Greek Texts & Translations

What then, Stranger, should be the next step in our argument?

We ought, as I think, to do as we did at first— 632estart from the beginning to explain first the institutions which have to do with courage; and after that we shall, if you wish, deal with a second and a third form of goodness. And as soon as we have completed our treatment of the first theme, we shall take that as our model and by a discussion of the rest on similar lines beguile the way; and at the end of our treatment of goodness in all its forms we shall make it clear, if God will, that the rules we discussed just now had goodness for their aim. 633a

A good suggestion! And begin with our friend here, the panegyrist of Zeus—try first to put him to the test.

Try I will, and to test you too and myself; for the argument concerns us all alike. Tell me then: do we assert that the common meals and the gymnasia were devised by the lawgiver with a view to war?

Yes.

And is there a third institution of the kind, and a fourth? For probably one ought to employ this method of enumeration also in dealing with the subdivisions (or whatever we ought to call them) of the other forms of goodness, if only one makes one’s meaning clear. 633b

The third thing he devised was hunting: so I and every Lacedaemonian would say.

Let us attempt also to state what comes fourth,—and fifth too, if possible.

The fourth also I may attempt to state: it is the training, widely prevalent amongst us, in hardy endurance of pain, by means both of manual contests and of robberies carried out every time at the risk of a sound drubbing; moreover, the “Crypteia,” ^note as it is called, affords a wonderfully severe training 633cin hardihood, as the men go bare-foot in winter and sleep without coverlets and have no attendants, but wait on themselves and rove through the whole countryside both by night and by day. Moreover in our games, ^note we have severe tests of endurance, when men unclad do battle with the violence of the heat,—and there are other instances so numerous that the recital of them would be well-nigh endless.

Splendid, O Stranger of Lacedaemon! But come now, as to courage, how shall we define it? Shall we define it quite simply as battling against fears and pains only, 633dor as against desires also and pleasures, with their dangerous enticements and flatteries, which melt men's hearts like wax—even men most reverenced in their own conceit.

The latter definition is, I think, the right one: courage is battling against them all.

Earlier in our discourse (if I am not mistaken) Clinias here used the expression “self-inferior” of a State or an individual: did you not do so, O Stranger of Cnosus?

Most certainly. 633e

At present do we apply the term “bad” to the man who is inferior to pains, or to him also who is inferior to pleasures?

To the man who is inferior to pleasures more than to the other, in my opinion. All of us, indeed, when we speak of a man who is shamefully self-inferior, mean one who is mastered by pleasures rather than one who is mastered by pains. 634a

Then surely the lawgiver of Zeus and he of Apollo did not enact by law a lame kind of courage, able only to defend itself on the left and unable to resist attractions and allurements on the right, but rather one able to resist on both sides?

On both sides, as I would maintain.

Let us, then, mention once more the State institutions in both your countries which give men a taste of pleasures instead of shunning them,—just as they did not shun pains but plunged their citizens into the midst of them and so compelled them, 634bor induced them by rewards, to master them. Where, pray, in your laws is the same policy adopted in regard to pleasures? Let us declare what regulation of yours there is which causes the same men to be courageous toward pains and pleasures alike, conquering where they ought to conquer and in no wise worsted by their nearest and most dangerous enemies.

Although, Stranger, I was able to mention a number of laws that dealt with mastery over pains, in the case of pleasures I may not find it equally easy to produce important and conspicuous examples; 634cbut I might perhaps furnish some minor instances.

Neither could I in like manner give myself clear examples from the Cretan laws.

And no wonder, my most excellent friends. If then, in his desire to discover what is true and superlatively good, any one of us should find fault with any domestic law of his neighbors, let us take one another's remarks in good part and without resentment.