Book IX

“Certainly. And look at what I want to see in them. It’s this. Among the unnecessary pleasures and desires, some seem to me to be lawless. They are probably born in everyone, but when they are held in check by the laws and by the better desires, with the help of reason, in some people they are got rid of entirely or only a few weak ones are left, 571c while in others they remain stronger and more numerous.”

“Which ones do you mean?” he said.

“The ones that wake up in sleep,” I said, “when the rest of the soul—the reasoning, gentle part that rules over it—is asleep, and the bestial and savage part, stuffed with food or drink, leaps up, pushes sleep away and tries to go and satisfy its own instincts. You know that in such a state it dares to do anything, as though released and freed from all shame and understanding. It doesn’t shrink from trying to have sex 571d with its mother, as it imagines, or with anyone else at all, human, god or beast; it will commit any murder and abstain from no food. In a word, it falls short of no folly or shamelessness.”

“What you say is very true,” he said.

“But when someone is in a healthy and moderate condition, I think, and goes to sleep after he has roused his reasoning part and feasted it on fine arguments and inquiries, having come to reflect 571e within himself; and when he has given his appetitive part neither too little nor too much, so that it will go to sleep and not disturb 572a the best part with its pleasure or pain, but will leave it alone, itself by itself and pure, to investigate and reach out to perceive something it doesn’t know—something past, present or future;

and when in the same way he has calmed his spirited part and doesn’t fall asleep with his spirit stirred up by anger at anyone; when he has quieted these two kinds and stirred up the third, the one in which understanding arises, and so takes his rest—you know that in such a state he grasps the truth best, and the visions that 572b appear in his dreams are least lawless.”

“I think that’s entirely right,” he said.

“Well, we’ve been carried away into saying more about this than we needed to. What we want to recognize is this: that there’s a terrible, savage and lawless kind of desire in every one of us, even in some of us who seem entirely measured. And this becomes plain in our sleep. So see whether you think I’m saying something and whether you agree.”

“I do agree.”

“Then recall what we said the democratic man was like. 572c He had been brought up from youth, I think, by a thrifty father who valued only the money-making desires and despised the unnecessary ones that exist for the sake of amusement and show. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And after he fell in with more sophisticated men, full of the desires we’ve just described, he rushed into every kind of excess and into their way of life, out of hatred for his father’s thrift. But since he had a better nature than those who were corrupting him, he was pulled in both directions 572d and settled in the middle between the two ways of life. Enjoying each in due measure, as he thought, he lives a life that is neither slavish nor lawless, having become a democratic man instead of an oligarchic one.”

“Yes,” he said, “that was and still is the opinion about such a man.”

“Now suppose again,” I said, “that such a man, now grown older, has a young son brought up in his turn in his father’s ways.”

“All right.”

“Suppose too that the same things happen to him as happened to his father: that he is led into total 572e lawlessness, which those leading him call total freedom; that his father and the rest of his family come to the aid of these middle desires, while the others come to the aid of the opposite side.

“And when these terrible magicians and tyrant-makers despair of holding on to the young man any other way, they contrive to plant in him some passionate love, as champion of the idle desires that divide up whatever’s 573a at hand—a great winged drone. Or do you think the love of such people is anything else?”

“I think it’s nothing but that,” he said.

“And when the other desires buzz around it, loaded with incense and perfumes, garlands and wine and all the pleasures let loose in such gatherings, and they make it grow as large as it can and nourish it and implant in the drone the sting of longing, then this champion of the soul takes madness as its bodyguard and 573b goes into a frenzy. If it finds any opinions or desires in him that are considered good and that still feel shame, it kills them and pushes them out of him, until it has purged him of moderation and filled him with madness brought in from outside.”

“You’re describing the birth of a tyrannical man perfectly,” he said.

“And isn’t this why,” I said, “Love has long been called a tyrant?”

“It may well be,” he said.

“And my friend,” I said, “doesn’t a drunken man also have a sort of tyrannical 573c spirit?”

“He does.”

