| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 824a | Pl. Leg. 829e (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 832a |
829alike an individual, ought to lead a good life. But for a good and blessed life, the first requisite is neither to do wrong oneself nor to suffer wrong from others. Of these, the former is not very hard, but it is very hard to secure immunity from suffering wrong; note indeed, it is impossible to gain this perfectly, except by becoming perfectly good. So likewise a State may obtain a life of peace if it becomes good, but if bad, a life of war both abroad and at home. This being so, all men must train for war
829bnot in war-time, but while they are living in peace. note Therefore, a judicious State must carry out a march, every month, for not less than one whole day, or more (according as the rulers decree), note paying no heed to cold weather or hot: all shall join in it—men, women and children—whenever the rulers decide to march them out en masse, and at other times they shall go in sections. Along with sacrifices, they must continually devise noble games, to serve
829cas festival-contests, modelled as closely as possible on those of war. At each of these they must distribute prizes and awards of merit, and compose for one another speeches of praise and blame, according to the character each one exhibits not only in the contests, but in his life generally, magnifying him who is accounted most good and blaming him who is not. Such speeches not everyone shall compose; for, first, no one who is under fifty years old shall compose one, and further, no one shall do so who, though he may be fully proficient in poetry and music, has not as yet performed any noble
829dor notable deed. But, even though they be not musical, those poems shall be sung which are composed by men note who are personally good and honored in the State as performers of noble deeds. The adjudication of these shall lie with the Educator and the rest of the Law-wardens, who shall grant them the sole privilege of free speech in song; whereas to the others no permission shall be given; nor yet shall anyone venture to sing an unauthorized song—
829enot even should it be sweeter than the hymns of Orpheus or of Thamyras,—but only such sacred poems as have won the judges' approval and have been presented to the gods, or those by good men which have been adjudged to have duly distributed praise or blame. In regard both to military operations and to freedom of poetic speech I state that the same rules shall apply equally to both men and women. The lawgiver ought to commune with himself and reason thus—“Come now, what men am I to rear up,
830awhen I have made ready the whole State? Are they not to be competitors in the greatest of contests, wherein their antagonists will be numberless?” “Most certainly,” one would rightly reply. What then? Suppose we had been rearing boxers or pancratiasts or competitors in any similar branch of athletics, should we have gone straight into the contest without previously engaging in daily combat with someone? If we were boxers, for a great many days before the contest we should have been learning how to fight,
830band working hard, practicing in mimicry all those methods we meant to employ on the day we should be fighting for victory, and imitating the real thing as nearly as possible: thus, we should don padded gloves instead of proper ring-gloves, so as to get the best possible practice in giving blows and dodging them; and if we chanced to be very short of training-mates, do you suppose that we should be deterred by fear of the laughter of fools from hanging up a lifeless dummy and practicing on it? Indeed, if ever we were in a desert, and without either live or lifeless
830ctraining-mates, would we not have recourse to shadow-fighting of the most literal kind, against ourselves? Or what else should one call the practice of pugilistic posturing?Clinias
There is no other name for it, Stranger, than the one you have just given to it.
AthenianWhat then? Is the fighting force of our State to venture to come forward every time to fight for their lives, their children, their goods, and for the whole State, after a less thorough preparation than the competitors we have been describing?
830dAnd so is their lawgiver, through fear lest these training-bouts may appear ridiculous to some, to refrain from laying down laws whereby he will ordain field-operations, of which the minor kind, without heavy arms, will take place daily, if possible,—and to this end both the choristry and all the gymnastic shall be directed,—while the others, as a major kind of gymnastics in full armor, he shall order to be held at least once a month? 830eIn this latter kind they will engage in contests with one another throughout the whole country, contending in the capturing of forts and in ambuscades and in all forms of mimic warfare; in fact, they shall do literal fighting with balls note and darts as nearly real as possible,—though the points of the darts shall be made less dangerous,—in order that their games of combat may not be devoid of some element of alarm, but may provide terrors and indicate to some extent who is stout-hearted 831aand who not: to the former the lawgiver shall duly assign honors, to the latter degradation, that thus he may prepare the whole State to be serviceable throughout life in the real contest. Moreover, if a man gets killed in these sham fights, inasmuch as the murder is involuntary, he shall pronounce the slayer to be pure of hands, when he has been legally purified; for he will reflect that, when a few men die, others equally good will grow up in their place, whereas, once fear is, so to speak, dead, he will be unable to find a test to distinguish, in all such cases, the good from the bad,—| Plato, Laws (English) (XML Header) [genre: prose] [word count] [lemma count] [Pl. Leg.]. | ||
| <<Pl. Leg. 824a | Pl. Leg. 829e (Greek) | >>Pl. Leg. 832a |
