Greek Texts & Translations

Obviously everyone of them would say “Yes.”

“And would you desire a test that was safe and free from serious risks, or the reverse?”

All will agree, also, that the test must be safe.

“And would you utilize the test by bringing men into these fears and proving them while thus affected, so as to compel them to become fearless; employing exhortations admonitions and rewards,— 648cbut degradation for all those that refused to conform wholly to the character you prescribed? And would you acquit without penalty everyone who had trained himself manfully and well, but impose a penalty on everyone who had done so badly? Or would you totally refuse to employ the potion as a test, although you have no objection to it on other grounds?”

Of course he would employ it, Stranger.

At any rate, my friend, the training involved would be wonderfully simple, as compared with our present methods, whether it were applied to individuals singly, or to small groups, 648dor to groups ever so large. Suppose, then, that a man, actuated by a feeling of shame and loth to show himself in public before he was in the best of condition, should remain alone by himself while undergoing this training against fears and relying on the potion alone for his solitary equipment, instead of endless exercises,—he would be acting quite rightly: so too would he who, trusting in himself that by nature and practice he is already well equipped, should have no hesitation in training in company with a number of drinking companions and showing off how for speed and strength he is superior to the potency of the draughts he is obliged to drink, 648ewith the result that because of his excellence he neither commits any grave impropriety nor loses his head, and who, before they came to the last round, should quit the company, through fear of the defeat inflicted on all men by the wine-cup.

Yes, Stranger, this man too would be acting temperately. 649a

Once more let us address the lawgiver and say: “Be it so, O lawgiver, that for producing fear no such drug apparently has been given to men by God, nor have we devised such ourselves (for quacks I count not of our company); but does there exist a potion for inducing fearlessness and excessive and untimely confidence,—of what shall we say about this?''

Presumably, he will assert that there is one,—naming wine.

And is not this exactly the opposite of the potion described just now? For, first, it makes the person who drinks it more jovial than he was before, and the more he imbibes it, the more 649bhe becomes filled with high hopes and a sense of power, till finally, puffed up with conceit, he abounds in every kind of licence of speech and action and every kind of audacity, without a scruple as to what he says or what he does. Everyone, I imagine, would agree that this is so.

Undoubtedly.

Let us recall our previous statement that we must cultivate in our souls two things—namely, 649cthe greatest possible confidence, and its opposite, the greatest possible fear.

Which you called, I think, the marks of modesty.

Your memory serves you well. Since courage and fearlessness ought to be practised amidst fears, we have to consider whether the opposite quality ought to be cultivated amidst conditions of the opposite kind.

It certainly seems probable.

It appears then that we ought to be placed amongst those conditions which naturally tend to make us exceptionally confident and audacious when we are practising how to be as free as possible from shamelessness 649dand excessive audacity, and fearful of ever daring to say or suffer or do anything shameful.

So it appears.

And are not these the conditions in which we are of the character described,—anger, lust, insolence, ignorance, covetousness, and extravagance; and these also,—wealth, beauty, strength, and everything which intoxicates a man with pleasure and turns his head? And for the purpose, first, of providing a cheap and comparatively harmless test of these conditions, and, secondly, of affording practice in them, what more suitable pleasure can we mention than wine, 649ewith its playful testing—provided that it is employed at all carefully? For consider: in the case of a man whose disposition is morose and savage (whence spring numberless iniquities), is it not more dangerous to test him by entering into money transactions with him, at one's own personal risk, than by associating with him with the help of Dionysus and his festive insight? 650aAnd when a man is a slave to the pleasures of sex, is it not a more dangerous test to entrust to him one's own daughters and sons and wife, and thus imperil one's own nearest and dearest, in order to discover the disposition of his soul? In fact, one might quote innumerable instances in a vain endeavor to show the full superiority of this playful method of inspection which is without either serious consequence or costly damage. Indeed, so far as that is concerned, neither the Cretans,