Republic

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.

Concerning the gods then, said I, this is the sort of thing that we must allow or not allow them to hear from childhood up, if they are to honor the gods[*](We may, if we choose, see here a reference to the virtue of piety, which some critics fancifully suppose was eliminated by the Euthyphro. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, note 58.) and their fathers and mothers, and not to hold their friendship with one another in light esteem. That was our view and I believe it right. What then of this? If they are to be brave, must we not extend our prescription to include also the sayings that will make them least likely to fear death? Or do you suppose that anyone could ever become brave who had that dread in his heart? No indeed, I do not, he replied. And again if he believes in the reality of the underworld and its terrors,[*](For the idea that death is no evil Cf. Apology, in fine, Laws 727 D, 828 D, and 881 A, where, however, the fear of hell is approved as a deterrent.) do you think that any man will be fearless of death and in battle will prefer death to defeat and slavery? By no means. Then it seems we must exercise supervision[*](Cf. 377 B.) also, in the matter of such tales as these, over those who undertake to supply them and request them not to dispraise in this undiscriminating fashion the life in Hades but rather praise it, since what they now tell us is neither true nor edifying to men who are destined to be warriors. Yes, we must, he said. Then, said I, beginning with this verse we will expunge everything of the same kind:

1. Liefer were I in the fields up above to be serf to another
2. Tiller of some poor plot which yields him a scanty subsistence,
3. Than to be ruler and king over all the dead who have perished,

1. Lest unto men and immortals the homes of the dead be uncovered
2. Horrible, noisome, dank, that the gods too hold in abhorrence,

1. Ah me! so it is true that e’en in the dwellings of Hades
2. Spirit there is and wraith, but within there is no understanding,

1. Sole to have wisdom and wit, but the others are shadowy phantoms,

1. Forth from his limbs unwilling his spirit flitted to Hades,
2. Wailing its doom and its lustihood lost and the May of its manhood,

and:

1. Under the earth like a vapor vanished the gibbering soul,

1. Even as bats in the hollow of some mysterious grotto
2. Fly with a flittermouse shriek when one of them falls from the cluster
3. Whereby they hold to the rock and are clinging the one to the other,
4. Flitted their gibbering ghosts.

Then we should be right in doing away with the lamentations of men of note and in attributing them to women,[*](Cf. Plat. Rep. 398e.) and not to the most worthy of them either, and to inferior men, in that those whom we say we are breeding for the guardianship of the land may disdain to act like these.We should be right, said he. Again then we shall request Homer and the other poets not to portray Achilles, the son of a goddess, as,

1. Lying now on his side, and then again on his back,
2. And again on his face,

Drifting distraught on the shore of the waste unharvested ocean,

clutching with both hands the sooty dust and strewing it over his head,

1. Calling aloud unto each, by name to each man appealing.

1. Ah, woe is me, woeful mother who bore to my sorrow the bravest,

1. Out on it, dear to my heart is the man whose pursuit around Troy-town
2. I must behold with my eyes while my spirit is grieving within me,

1. Ah, woe is me! of all men to me is Sarpedon the dearest,

1. Fated to fall by the hands of Patroclus, Menoitius’ offspring.

Then if anyone represents men of worth as overpowered by laughter we must accept it, much less if gods.Much indeed, he replied. Then we must not accept from Homer such sayings as these either about the gods:

1. Quenchless then was the laughter[*](This laughter of the Homeric gods has been endlessly commented upon. Hegel allegorizes it. Mrs. Browning (Aurora Leigh) says: And all true poets laugh unquenchablyLike Shakespeare and the gods. Proclus, In Rempub. i. 127 Kroll says that it is an expression of the abundance of divine energy. It is a commonplace that the primitive sense of humor of the Homeric gods laughs at the personal deformity of Hephaestus, but they really laugh at his officiousness and the contrast he presents to Hebe. Cf. my note in Class. Phil . xxii. (1927) pp. 222-223.) that rose from the blessed immortals
2. When they beheld Hephaestus officiously puffing and panting.

1. Whether a prophet or healer of sickness or joiner of timbers,

1. Friend, sit down and be silent and hark to the word of my bidding,

1. Breathing high spirit the Greeks marched silently fearing their captains,

Yes, well said.But what of this sort of thing?

1. Heavy with wine with the eyes of a dog and the heart of a fleet deer,

1. When the bounteous tables are standing
2. Laden with bread and with meat and the cupbearer ladles the sweet wine
3. Out of the mixer and bears it and empties it into the beakers.

1. Hunger is the most piteous death that a mortal may suffer.

Deceiving their dear parents.

