The Republic
‘And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the
earth.’
And,—
‘As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped
out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to
one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they
moved.’
And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike
out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or
unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical
charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who
are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death.
Undoubtedly.
Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which
describe the world below—Cocytus and Styx, ghosts under the earth, and
sapless shades, and any similar words of which the very mention causes
a shudder to pass through the inmost soul of him who hears them. I do
not say that these horrible stories may not have a use of some kind;
but there is a danger that the nerves of our guardians may be rendered
too excitable and effeminate by them.
There is a real danger, he said.
Then we must have no more of them.
True.
Another and a nobler strain must be composed and sung by us.
Clearly.
And shall we proceed to get rid of the weepings and wailings of famous
men?
They will go with the rest.
But shall we be right in getting rid of them? Reflect: our principle is
that the good man will not consider death terrible to any other good
man who is his comrade.
Yes; that is our principle.
And therefore he will not sorrow for his departed friend as though he
had suffered anything terrible?
He will not.
Such an one, as we further maintain, is sufficient for himself and his
own happiness, and therefore is least in need of other men.
True, he said.
And for this reason the loss of a son or brother, or the deprivation of
fortune, is to him of all men least terrible.
Assuredly.
And therefore he will be least likely to lament, and will bear with the
greatest equanimity any misfortune of this sort which may befall him.
Yes, he will feel such a misfortune far less than another.
Then we shall be right in getting rid of the lamentations of famous
men, and making them over to women (and not even to women who are good
for anything), or to men of a baser sort, that those who are being
educated by us to be the defenders of their country may scorn to do the
like.
That will be very right.
Then we will once more entreat Homer and the other poets not to depict
Achilles, who is the son of a goddess, first lying on his side, then on
his back, and then on his face; then starting up and sailing in a
frenzy along the shores of the barren sea; now taking the sooty ashes
in both his hands and pouring them over his head, or weeping and
wailing in the various modes which Homer has delineated. Nor should he
describe Priam the kinsman of the gods as praying and beseeching,
‘Rolling in the dirt, calling each man loudly by his name.’
Still more earnestly will we beg of him at all events not to introduce
the gods lamenting and saying,
‘Alas! my misery! Alas! that I bore the bravest to my sorrow.’
But if he must introduce the gods, at any rate let him not dare so
completely to misrepresent the greatest of the gods, as to make him
say—
‘O heavens! with my eyes verily I behold a dear friend of mine chased
round and round the city, and my heart is sorrowful.’
Or again:—
Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of men to me,
subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius.’
For if, my sweet Adeimantus, our youth seriously listen to such
unworthy representations of the gods, instead of laughing at them as
they ought, hardly will any of them deem that he himself, being but a
man, can be dishonoured by similar actions; neither will he rebuke any
inclination which may arise in his mind to say and do the like. And
instead of having any shame or self-control, he will be always whining
and lamenting on slight occasions.
Yes, he said, that is most true.
Yes, I replied; but that surely is what ought not to be, as the
argument has just proved to us; and by that proof we must abide until
it is disproved by a better.
It ought not to be.
Neither ought our guardians to be given to laughter. For a fit of
laughter which has been indulged to excess almost always produces a
violent reaction.
So I believe.
Then persons of worth, even if only mortal men, must not be represented
as overcome by laughter, and still less must such a representation of
the gods be allowed.
Still less of the gods, as you say, he replied.
Then we shall not suffer such an expression to be used about the gods
as that of Homer when he describes how
‘Inextinguishable laughter arose among the blessed gods, when they saw
Hephaestus bustling about the mansion.’
On your views, we must not admit them.
On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we must not admit
them is certain.
Again, truth should be highly valued; if, as we were saying, a lie is
useless to the gods, and useful only as a medicine to men, then the use
of such medicines should be restricted to physicians; private
individuals have no business with them.
Clearly not, he said.
Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of
the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either
with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the
public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind;
and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie
to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the
patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his
own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a
sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the
rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow
sailors.
Most true, he said.
If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,
‘Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter,’
he will punish him for introducing a practice which is equally
subversive and destructive of ship or State.
Most certainly, he said, if our idea of the State is ever carried out.
In the next place our youth must be temperate?
