, it would be least of all likely that there would be many forms in God.Least indeed.But would he transform and alter himself?Obviously, he said, if he is altered. Then does he change himself for the better and to something fairer, or for the worse[*](So Aristotle Met. 1074 b 26.) and to something uglier than himself? It must necessarily, said he, be for the worse if he is changed. For we surely will not say that God is deficient in either beauty or excellence. Most rightly spoken, said I. And if that were his condition, do you think, Adeimantus, that any one god or man would of his own will worsen himself in any way? Impossible, he replied. It is impossible then, said I, even for a god to wish to alter himself, but, as it appears, each of them being the fairest and best possible abides[*](Cf. Tim. 42 E ἔμενεν, which suggested the Neoplatonic and Miltonic paradox that the divine abides even when it goes forth.) for ever simply in his own form. An absolutely necessary conclusion to my thinking. No poet then, I said, my good friend, must be allowed to tell us that

1. The gods, in the likeness of strangers,
2. Many disguises assume as they visit the cities of mortals.

1. for the life-giving sons of Inachus, the Argive stream.

Consider, said I; would a god wish to deceive, or lie, by presenting in either word or action what is only appearance? I don’t know, said he. Don’t you know, said I, that the veritable lie, if the expression is permissible, is a thing that all gods and men abhor? What do you mean? he said. This, said I, that falsehood in the most vital part of themselves, and about their most vital concerns, is something that no one willingly accepts, but it is there above all that everyone fears it. I don’t understand yet either. That is because you suspect me of some grand meaning, I said; but what I mean is, that deception in the soul about realities, to have been deceived and to be blindly ignorant and to have and hold the falsehood there, is what all men would least of all accept, and it is in that case that they loathe it most of all. Quite so, he said. But surely it would be most wholly right, as I was just now saying, to describe this as in very truth falsehood—ignorance namely in the soul of the man deceived. For the falsehood in words is a copy[*](Cf. Aristotle De Interp. 1. 12 ἔστι μὲν οὖν τὰ ἐν τῇ φωνῇ τῶν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ παθημάτων σύμβολα. Cf. also Cratylus 428 D, 535 E, Laws730 C, Bacon, Of Truth: But it is not the lie that passes through the mind but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt.) of the affection in the soul, an after-rising image of it and not an altogether unmixed falsehood. Is not that so? By all means. Essential falsehood, then, is hated not only by gods but by men. I agree. But what of the falsehood in words, when and for whom is it serviceable so as not to merit abhorrence? Will it not be against enemies? And when any of those whom we call friends owing to madness or folly attempts to do some wrong, does it not then become useful to avert the evil—as a medicine? And also in the fables of which we were just now speaking owing to our ignorance of the truth about antiquity, we liken the false to the true as far as we may and so make it edifying.[*](Cf. Phaedrus 245 A μυρία τῶν παλαιῶν ἔργα κοσμοῦσα τοὺς ἐπιγιγνομένους παιδεύει, Isocrates xii. 149 and Livy’s Preface. For χρήσιμον Cf. Politicus 274 E. We must not infer that Plato is trying to sophisticate away the moral virtue of truth-telling.) We most certainly do, he said. Tell me, then, on which of these grounds falsehood would be serviceable to God. Would he because of his ignorance of antiquity make false likenesses of it? An absurd supposition, that, he said. Then there is no lying poet in God. I think not. Well then, would it be through fear of his enemies that he would lie? Far from it. Would it be because of the folly or madness of his friends? Nay, no fool or madman is a friend of God. Then there is no motive for God to deceive. None. From every point of view[*](Generalizing from the exhaustive classification that precedes.) the divine and the divinity are free from falsehood. By all means.

Then God is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others by visions or words or the sending of signs in waking or in dreams.I myself think so, he said, when I hear you say it. You concur then, I said, this as our second norm or canon for speech and poetry about the gods,—that they are neither wizards in shape-shifting nor do they mislead us by falsehoods in words or deed? I concur. Then, though there are many other things that we praise in Homer, this we will not applaud, the sending of the dream by Zeus[*](Hom. Il. 2.1-34. This apparent attribution of falsehood to Zeus was an Homeric problem which some solved by a change of accent from δίδομεν to διδόμεν. Cf. Aristotle Poetics 1462 a 22.) to Agamemnon, nor shall we approve of Aeschylus when his Thetis[*](Cf. Aeschylus Frag. 350. Possibly from the Ὅπλων κπίσις.) avers that Apollo singing at her wedding,

foretold the happy fortunes of her issue

1. Their days prolonged, from pain and sickness free,
2. And rounding out the tale of heaven’s blessings,
3. Raised the proud paean, making glad my heart.
4. And I believed that Phoebus’ mouth divine,
5. Filled with the breath of prophecy, could not lie.
6. But he himself, the singer, himself who sat
7. At meat with us, himself who promised all,
8. Is now himself the slayer of my son.