imitate them ; and by the beauty of their melody they deceive
the ignorant.
It may indeed be shown that "imitation is concerned with
that which is thrice removed from the truth' ' as follows:
The excellence or beauty of anything depends upon the use
for which it is intended. The user of the flute alone knows
what are the good and bad qualities of a flute, and must in-
*
396 PLATO THE TEACHER
struct the artificer how to make the flute. The imitator who
paints or describes the flute, has neither the more perfect
knowledge which the user possesses nor the less perfect
knowledge which the artificer has gained from the user. He
is, therefore, as said, thrice removed from true knowledge.
" Imitation is a kind of sport or play, and the epic and tragic
writers are imitators in the highest degree."
Now that the nature of imitation has been discovered, the
next inquiry is — to what faculty in man does imitation appeal ?
Take first the case of painting. Objects in the world about
us look different at different times. For example, the same
object appears straight when out of water and crooked in water.
Thus do our senses deceive us by various kinds of illusion.
We should be greatly confused by this variety of appearance,
were it not that by measuring, weighing, and numbering, we
can determine the fact. That part of the soul which trusts to
measuring and calculation is the highest and best part, or the
rational principle of the soul. That part of the soul which
is deceived by appearance and does not rely on measuring, is
one of the inferior principles of the soul. Now the imitations
of painting, which, as we have seen, are far removed from the
truth, address themselves not to reason, but to an inferior part
of the soul which is capable of being imposed upon.
We shall find that poetry is analogous to painting in that it
appeals to another inferior principle in man's soul. When a
man meets with misfortune, his first impulse is to moan and
lament. This impulse is prompted by an irrational or cow-
ardly part of his soul. The highest or rational principle bids
him resist the desire to bewail his sufferings. It bids him
find a cure or endure with patience. Now the calm wise tem-
perament in which the rational principle prevails is not easy
to imitate ; nor would it be appreciated by the mixed multi-
tude which form the audience of the poets. The multitude
understand best the fitful and passionate temper of man.
Therefore in order to be popular, the imitative poet does not
try to please or affect the rational principle in the soul of his
hearers. Instead, he appeals to their feelings and represents
men in trouble, weeping and wailing over misfortunes. We
are right then in refusing to admit the poet to the State, for
he awakens and nourishes the feelings, but he impairs the reason.
The most serious charge against poetry is its power of harm-
THE REPUBLIC 397
ing even the good. Even those of us who with pride restrain
ourselves from outcry over suffering, delight in giving way to
sympathy with the weeping and wailing heroes of tragedy. Can
it be right for us to admire in another what we would be ashamed
of in ourselves ? If we indulge in pity for others, we become
weak ourselves and will end by weeping over our own sorrows.
The same is true of comedy. We laugh at jests on the stage,
which we should be ashamed to utter ourselves. If we con-
tinue to be amused by coarse merriment we shall ourselves be-
come buffoons. In like manner anger and all the other pas-
sions are fed and watered by poetry. But since law and
reason are to be rulers in our State, not pain and pleasure, we
must expel all poetry except hymns to the Gods and praises
of famous men.
We are conscious of the charm of poetry and we should
gladly admit her to the State could she make a defense of her-
self and prove that she is not only delightful but "useful to
States and to human life."]
But so long as she is unable to make good her defense,
even though our ears may listen, our soul will be ^ J
charmed against her by repeating this discourse of
ours, and into the childish love which the many have of her
we shall take care not to fall again, for we see that poetry be-
ing such as she is, is not to be pursued in earnest or regarded
seriously as attaining to the truth ; and he who listens to her
will be on his guard against her seductions, fearing for the
safety of the city which is within him, and he will attend to
our words.
Yes, he said, I quite agree with you.
Yes, I said, my dear Glaucon, for great is the issue at stake,
greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad.
Neither under the influence of honor or money or power, aye,
or under the excitement of poetry, ought he to fail in the ob-
servance of justice and virtue.
I agree, he said ; and I think that any one would agree who
heard the argument.