“And a man who’s mad and deranged tries to rule not only human beings but gods as well, and expects to be able to.”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Then, my remarkable friend,” I said, “a man becomes tyrannical in the strict sense when, by nature or by his habits or both, he has become drunken, lustful and crazed with black bile.”

“Absolutely.”

“That, it seems, is how such a man comes about. But how does he live?” 573d

“As they say in the game,” he said, “you’ll tell me that too.”

“I’ll tell you,” I said. “Next, I think, there are festivals among them, and revels and feasts and mistresses and everything of that sort, for people in whom Love lives as a tyrant and steers everything in the soul.”

“Inevitably,” he said.

“And don’t many terrible desires sprout up alongside, day and night, needing a great deal?”

“Yes, many.”

“So whatever income there is gets spent quickly.”

“Of course.” 573e

“And after that come borrowing and cutting into the estate.”

“Naturally.”

“And when everything runs out, won’t the desires that have nested in him, thick and fierce, inevitably clamor? And won’t he, driven as if by goads by the other desires and above all by Love himself, who leads all the rest as if they were his bodyguard, go into a frenzy and look for anyone who has anything he can take away by deceit or 574a force?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Then he has to get money from every source, or be gripped by great pangs and pains.”

“He has to.”

“And just as the pleasures that came into him later got the better of the old ones and took away what was theirs, won’t he likewise, being younger, think he deserves to get the better of his father and mother and take their things—to take a share of the family property once he’s spent his own portion?”

“Of course,” he said. 574b

“And if they won’t let him, wouldn’t he first try to steal from his parents and deceive them?”

“Certainly.”

“And when he couldn’t do that, he’d use robbery and force next?”

“I think so,” he said.

“And if the old man and old woman held on and fought back, my good friend, would he be careful and hold back from doing something tyrannical?”

“I’m not at all confident,” he said, “about the parents of such a man.”

“But, Adeimantus, by Zeus, do you think that for the sake of a mistress he’s just fallen for, who’s dear to him but unnecessary, such a man would strike the mother who has long been dear to him and necessary; 574c or that for the sake of a young man in his bloom, newly dear and unnecessary, he would strike his aged and necessary father, the oldest of his friends; and that he’d make his parents slaves to them, if he brought them into the same house?”

“Yes, by Zeus, I do,” he said.

“What a very blessed thing it seems to be,” I said, “to give birth to a tyrannical son!”

“It certainly does,” he said. 574dnote

“And what happens when his father’s and mother’s resources give out on him, and the swarm of pleasures gathered in him is already large? Won’t he first lay hands on the wall of some house, or on the cloak of someone out late at night, and after that give some temple a thorough clearing-out? And in all this the opinions he has held since childhood about what is fine and what is shameful, the ones considered just, will be overpowered by the opinions newly released from slavery, which serve as Love’s bodyguard and will prevail along with him. Before, these were set loose only in dreams, 574e during sleep, when he himself was still under the laws and his father and there was democracy within him.

But once he is ruled by Love as a tyrant, he is always, awake, what he used to be only occasionally in dreams. He’ll hold back from no terrible murder, no food, no deed. 575a Love lives in him like a tyrant, in total anarchy and lawlessness, since he is sole ruler himself; and he will lead the man who harbors him, as if he were a city, into every kind of daring, to find ways of feeding himself and the mob around him—some of it brought in from outside by bad company, some let loose and freed from within by the same ways of life and by himself. Isn’t this the life of such a man?”

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“And if there are only a few such people in a city,” I said, 575b “and the rest of the population is moderate, they go off and serve as bodyguards for some other tyrant, or as mercenaries if there’s a war somewhere. But if they turn up in peace and quiet, they stay right there in the city and do a lot of small evils.”

“What sort of evils do you mean?”

“Things like stealing, breaking into houses, cutting purses, stripping people of their clothes, robbing temples, kidnapping people into slavery. Sometimes, if they’re good speakers, they become malicious prosecutors, bear false witness and take bribes.” 575c

“Those are small evils, as you say,” he said, “if such people are few.”

