Republic

And when these dread magi[*](An overlooked reference to the Magi who set up the false Smerdis. Cf. Herod. iii. 61 ff.) and king-makers come to realize that they have no hope of controlling the youth in any other way, they contrive to engender in his soul a ruling passion[*](Cf. Symp. 205 D.) to be the protector[*](προστάτην: cf. 562 D and 565 C-D.) of his idle and prodigal[*](For τὰ ἕτοιμα cf. 552 B, Symp. 200 D and E, and Horace, Odes i. 31. 17 frui paratis.) appetites, a monstrous winged[*](Cf. Alc. I. 135 E ἔρωτα ὑπόπτερον and the fragment of Eubulus (fr. 41, Kock ii. p. 178): τίς ἦν ὁ γράψας πρῶτος ἀνθρώπων ἄρα ἢ κηροπλαστήσας Ἔρωθ’ ὑπόπτερον ) drone. Or do you think the spirit of desire in such men is aught else?Nothing but that, he said. And when the other appetites, buzzing[*](Cf. 564 D.) about it, replete with incense and myrrh and chaplets and wine, and the pleasures that are released in such revelries, magnifying and fostering it to the utmost, awaken in the drone the sting of unsatisfied yearnings,[*](Cf. Phaedrus 253 E.) why then this protector of the soul has madness for his body-guard and runs amuck,[*](For οἰστρᾷ Cf. Phaedr. 240 D.) and if it finds in the man any opinions or appetites accounted[*](For ποιουμένας in this sense cf. 538 C, 498 A, 574 D.) worthy and still capable of shame, it slays them and thrusts them forth until it purges[*](Cf. on 560 D, p. 299, note c.) him of sobriety, and fills and infects him with frenzy brought in from outside.[*](ἐπακτοῦ: cf. 405 B, Pindar, Pyth. vi. 10, Aesch. Seven against Thebes 583, Soph. Trach. 259.) A perfect description, he said, of the generation of the tyrannical man. And is not this analogy, said I, the reason why Love has long since been called a tyrant[*](Cf. 573 D, Eurip. Hippol. 538, Andromeda, fr. 136 (Nauck)θεῶν τύραννε . . . Ἔρως, and What Plato Said, p. 546 on Symp. 197 B.)? That may well be, he said. And does not a drunken man,[*](For drunkenness as a tyrannical mood Cf. Laws 649 B, 671 B, Phaedr, 238 B.) my friend, I said, have something of this tyrannical temper? Yes, he has. And again the madman, the deranged man, attempts and expects to rule over not only men but gods. Yes indeed, he does, he said. Then a man becomes tyrannical in the full sense of the word, my friend, I said, when either by nature or by habits or by both he has become even as the drunken, the erotic, the maniacal. Assuredly. Such, it seems, is his origin and character,[*](Cf. Adam ad loc., who insists it means his origin as well as that of others, and says his character is still to be described. But it has been in C and before.) but what is his manner of life? As the wits say, you shall tell me.[*](Cf. Phileb. 25 B and perhaps Rep. 427 E with 449 D. The slight jest is a commonplace today. Wilamowitz, Platon, ii. p. 351, says it is a fragment of an elegy. He forgets the Philebus. ) I do, I said; for, I take it, next there are among them feasts and carousals and revellings and courtesans[*](Cf. Vol. I. p 160, note a on 373 A. Emendations are superfluous.) and all the doings of those whose[*](ὦν ἄν: cf. 441 D-E ὅτου, etc., 583 A ἐν ᾧ and my review of Jowett and Campbell, A.J.P. xvi. p. 237.) souls are entirely swayed[*](Cf. Phaedr. 238 B-C.) by the indwelling tyrant Eros. Inevitably, he said. And do not many and dread appetites shoot up beside this master passion every day and night in need of many things? Many indeed. And so any revenues there may be are quickly expended. Of course.

And after this there are borrowings and levyings[*](For παραιρέσεις cf. Thuc. i. 122. 1, Aristot. Pol. 1311 a 12, 1315 a 38.) upon the estate?Of course.And when all these resources fail, must there not come a cry from the frequent and fierce nestlings[*](ἐννενεοττευμένας Cf. Alc. I. 135 E, Laws 776 A, 949 C, Aristoph. Birds 699, 1108.) of desire hatched in his soul, and must not such men, urged, as it were by goads, by the other desires, and especially by the ruling passion itself as captain of their bodyguard—to keep up the figure—must they not run wild and look to see who has aught that can be taken from him by deceit or violence?Most certainly.And so he is compelled to sweep it in from every source[*](Cf. Aesch. Eumen. 544.) or else be afflicted with great travail and pain.[*](Cf. Gorg. 494 A ἢ τὰς ἐσχάτας λυποῖτο λύπας.)He is.And just as the new, upspringing pleasures in him got the better of the original passions of his soul and robbed them, so he himself, though younger, will claim the right to get the better[*](Cf. Vol. I. 349 B f.) of his father and mother, and, after spending his own share, to seize and convert to his own use a portion of his father’s estate.Of course, he said, what else? And if they resist him, would he not at first attempt to rob and steal from his parents and deceive them? Certainly. And if he failed in that, would he not next seize it by force? I think so, he said. And then, good sir, if the old man and the old woman clung to it and resisted him, would he be careful to refrain from the acts of a tyrant? I am not without my fears, he said, for the parents of such a one. Nay, Adeimantus, in heaven’s name, do you suppose that, for the sake of a newly found belle amie bound to him by no necessary tie, such a one would strike the dear mother, his by necessity[*](The word ἀναγκαῖαν means both necessary and akin. Cf. Eurip. Androm. 671 τοιαῦτα λάσκεις τοὺς ἀναγκαίους φίλους.) and from his birth? Or for the sake of a blooming new-found bel ami, not necessary to his life, he would rain blows[*](For the idiom πληγαῖς . . . δοῦναι Cf. Phaedr. 254 E ὀδύναις ἔδωκεν with Thompson’s note. Cf. 566 C θανάτῳ δέδοται. For striking his father cf. 569 B, Laws 880 E ff., Aristoph. Clouds 1375 ff., 1421 ff.) upon the aged father past his prime, closest of his kin and oldest of his friends? And would he subject them to those new favorites if he brought them under the same roof? Yes, by Zeus, he said. A most blessed lot it seems to be, said I, to be the parent of a tyrant son. It does indeed, he said. And again, when the resources of his father and mother are exhausted[*](For ἐπιλείπῃ cf. 568 E, 573 E.) and fail such a one, and the swarm[*](Cf. Meno 72 A, Cratyl. 401 E, Blaydes on Aristoph. Clouds 297.) of pleasures collected in his soul is grown great, will he not first lay hands on the wall[*](He becomes a τοιχωρύχος or a λωποδύτης (Aristoph. Frogs 772-773, Birds 497, Clouds 1327). Cf. 575 B, Laws 831 E.) of someone’s house or the cloak of someone who walks late at night, and thereafter he will make a clean sweep[*](νεωκορήσει is an ironical litotes. So ἐφάψεται in the preceding line.) of some temple, and in all these actions the beliefs which he held from boyhood about the honorable and the base, the opinions accounted just,[*](For ποιουμένας cf. 573 B. for the thought cf 538 C.) will be overmastered by the opinions newly emancipated[*](Cf. 567 E.) and released, which, serving as bodyguards of the ruling passion, will prevail in alliance with it—I mean the opinions that formerly were freed from restraint in sleep, when, being still under the control of his father and the laws, he maintained the democratic constitution in his soul.