And yet, I said, no mention has been made of the greatest
prizes and rewards of virtue.
If, he said, there are others greater than these they must be
of an inconceivable greatness.
398 PLATO THE TEACHER
Why, I said, what was ever great in a short time ? The
whole period of threescore years and ten is surely but a little
thing in comparison with eternity ?
Say rather "nothing," he replied.
And should an immortal being seriously think of this little
space rather than of the whole ?
Yes, he said, I think that he should. But what do you
mean ?
Are you not aware, I said, that the soul is immortal and
imperishable?
He looked at me in astonishment, and said : No, indeed ;
you do not mean to say that you are able to prove that ?
Yes, I said, I ought to be able, and you too, for there is no
difficulty.
I do not see that, he said ; and I should like to hear this
argument of which you make no difficulty.
Listen then, I said.
[In almost everything there is an inherent evil or disease.
For example, the evil of corn is mildew, of iron, rust. The
evil which is inherent in a thing may destroy it ; or if this
does not, nothing else can. The soul has its evils, — injustice,
intemperance, cowardice, and the like ; but these evils do
not destroy the soul as disease destroys the body. Now it
is unreasonable to suppose that a thing which cannot be de-
stroyed from within by its own corruption, can be destroyed
by some external evil. Bad food cannot destroy the body
unless the corruption of the food is communicated to the
body. In this case disease arises and this disease, not the
food, destroys the body. On the same principle, unless some
bodily evil can produce an evil of the soul, the bodily evil
cannot destroy the soul. No bodily evil can infect the soul
for no one can prove that even death makes a man more unholy
or unjust. As no bodily evil can infect the soul none can
destroy the soul. Now the soul which cannot be destroyed
by any evil, whether inherent or external, must exist forever
and so be immortal.
Socrates continues :]
Her immortality may be proven by the previous argument
and by other arguments ; and you should also see her original
THE REPUBLIC 399
nature, not as we now behold her, marred by communion with
the body and other miseries, but you should look upon her
with the eye of reason, pure as at birth, and then her beauty
would be discovered, and in her image justice would be more
clearly seen, and injustice, and all the things which we have
described. But now, although we have spoken the truth con-
cerning her as she appears at present, we must remember that
we have seen her only in a condition which may be compared
to that of the sea-god Glaucus, whose original image can
hardly be discerned because his natural members are broken
off and crushed and in many ways damaged by the waves, and
incrustations have grown over them of seaweed and shells and
stones so that he is liker to some sea-monster than to his nat-
ural form. And the soul is in a similar condition, disfigured
by ten thousand ills. But not there, Glaucon, not there must
we look.
Where then?
At her love of wisdom. Let us see whom she affects, and
what converse she seeks in virtue of her near kindred with the
immortal and eternal and divine ; also how different she would
become if wholly following this superior principle, and borne
by a divine impulse out of the ocean in which she now is, and
disengaged from the stones and shells and things of earth and
rock which in wild variety grow around her because she ,
feeds upon earth, and is crusted over by the good things
of this life as they are termed : then you would see her as she
is, and know whether she have one form only or many, or
what her nature is. Of her form and affections in this present
life I have said enough.
True, he said.
Thus, I said, have we followed out the argument, putting
aside the rewards and glories of justice, such as you were say-
ing that Homer and Hesiod introduced ; and justice in her
own nature has been shown to be best for the soul in her
nature ; let her do what is just, whether she have the ring of
Gyges 1 or not, and, besides the ring of Gyges, the helmet of
Hades. 2
That is very true.
1 See Book II., 359
2 Hades (Roman Pluto), sovereign of the lower world, possessed a helmet
or cap, the symbol of his invisible empire, which rendered the wearer invis-
ible.
400 PLATO THE TEACHER
And now, Glaucon, there will be no harm in further enu-
merating how many and how great are the rewards which justice
and the other virtues procure to the soul from gods and men,
both in life and after death.
Certainly, he said.
Will you repay me, then, what you borrowed in the argu-
ment?