“Yes,” I said, “because small things are small compared to large ones. And all these things together, in terms of the wickedness and misery of a city, don’t come anywhere near a tyrant, as the saying goes. For when such people and their followers become numerous in a city and become aware of their numbers, then it is they who, with the help of the people’s folly, give birth to the tyrant: the one among them who has the greatest and strongest tyrant within himself, 575d in his own soul.”

“Naturally,” he said, “since he would be the most tyrannical.”

“That’s all very well if they yield willingly. But if the city doesn’t allow it, then just as he once punished his mother and father, so now, if he can, he’ll punish his fatherland, bringing in new comrades; and he’ll keep his once-dear motherland, as the Cretans call it, and his fatherland enslaved to them and feed them from it. And this would be the goal of such a man’s desire.” 575e

“That’s absolutely it,” he said.note

“Now,” I said, “aren’t such men like this in private life too, even before they rule? First, in the company they keep: either they associate with flatterers who are ready to serve them in anything, or, if they need something from someone, 576a they grovel themselves, daring to strike any posture of intimacy, and then, once they’ve got what they want, they act like strangers?”

“Very much so.”

“So all their lives they live without ever being a friend to anyone, always a master to someone or a slave to another. The tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or true friendship.”

“Certainly.”

“Then wouldn’t we be right to call such people untrustworthy?”

“Of course.”

“And as unjust as it’s possible to be, if we were right 576b in what we agreed earlier about what justice is.”

“And we certainly were right,” he said.

“Then let’s sum up the worst man,” I said. “He is, I suppose, the man who is, awake, what we described in a dream.”

“Certainly.”

“And he comes about when someone who is most tyrannical by nature rules alone, and the longer he spends his life as a tyrant, the more like this he becomes.”

“Inevitably,” said Glaucon, taking over the argument.

“Then,” I said, “won’t the man who turns out to be most wicked 576c also turn out to be most wretched? And won’t the one who has been tyrant longest and most absolutely have in truth been most wretched, most and longest? Though the many have many opinions about it.”

“That much at least must be so,” he said.

“And,” I said, “doesn’t the tyrannical man correspond in likeness to the city ruled by a tyrant, and the democratic man to the democratically governed city, and so on for the others?”

“Of course.”

“And as city stands to city in excellence and happiness, so too does man to man?” 576d

“Of course.”

“Then how does a city ruled by a tyrant stand in excellence to one ruled by a king, like the one we first described?”

“They’re complete opposites,” he said. “One is the best, the other the worst.”

“I won’t ask which is which,” I said. “It’s obvious. But as for happiness and wretchedness, do you judge them the same way or differently? And let’s not be dazzled by looking at the tyrant, who is only one man, or at the few around him. We should go in and view the whole 576e city as we ought, getting down into every part and looking at it, and only then declare our opinion.”

“That’s a fair challenge,” he said. “And it’s clear to everyone that there’s no city more wretched than one ruled by a tyrant, and none happier than one ruled by a king.”

“And wouldn’t I also be right,” I said, “to make the same challenge 577a about the men, and ask that the judge of them be someone who can enter into a man’s character in thought and see through it—someone who isn’t dazzled, like a child looking from outside, by the pomp that tyrants put on for outsiders, but sees through it adequately? What if I thought that all of us should listen to the man who is able to judge, who has lived under the same roof as the tyrant and been present at his doings at home, seeing how he treats each of his household—where 577b he would most be seen stripped of his tragic costume—and again in times of public danger; and what if we asked him, since he has seen all this, to report how the tyrant compares with the others in happiness and wretchedness?”

“That would be a very fair challenge too,” he said.

“Then would you like us to pretend,” I said, “that we ourselves are among those able to judge and who have already met such people, so that we’ll have someone to answer our questions?”

“Certainly.” 577c

“Come on, then,” I said, “look at it this way. Remember the likeness between the city and the man, and then, looking at each point in turn, tell me what happens to each of them.”

