BOOK III.
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Plato and Benjamin Jowett
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 Cmeddle 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.
D If, then, the ruler catches anybody beside himself lying in the State,
‘Any of the craftsmen, whether he be priest or physician or carpenter15,’
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 out16.
and also temperate. In the next place our youth must be temperate?
Certainly.
Are not the chief elements of temperance, speaking Egenerally, 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 word17,’ 73
and the verses which follow,
‘The Greeks marched breathing prowess18, … in silent awe of their leaders19,’
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 stag20,’
390 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.
The praises of eating and drinking, and the tale of the improper behaviour of Zeus and Here, are not to be repeated to the young. And then, again, to make the wisest of men say that nothing in his opinion is more glorious than
B ‘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 cups21,’
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 hunger22?’
What would you say again to the tale of Zeus, who, while other gods and men were asleep and he the only person Cawake, 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 parents23;’ 74
The indecent tale of Ares and Aphrodite. or that other tale of how Hephaestus, because of similar goings on, cast a chain around Ares and Aphrodite24?
Indeed, he said, I am strongly of opinion that they ought not to hear that sort of thing.
Source notes
15 Od. xvii. 383 sq.
16 Or, ‘if his words are accompanied by actions.’
17 Il. iv. 412.
18 Od. iii. 8.
19 Ib. iv. 431.
20 Ib. i. 225.
21 Ib. ix. 8.
22 Ib. xii. 342.
23 Il. xiv. 281.
24 Od. viii. 266.