Republic

Then when the entire soul accepts the guidance of the wisdom-loving part and is not filled with inner dissension,[*](Cf. 352 A, 440 B and E, 442 D, 560 A, Phaedr. 237 E.) the result for each part is that it in all other respects keeps to its own task[*](Cf. What Plato Said, p. 480 on Charm. 161 B.) and is just, and likewise that each enjoys its own proper pleasures and the best pleasures and, so far as such a thing is possible,[*](For εἰς τὸ δυνατόν cf. 500 D, 381 C, Laws 795 D, 830 B, 862 B, 900 C.) the truest.Precisely so.And so when one of the other two gets the mastery the result for it is that it does not find its own proper pleasure and constrains the others to pursue an alien pleasure and not the true.That is so, he said. And would not that which is furthest removed from philosophy and reason be most likely to produce this effect[*](What follows (587 B-588 A) is not to be taken too seriously. It illustrates the method of procedure by minute links, the satisfaction of Plato’s feelings by confirmations and analogies, and his willingness to play with mathematical symbolism. Cf. 546 B f. and William Temple, Plato and Christianity, p. 55: Finally the whole thing is a satire on the humbug of mystical number, but I need not add that the German commentators are seriously exercised. . . . See however A. G. Laird in Class. Phil. xi. (1916) pp. 465-468.)? Quite so, he said. And is not that furthest removed from reason which is furthest from law and order? Obviously. And was it not made plain that the furthest removed are the erotic and tyrannical appetites? Quite so. And least so the royal and orderly? Yes. Then the tyrant’s place, I think, will be fixed at the furthest remove[*](Cf. Polit. 257 B ἀφεστᾶσιν ) from true and proper pleasure, and the king’s at the least. Necessarily. Then the tyrant’s life will be least pleasurable and the king’s most. There is every necessity of that. Do you know, then, said I, how much less pleasurably the tyrant lives than the king? I’ll know if you tell me,[*](Cf. Vil. I. p. 282, note a, on 408 D and p. 344, note b, on 573 D.) he said. There being as it appears three pleasures, one genuine and two spurious, the tyrant in his flight from law and reason crosses the border beyond[*](For εἰς τὸ ἐπέκεινα Cf. Phaedo 112 B and 509 B.) the spurious, cohabits with certain slavish, mercenary pleasures, and the measure of his inferiority is not easy to express except perhaps thus. How? he said. The tyrant, I believe, we found at the third remove from the oligarch, for the democrat came between. Yes. And would he not also dwell with a phantom of pleasure in respect of reality three stages removed from that other, if all that we have said is true? That is so. And the oligarch in turn is at the third remove from the royal man if we assume the identity of the aristocrat and the king.[*](Cf. Vol. I. p. 422, note b, on 445 D and Menex. 238 D.) Yes, the third. Three times three, then, by numerical measure is the interval that separates the tyrant from true pleasure. Apparently. The phantom[*](Cf. Phaedo 66 C εἰδώλων, where Olympiodorus (Norvin, p. 36) takes it of the unreality of the lower pleasures.) of the tyrant’s pleasure is then by longitudinal mensuration a plane number. Quite so. But by squaring and cubing it is clear what the interval of this separation becomes. It is clear, he said, to a reckoner. Then taking it the other way about, if one tries to express the extent of the interval between the king and the tyrant in respect of true pleasure he will find on completion of the multiplication that he lives 729 times as happily and that the tyrant’s life is more painful by the same distance.[*](Cf. Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 14 Hence estimating life by multiplying its length into its breadth. For the mathematical jest Cf. Polit. 257 A-B.)

An overwhelming[*](Humorous as in 509 C ὑπερβολῆς.) and baffling calculation, he said, of the difference[*](Cf. Phileb. 13 A, 14 A, Parmen. 141 C, Theaet. 209 A and D.) between the just and the unjust man in respect of pleasure and pain! And what is more, it is a true number and pertinent to the lives of men if days and nights and months and years pertain to them. They certainly do, he said. Then if in point of pleasure the victory of the good and just man over the bad and unjust is so great as this, he will surpass him inconceivably in decency and beauty of life and virtue. Inconceivably indeed, by Zeus, he said. Very good, said I. And now that we have come to this point in the argument, let us take up again the statement with which we began and that has brought us to this pass.[*](Plato keeps to the point. Cf. 472 B, Phileb. 27 C, and p. 339 note e, on 572 B.) It was, I believe, averred that injustice is profitable to the completely unjust[*](Cf. 348 B, 361 A.) man who is reputed just. Was not that the proposition? Yes, that. Let us, then, reason with its proponent now that we have agreed on the essential nature of injustice and just conduct. How? he said. By fashioning in our discourse a symbolic image of the soul, that the maintainer of that proposition may see precisely what it is that he was saying. What sort of an image? he said. One of those natures that the ancient fables tell of, said I, as that of the Chimaera[*](Cf. Homer, Il. vi. 179-182, Phaedr. 229 D.) or Scylla[*](Od. xii. 85 ff.) or Cerberus,[*](Hesiod, Theog. 311-312.) and the numerous other examples that are told of many forms grown together in one. Yes, they do tell of them. Mould, then, a single shape of a manifold and many-headed beast[*](Stallbaum ad loc. gives a long list of writers who imitated this passage. Hesiod, Theog. 823 f., portrays a similar monster in Typhoeus, who had a hundred serpent-heads. For the animal in man c. Tim. 70 E, Charm. 155 D-E, Phaedr. 230 A, 246 A ff., Boethius, Cons. iv. 2-3, Horace Epist. i. 1. 76, Iamblichus, Protrept. chap. iii.) that has a ring of heads of tame and wild beasts and can change them and cause to spring forth from itself all such growths. It is the task of a cunning artist,[*](Cf. 596 C.) he said, but nevertheless, since speech is more plastic than wax[*](Cf. Cic. De or. iii. 45 sicut mollissimam ceram . . . fingimus. Otto, 80, says it is a proverb. For the development of this figure cf. Pliny, Epist. vii. 9 ut laus est cerae, mollis cedensque sequatur. For the idea that word is more precise or easy than deed Cf. 473 A, Phaedo 99 E, Laws 636 A, 736 B, Tim. 19 E.) and other such media, assume that it has been so fashioned. Then fashion one other form of a lion and one of a man and let the first be far the largest[*](Cf. 442 A.) and the second second in size. That is easier, he said, and is done. Join the three in one, then, so as in some sort to grow together. They are so united, he said. Then mould about them outside the likeness of one, that of the man, so that to anyone who is unable to look within[*](Cf. 577 A.) but who can see only the external sheath it appears to be one living creature, the man. The sheath is made fast about him, he said.