“Such as what?” he said.

“First,” I said, “speaking of the city, will you say that a city ruled by a tyrant is free or enslaved?”

“As enslaved as can be,” he said.

“And yet you do see masters and free men in it.”

“I see a small portion of such people,” he said. “But the whole, so to speak, and the most decent part of it, is enslaved, in dishonor and misery.” 577d

“Then if the man is like the city,” I said, “isn’t the same arrangement bound to be present in him too? Won’t his soul be full of slavery and servility, with the parts that were most decent enslaved, while a small part, the most wicked and maddest, is master?”

“It has to be,” he said.

“Well then, will you say that such a soul is enslaved or free?”

“Enslaved, surely.”

“And the enslaved, tyrant-ruled city does least what it wants?”

“By far.” 577e

“Then the tyrant-ruled soul too will least do what it wants—speaking of the soul as a whole. Always dragged by force by a goading frenzy, it will be full of turmoil and regret.”

“Of course.”

“And is the tyrant-ruled city bound to be rich or poor?”

“Poor.”

“Then the tyrannical soul too must always be poor and insatiable.”

“Just so,” he said.

“And what about fear? Isn’t a city like this, and a man like this, bound to be full of it?”

“Very full.”

“And do you think you’ll find more wailing and groaning, more lamenting and anguish, in any other city?”

“Not at all.”

“And in a man, do you suppose such things are found more in anyone than in this tyrannical man, maddened by appetites and passions?”

“How could they be?” he said. 578b

“It was by looking at all these things, I think, and others like them, that you judged this city the most wretched of cities—”

“And wasn’t I right?” he said.

“Quite right,” I said. “But what do you say about the tyrannical man, looking at these same things?”

“That he’s by far the most wretched of all,” he said.

“There,” I said, “you’re no longer right.”

“How so?” he said.

“I don’t think,” I said, “that he is yet the most wretched.”

“Then who is?”

“Here’s one you may think still more wretched than him.”

“Who?” 578c

“The man,” I said, “who is tyrannical but doesn’t live out his life as a private citizen—who has the bad luck to have some misfortune furnish him with the means of becoming a tyrant.”

“From what’s been said before,” he said, “I’d infer that you’re telling the truth.”

“Yes,” I said, “but we shouldn’t just suppose things like this; we should examine them very carefully with an argument of this kind. After all, the inquiry concerns the greatest thing there is: the good life and the bad.”

“Quite right,” he said.

“Then see whether there’s anything in what I say. I think we need to get an idea of it 578d by examining the matter from the following.”

“From what?”

“From each of the private citizens in cities who are rich and own many slaves. They have this much in common with tyrants: they rule over many. The difference is in the tyrant’s numbers.”

“Yes, that’s the difference.”

“Now you know that these men feel secure and aren’t afraid of their household slaves?”

“What would they be afraid of?”

“Nothing,” I said. “But do you see the reason?”

“Yes: the whole city comes to the aid of each individual citizen.” 578e

“Well said,” I said. “But what if some god were to lift one man who owns fifty slaves or even more out of the city—him and his wife and children—and set him down in a wilderness along with the rest of his property and his household slaves, where no free man would be coming to help him? What sort of fear, and how much, do you think he’d be in, for himself and his children and his wife, that they might be killed by the slaves?”

“Utter terror,” he said, “I’d think.”

“Wouldn’t he be forced before long to fawn on some of those very slaves, make them lots of promises and set them free when there was no need to, and so turn out to be a flatterer of his own servants?”

“He’d have no choice,” he said, “or else he’d be killed.”

“And what if the god also settled many other neighbors in a ring around him,” I said, “people who wouldn’t tolerate anyone claiming to be master of another, and who, if they ever caught such a person, would punish him with the most extreme punishments?” 579b

“I think he’d be in still worse trouble,” he said, “hemmed in on every side by nothing but enemies.”

