Greek Texts & Translations

By no means.

So then the teaching which refuses to separate the pleasant from the just helps, 663bif nothing else, to induce a man to live the holy and just life, so that any doctrine which denies this truth is, in the eyes of the lawgiver, most shameful and most hateful; for no one would voluntarily consent to be induced to commit an act, unless it involves as its consequence more pleasure than pain. Now distance has the effect of befogging the vision of nearly everybody, and of children especially; but our lawgiver will reverse the appearance by removing the fog, ^note 663cand by one means or another—habituation, commendation, or argument—will persuade people that their notions of justice and injustice are illusory pictures, unjust objects appearing pleasant and just objects most unpleasant to him who is opposed to justice, through being viewed from his own unjust and evil standpoint, but when seen from the standpoint of justice, both of them appear in all ways entirely the opposite.

So it appears.

In point of truth, which of the two judgements shall we say is the more authoritative,—that of the worse soul or that of the better.

That of the better, undoubtedly. 663d

Undoubtedly, then, the unjust life is not only more base and ignoble, but also in very truth more unpleasant, than the just and holy life.

It would seem so, my friends, from our present argument.

And even if the state of the case were different from what it has now been proved to be by our argument, could a lawgiver who was worth his salt find any more useful fiction than this (if he dared to use any fiction at all in addressing the youths for their good), or one more effective in persuading all men to act justly in all things 663ewillingly and without constraint?

Truth is a noble thing, Stranger, and an enduring; yet to persuade men of it seems no easy matter.

Be it so; yet it proved easy to persuade men of the Sidonian fairy-tale, ^note incredible though it was, and of numberless others.

What tales?

The tale of the teeth that were sown, and how armed men sprang out of them. Here, indeed, the lawgiver has a notable example 664aof how one can, if he tries, persuade the souls of the young of anything, so that the only question he has to consider in his inventing is what would do most good to the State, if it were believed; and then he must devise all possible means to ensure that the whole of the community constantly, so long as they live, use exactly the same language, so far as possible, about these matters, alike in their songs, their tales, and their discourses. If you, however, think otherwise, I have no objection to your arguing in the opposite sense. 664b

Neither of us, I think, could possibly argue against your view.

Our next subject I must handle myself. I maintain that all the three choirs ^note must enchant the souls of the children, while still young and tender, by rehearsing all the noble things which we have already recounted, or shall recount hereafter; and let this be the sum of them: in asserting that one and the same life is declared by the gods to be both most pleasant and most just, we shall not only be saying what is most true, 664cbut we shall also convince those who need convincing more forcibly than we could by any other assertion.

We must assent to what you say.

First, then, the right order of procedure will be for the Muses' choir of children to come forward first to sing these things with the utmost vigor and before the whole city; second will come the choir of those under thirty, invoking Apollo Paian ^note as witness of the truth of what is said, and praying him of grace to persuade the youth. 664dThe next singers will be the third choir, of those over thirty and under sixty; and lastly, there were left those who, being no longer able to uplift the song, shall handle the same moral themes in stories and by oracular speech.

Whom do you mean, Stranger, by these third choristers. For we do not grasp very clearly what you intend to convey about them.

Yet they are in fact the very people to whom most of our previous discourse was intended to lead up.