What was that ?
I granted that the just man should appear unjust and the
unjust just : for you were of opinion that even if the true state
of the case could not possibly escape the eyes of gods and men,
still this ought to be admitted for the sake of the argument,
in order that pure justice might be weighed against pure in-
justice. Do you not remember?
You would have reason to complain of me if I had forgot-
ten.
Then, as the cause is decided, I demand on behalf of justice
that the glory which she receives from gods and men be also
allowed to her by you j having been shown to have reality,
and not to deceive those who truly possess her, she may also
have appearance restored to her, and thus obtain the other
crown of victory which is hers also.
The demand, he said, is just.
In the first place, I said — and this is the first point which
you will have to give back — the nature both of just and unjust
is truly known to the gods ?
I am willing to restore that.
And if they are both known to them, one must be the
friend and the other the enemy of the gods, as we admitted at
first?
True.
And the friend of the gods may be supposed to receive from
, them every good, excepting only such evil as is the
necessary consequence of former sins?
Certainly.
Then this must be our notion of the just man, that even
when he is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming mis-
fortune, all things will in the end work together for good to
him in life and death 3 : for the gods have a care of any one
8 " And we know that all things work together for good to them that love
God." — Romans viii. 28.
THE REPUBLIC 4-OI
whose desire is to become just and to be like God, as far as
man can attain his likeness, by the pursuit of virtue?
Yes, he said ; if he is like God he will surely not be neg-
lected by him.
And of the unjust may not the opposite be assumed ?
Certainly.
Such, then, is the prize of victory which the gods give the
just?
Yes, he said, that is my belief.
And what do they receive of men ? Look at things as they
really are and you will see that the clever unjust are in the
case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the
goal, but not back again from the goal : they start off at a great
pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with
their ears draggling on their shoulders, and without a crown ;
but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize
and is crowned. And this is the way with the just ; he who
endures to the end of every action and occasion of his entire
life has a good report and carries off the prize which men
bestow.
True.
And now you must allow me to repeat the blessings which
you attributed to the fortunate unjust. I shall say of the just
as you were saying of the unjust, that as they grow older, if
that is their desire, they become rulers in their own city ; they
marry whom they like and give in marriage to whomsoever
they like ; all that you said of the others I now say of these.
And, on the other hand, I say of the unjust that the greater
number, even though they escape in their youth, are found
out at last and look foolish at the end of their course, and
when they come to be old and miserable are flouted alike by
stranger and citizen ; they are beaten and then come those
things unfit for ears polite, as you truly term them ; they will
be racked and burned, as you were saying ; I shall ask you to
suppose that you have heard all that. Will you allow me to
assume that much ?
Certainly, he said, for what you say is true.
These, then, are the prizes and rewards and gifts which ,
are bestowed upon the just by gods and men in this pres-
ent life, in addition to those other good things which justice of
herself gives.
26
402 PLATO THE TEACHER
Yes, he said ; and they are fair and lasting.
And yet, I said, all these things are as nothing, either in
number or greatness, in comparison with those other recom-
penses which await both just and unjust after death, which are
more and greater far. And you ought to hear them, and then
both of them will have received the perfect meed of words due
to them.
Speak, he said ; there are few things which I would more
gladly hear.
Well, I said, I will tell you a tale ; not one of the tales
which Odysseus tells to Alcinous, 4 yet this too is a tale of a
brave man, Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth.