1. He smote his breast and chided thus his heart,
2. Endure, my heart, for worse hast thou endured.

1. Gifts move the gods and gifts persuade dread kings.

nor shall we think it proper nor admit that Achilles[*](Cf. Iliad xix. 278 ff. But Achilles in Homer is indifferent to the gifts.) himself was so greedy as to accept gifts from Agamemnon and again to give up a dead body after receiving payment[*]( Iliad xxiv. 502, 555, 594. But in 560 he does not explicitly mention the ransom.) but otherwise to refuse.It is not right, he said, to commend such conduct. But, for Homer’s sake, said I, I hesitate to say that it is positively impious[*](Cf. 368 B.) to affirm such things of Achilles and to believe them when told by others; or again to believe that he said to Apollo

1. Me thou hast baulked, Far-darter, the most pernicious of all gods,
2. Mightily would I requite thee if only my hands had the power.

This let me give to take with him my hair to the hero, Patroclus,

1. The near-sown seed of gods,
2. Close kin to Zeus, for whom on Ida’s top
3. Ancestral altars flame to highest heaven,
4. Nor in their life-blood fails[*](Plato was probably thinking of this passage when he wrote the last paragraph of the Critias.) the fire divine.

For which cause we must put down such fables, lest they breed in our youth great laxity[*](Cf. my note in Class. Phil . vol. xii. (1910) p. 308.) in turpitude.Most assuredly.What type of discourse remains for our definition of our prescriptions and proscriptions?We have declared the right way of speaking about gods and daemons and heroes and that other world.We have.Speech, then, about men would be the remainder.Obviously.It is impossible for us, my friend, to place this here.[*](Or possibly determine this at present. The prohibition which it would beg the question to place here is made explicit in Laws 660 E. Cf. Laws 899 D, and 364 B.)Why?Because I presume we are going to say that so it is that both poets and writers of prose speak wrongly about men in matters of greatest moment, saying that there are many examples of men who, though unjust, are happy, and of just men who are wretched, and that there is profit in injustice if it be concealed, and that justice is the other man’s good and your own loss; and I presume that we shall forbid them to say this sort of thing and command them to sing and fable the opposite. Don’t you think so?Nay, I well know it, he said. Then, if you admit that I am right, I will say that you have conceded the original point of our inquiry? Rightly apprehended, he said. Then, as regards men that speech must be of this kind, that is a point that we will agree upon when we have discovered the nature of justice and the proof that it is profitable to its possessor whether he does or does not appear to be just. Most true, he replied. So this concludes the topic of tales.[*](λόγων here practically means the matter, and λέξεως, which became a technical term for diction, the manner, as Socrates explains when Adeimantus fails to understand.) That of diction, I take it, is to be considered next. So we shall have completely examined both the matter and the manner of speech. And Adeimantus said, I don’t understand what you mean by this. Well, said I, we must have you understand. Perhaps you will be more likely to apprehend it thus. Is not everything that is said by fabulists or poets a narration of past, present, or future things? What else could it be? he said. Do not they proceed[*](Cf. Aristotle Poetics 1449 b 27.) either by pure narration or by a narrative that is effected through imitation,[*](All art is essentially imitation for Plato and Aristotle. But imitation means for them not only the portrayal or description of visible and tangible things, but more especially the expression of a mood or feeling, hence the (to a modern) paradox that music is the most imitative of the arts. But Plato here complicates the matter further by sometimes using imitation in the narrower sense of dramatic dialogue as opposed to narration. An attentive reader will easily observe these distinctions. Aristotle’s Poetics makes much use of the ideas and the terminology of the following pages.) or by both? This too, he said, I still need to have made plainer. I seem to be a ridiculous and obscure teacher,[*](Socratic urbanity professes that the speaker, not the hearer, is at fault. Cf. Protagoras 340 E, Philebus 23 D.) I said; so like men who are unable to express themselves I won’t try to speak in wholes[*](Plato and Aristotle often contrast the universal and the particular as whole and part. Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 52. Though a good style is concrete, it is a mark of linguistic helplessness not to be able to state an idea in general terms. Cf. Locke, Human Understanding, ii. 10. 27: This man is hindered in his discourse for want of words to communicate his complex ideas, which he is therefore forced to make known by an enumeration of the simple ones that compose them.) and universals but will separate off a particular part and by the example of that try to show you my meaning.

Tell me. Do you know the first lines if the Iliad in which the poet says that Chryses implored Agamemnon to release his daughter, and that the king was angry and that Chryses, failing of his request, imprecated curses on the Achaeans in his prayers to the god?I do.You know then that as far as these verses,

1. And prayed unto all the Achaeans,
2. Chiefly to Atreus’ sons, twin leaders who marshalled the people,