Republic

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.