Certainly.
Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking generally, obedience
to commanders and self-control in sensual pleasures?
True.
Then we shall approve such language as that of Diomede in Homer,
‘Friend, sit still and obey my word,’
and the verses which follow,
‘The Greeks marched breathing prowess, ...in silent awe of their
leaders,’
and other sentiments of the same kind.
We shall.
What of this line,
‘O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog and the heart of a
stag,’
and of the words which follow? Would you say that these, or any similar
impertinences which private individuals are supposed to address to
their rulers, whether in verse or prose, are well or ill spoken?
They are ill spoken.
They may very possibly afford some amusement, but they do not conduce
to temperance. And therefore they are likely to do harm to our young
men—you would agree with me there?
Yes.
And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his
opinion is more glorious than
‘When the tables are full of bread and meat, and the cup-bearer carries
round wine which he draws from the bowl and pours into the cups,’
is it fit or conducive to temperance for a young man to hear such
words? Or the verse
‘The saddest of fates is to die and meet destiny from hunger?’
What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and
men were asleep and he the only person awake, lay devising plans, but
forgot them all in a moment through his lust, and was so completely
overcome at the sight of Here that he would not even go into the hut,
but wanted to lie with her on the ground, declaring that he had never
been in such a state of rapture before, even when they first met one
another
‘Without the knowledge of their parents;’
or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on,
cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite?
Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear
that sort of thing.
But any deeds of endurance which are done or told by famous men, these
they ought to see and hear; as, for example, what is said in the
verses,
‘He smote his breast, and thus reproached his heart, Endure, my heart;
far worse hast thou endured!’
Certainly, he said.
In the next place, we must not let them be receivers of gifts or lovers
of money.
Certainly not.
Neither must we sing to them of
‘Gifts persuading gods, and persuading reverend kings.’
Neither is Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, to be approved or deemed to
have given his pupil good counsel when he told him that he should take
the gifts of the Greeks and assist them; but that without a gift he
should not lay aside his anger. Neither will we believe or acknowledge
Achilles himself to have been such a lover of money that he took
Agamemnon’s gifts, or that when he had received payment he restored the
dead body of Hector, but that without payment he was unwilling to do
so.
Undoubtedly, he said, these are not sentiments which can be approved.
Loving Homer as I do, I hardly like to say that in attributing these
feelings to Achilles, or in believing that they are truly attributed to
him, he is guilty of downright impiety. As little can I believe the
narrative of his insolence to Apollo, where he says,
‘Thou hast wronged me, O far-darter, most abominable of deities. Verily
I would be even with thee, if I had only the power;’
or his insubordination to the river-god, on whose divinity he is ready
to lay hands; or his offering to the dead Patroclus of his own hair,
which had been previously dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius,
and that he actually performed this vow; or that he dragged Hector
round the tomb of Patroclus, and slaughtered the captives at the pyre;
of all this I cannot believe that he was guilty, any more than I can
allow our citizens to believe that he, the wise Cheiron’s pupil, the
son of a goddess and of Peleus who was the gentlest of men and third in
descent from Zeus, was so disordered in his wits as to be at one time
the slave of two seemingly inconsistent passions, meanness, not
untainted by avarice, combined with overweening contempt of gods and
men.
You are quite right, he replied.
And let us equally refuse to believe, or allow to be repeated, the tale
of Theseus son of Poseidon, or of Peirithous son of Zeus, going forth
as they did to perpetrate a horrid rape; or of any other hero or son of
a god daring to do such impious and dreadful things as they falsely
ascribe to them in our day: and let us further compel the poets to
declare either that these acts were not done by them, or that they were
not the sons of gods;—both in the same breath they shall not be
permitted to affirm. We will not have them trying to persuade our youth
that the gods are the authors of evil, and that heroes are no better
than men—sentiments which, as we were saying, are neither pious nor
true, for we have already proved that evil cannot come from the gods.
Assuredly not.
And further they are likely to have a bad effect on those who hear
them; for everybody will begin to excuse his own vices when he is
convinced that similar wickednesses are always being perpetrated by—
‘The kindred of the gods, the relatives of Zeus, whose ancestral altar,
the altar of Zeus, is aloft in air on the peak of Ida,’
and who have