Greek Texts & Translations

Quite right: let us go through with every topic that seems important for the present discussion. 645d

Tell me now: if we give strong drink to this puppet of ours, what effect will it have on its character?

In reference to what particular do you ask this question?

To no particular, for the moment: I am putting the question in general terms—“when this shares in that, what sort of thing does it become in consequence?” I will try to convey my meaning still more clearly: what I ask is this—does the drinking of wine intensify pleasures and pains and passions and lusts?

Yes, greatly. 645e

And how about sensations and recollections and opinions and thoughts? Does it make them likewise more intense? Or rather, do not these quit a man entirely if he becomes surfeited with drink?

Yes, they quit him entirely.

He then arrives at the same condition of soul as when he was a young child?

He does.

So at that moment he will have very little control of himself? 646a

Very little.

And such a man is, we say, very bad?

Very, indeed.

It appears, then, that not the grey-beard only may be in his “second childhood,” but the drunkard as well.

An admirable observation, Stranger.

Is there any argument which will undertake to persuade us that this is a practice we ought to indulge in, instead of shunning it with all our might so far as we possibly can?

It appears that there is: at any rate you assert this, and you were ready just now to argue it. 646b

You are right in your reminder, and I am still ready to do so, now that you and Megillus have both expressed your willingness to listen to me.

Of course we shall listen, if only on account of the surprising paradox that, of his own free will, a man ought to plunge into the depths of depravity.

Depravity of soul, you mean, do you not?

Yes.

And how about plunging into a bad state of body, such as leanness or ugliness or impotence? Should we be surprised if a man of his own free will ever 646cgot into such a state?

Of course we should.

Well then, do we suppose that persons who go of themselves to dispensaries to drink medicines are not aware that soon afterwards, and for many days to come, they will find themselves in a bodily condition such as would make life intolerable ^note if it were to last for ever? And we know, do we not, that men who go to the gymnasia for hard training commence by becoming weaker?

All this we know.

We know also that they go there voluntarily for the sake of the subsequent benefit ? 646d

Quite true.

Should one not take the same view of the other institutions also?

Certainly.

Then one must also take the same view of the practice of wine-drinking, if one can rightly class it amongst the others.

Of course one must.

If then this practice should be shown to be quite as beneficial for us as bodily training, certainly at the outset it is superior to it, in so far as it is not, like bodily training, accompanied by pain. 646e

That is true; but I should be surprised if we succeeded in discovering in it any benefit.

That is precisely the point which we must at once try to make plain. Tell me now: can we discern two kinds of fear, of which the one is nearly the opposite of the other?

What kinds do you mean?

These: when we expect evils to occur, we fear them.

Yes.

And often we fear reputation, when we think we shall gain a bad repute for doing or saying something base; 647aand this fear we (like everybody else, I imagine) call shame.

Of course.

These are the two fears I was meaning; and of these the second is opposed to pains and to all other objects of fear, and opposed also to the greatest and most numerous pleasures. ^note

Very true.

Does not, then, the lawgiver, and every man who is worth anything, hold this kind of fear in the highest honor, and name it “modesty”; and to the confidence which is opposed to it does he not give the name “immodesty,” and pronounce it to be for all,