He was slain in battle, and ten days afterwards, when the
bodies of the dead were brought in already in a state of cor-
ruption, he was brought in with them undecayed, and carried
home to be buried. And on the twelfth day, as he was lying
on the funeral pile, he returned to life and told them what he
had seen in the other world. He said that when his soul de-
parted he went on a journey with a great company, and that
they came to a mysterious place at which there were two
chasms in the earth ; they were near together, and over against
them were two other chasms in the heaven above. In the
intermediate space there were judges seated, who bade the just,
after they had judged them, ascend by the heavenly way on
the right hand, having the signs of the judgment bound on
their foreheads; and in like manner the unjust were com-
manded by them to descend by the lower way on the left
hand ; these also had the symbols of their deeds fastened on
their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to
be the messenger of the other world to men, and they bade
him hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that
place. Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls depart-
ing at either chasm of heaven and earth when sentence had
been given on them ; and at the two other openings other
souls, some ascending out of the earth dusty and worn with
travel, some descending out of heaven, clean and bright. And
always, on their arrival, they seemed as if they had come from
a long journey, and they went out into the meadow with joy
and there encamped as at a festival, and those who knew one
4 Alcinous (al-sm'o-us) : a mythical king whom Odysseus met in his jour-
neys.
THE REPUBLIC 403
another embraced and conversed, the souls which came from
earth curiously inquiring about the things of heaven, and
the souls which came from heaven of the things of earth.
And they told one another of what had happened by the way,
some weeping and sorrowing at the remembrance of the .
things which they had endured and seen in their journey
beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand years),
while others were describing heavenly blessings and visions of
inconceivable beauty. There is not time, Glaucon, to tell
all ; but the sum was this : He said that for every wrong which
they had done to any one they suffered tenfold ; the thousand
years answering to the hundred years which are reckoned as
the life of man. If, for example, there were any who had
committed murders, or had betrayed or enslaved cities or
armies, or been guilty of any other evil behavior, for each and
all of these they received punishment ten times over, and the
rewards of beneficence and justice and holiness were in the
same proportion. Not to repeat what he had to say concern-
ing young children dying almost as soon as they were born;
of piety and impiety to gods and parents, and of murderers,
there were retributions yet greater which he narrated. He
mentioned that he was present when one of the spirits asked
another, " Where is Ardiaeus 5 the Great?" (Now this
Ardiaeus was the tyrant of some city of Pamphylia, who had
murdered his aged father and his elder brother, and had com-
mitted many other abominable crimes, and he lived a thousand
years before the time of Er.) The answer was : " He comes
not hither, and will never come." And "indeed," he said,
" this was one of the terrible sights which was witnessed by
us. For we were approaching the mouth of the cave, and
having seen all, were about to re-ascend, when of a sudden
Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom were
tyrants ; and there were also besides the tyrants private indi-
viduals who had been great criminals ; they were just at the
mouth, being, as they fancied, about to return into the upper
world, but the opening, instead of receiving them, gave a roar,
as was the case when any incurable or unpunished sinner , 6
tried to ascend ; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who
knew the meaning of the sound, came up and seized and car-
ried off several of them, and Ardiaeus and others they bound
• Ardiaeus (ar'di-e'us).
404 PLATO THE TEACHER
head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed
them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the
side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the
pilgrims as they passed what were their crimes, and that they
were being taken away to be cast into hell. And of all the
terrors of the place there was no terror like this of hearing the
voice ; and when there was silence they ascended with joy."
These were the penalties and retributions, and there were
blessings as great.
Now when the spirits that were in the meadow had tarried
seven days, on the eighth day they were obliged to proceed on
their journey, and on the fourth day from that time they came
to a place where they looked down from above upon a line of
light, like a column extending right through the whole heaven
and earth, in color not unlike the rainbow, only brighter and
purer; another day's journey brought them to the place, and
there, in the midst of the light, they saw reaching from heaven
the extremities of the chains of it : for this light is the belt of
heaven, and holds together the circle of the universe, like the
undergirders of a trireme. 6 And from the extremities of the
chains is extended the spindle of Necessity, on which all the
revolutions turn. The shaft and hook of this spindle are made
of steel, and the whorl is made partly of steel and also partly of
other materials. Now the whorl is in form like the whorl used
on earth • and you are to suppose, as he described, that there
is one large hollow whorl which is scooped out, and into this
is fitted another lesser one, and another, and another, and four
others, making eight in all, like boxes which fit into one an-
other ; their edges are turned upwards, and all together form
one continuous whorl. This is pierced by the spindle, which
is driven home through the center of the eighth. The first and
outermost whorl has the rim broadest, and the seven inner
whorls narrow, in the following proportions — the sixth is next
to the first in size, the fourth next to the sixth ; then comes the
eighth ; the seventh is fifth, the fifth is sixth, the third is sev-
enth, last and eighth comes the second. The largest [or fixed
. stars] is spangled, and the seventh [or sun] is brightest ;
17 the eighth [or moon] colored by the reflected light of the
seventh ; the second and fifth [Mercury and Saturn] are like
one another, and of a yellower color than the preceding ; the
6 A kind of boat with three rows of oars on a side.
THE REPUBLIC 405
third [Venus] has the whitest light ; the fourth [MarsJ is red-
dish ; the sixth [Jupiter] is in whiteness second. Now the
whole spindle has the same motion ; but, as the whole revolves
in one direction, the seven inner circles move slowly in the
other, and of these the swiftest is the eighth ; next in swiftness
are the seventh, sixth, and fifth, which move together ; third
in swiftness appeared to them to move in reversed orbit the
fourth ; the third appeared fourth, and the second fifth. The
spindle turns on the knees of Necessity ; and on the upper sur-
face of each circle is a siren, who goes round with them, hymn-
ing a single sound and note. The eight together form one har-
mony ; and round about, at equal intervals, there is another
band, three in number, each sitting upon her throne : these are
the Fates, daughters of Necessity, who are clothed in white rai-
ment and have garlands upon their heads, Lachesis and Clotho
and Atropos, 7 who accompany with their voices the harmony of
the sirens — Lachesis singing of the past, Clotho of the present,
Atropos of the future ; Clotho now and then assisting with a
touch of her right hand the motion of the outer circle or whorl
of the spindle, and Atropos with her left hand touching and
guiding the inner ones, and Lachesis laying hold of either in
turn, first with one hand and then with the other.
Now when the spirits arrived, their duty was to go to Lache-
sis ; but first a prophet came and arranged them in order ; then
he took from the knees of Lachesis lots and samples of lives,
and going up to a high place, spoke as follows : u Hear the
word of Lachesis, the daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls,
behold a new cycle of mortal life. Your genius will not
choose you, but you will choose- your genius; and let him
who draws the first lot have the first choice of life, which shall
be his destiny. Virtue is free, and as a man honors or dis-
honors her he will have more or less of her ; the chooser is
answerable — God is justified." When the Interpreter had
thus spoken he cast the lots among them, and each one took
up the lot which fell near him, all but Er himself (he , ~
was not allowed), and each as he took his lot perceived
the number which he had drawn. Then the Interpreter placed
on the ground before them the samples of life ; and there were
many more lives than the souls present, and there were all sorts
of lives — of every animal and every condition of man. And
1 Lachesis (15k'e-s!s). Clotho (klj'tho). Atropos (at'ro-pos).
406 PLATO THE TEACHER
there were tyrannies among them, some continuing while the
tyrant lived, others which broke off in the middle and came
to an end in poverty and exile and beggary; and there were
lives of famous men, some who were famous for their form and
beauty as well as for their strength and success in games, or,
again, for their birth and the qualities of their ancestors ; and
some who were the reverse of famous for the opposite qualities.
And of women likewise ; there was not, however, any definite
character among them, because the soul must of necessity
choose another life, and become another. But there were
many elements mingling with one another, and also with ele-
ments of wealth and poverty, and disease and health j and
there were mean states also. And this, my dear Glaucon, is
the great danger of man ; and therefore the utmost care should
be taken. Let each one of us leave every other kind of knowl-
edge and seek and follow one thing only, if perad venture he
may be able to learn and find who there is who can and will
teach him to distinguish the life of good and evil, and to
choose always and everywhere the better life as far as possible.
He should consider the bearing of all these things which have
been mentioned severally and collectively upon a virtuous life ;
he should know what the effect of beauty is when compounded
with poverty or wealth in a particular soul, and what are the