“And isn’t that the kind of prison the tyrant is bound in, being by nature the sort of person we’ve described, full of fears and passions of every kind? Greedy as his soul is, he alone of everyone in the city can’t travel abroad anywhere, or go to see the festivals that other free men long to see. Instead he lives mostly shut up in his house, like a woman, 579c envying the other citizens too if any of them goes abroad and sees something good.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“So the man who is badly governed within himself—the tyrannical man, whom you just now judged the most wretched—reaps a still larger harvest of such evils when he doesn’t live out his life as a private citizen but is forced by some chance to be a tyrant, and tries to rule others when he can’t control himself. It’s as if a man whose body was sick and had no control over itself were forced to spend his life not in private but competing 579d and fighting against other bodies.”

“Socrates,” he said, “your comparison is perfectly apt, and perfectly true.”

“Then, my dear Glaucon,” I said, “isn’t his condition utterly wretched? And doesn’t the man who rules as tyrant have an even harder life than the one you judged to have the hardest?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“So in truth, whatever anyone may think, the real tyrant is really a slave, given over to the most abject fawning and servitude, 579e a flatterer of the worst of men. Far from satisfying his appetites in any way at all, he is plainly in want of most things and truly poor, if one knows how to look at a soul as a whole. All his life he is full of fear, filled with convulsions and pains—if he really does resemble the condition of the city he rules. And he does resemble it, doesn’t he?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“And on top of this we’ll also attribute to the man what we said earlier: that he is bound to be, and through his rule to become even more than before, envious, untrustworthy, unjust, friendless, impious, a host and nurse to every kind of badness; and that as a result of all this he is, first, supremely unfortunate himself, and then makes those near him like himself.”

“No one with any sense,” he said, “will contradict you.”

“Come then,” I said. “Now, just as the judge of the final round 580b declares his verdict, you too decide who in your opinion is first in happiness, who second, and the others in order—there are five of them: the kingly, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, the tyrannical.”

“The judgment’s easy,” he said. “I rank them like choruses, in the order they came on stage, in excellence and badness, and in happiness and its opposite.”note

“Then shall we hire a herald,” I said, “or shall I proclaim it myself: that the son of Ariston has judged the best and most just man to be the happiest, 580c and that this is the most kingly man, who rules as king over himself; and that the worst and most unjust man is the most wretched, and that this happens to be the man who, being most tyrannical, is most completely a tyrant over himself and over the city?”

“Consider it proclaimed,” he said.

“And shall I add to the proclamation,” I said, “‘whether or not all men and gods notice what they are’?”

“Add it,” he said.note

“Well then,” I said, “that would be our first proof. 580d Now look at this second one and see if you think there’s anything in it.”

“What is it?”

“Since the soul of each individual,” I said, “is divided in three, just as the city was divided into three classes, it will admit, I think, of another proof as well.”

“What is it?”

“This. Since there are three parts, there appear to me to be three kinds of pleasure too, one proper to each; and likewise three kinds of desire and of rule.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“One part, we said, was that with which a person learns, and another that with which he feels anger. The third, because it takes so many forms, we couldn’t call by any one name 580e of its own, so we named it after the biggest and strongest thing in it.

“We called it the appetitive part because of the intensity of its appetites for food and drink and sex and everything that goes with them; and we also called it money-loving, since it’s above all by means of money that 581a appetites like these are fulfilled.”

“And rightly so,” he said.

“So if we also said that its pleasure and its love are for profit, wouldn’t that be the best way to pin it down under a single heading in our argument, so that it would be clear to us what we meant whenever we spoke of this part of the soul? And wouldn’t we be right to call it money-loving and profit-loving?”

“I think so, anyway,” he said.

“And what about the spirited part? Don’t we say it’s always wholly set on control and victory and good repute?” 581b

“Very much so.”

“So if we called it victory-loving and honor-loving, would that be apt?”

“Most apt.”

“And as for the part with which we learn, it’s obvious to everyone that it is always wholly straining to know the truth of how things are, and that of the three it cares least about money and reputation.”

“By far.”

“Then would we be right to call it learning-loving and wisdom-loving?”

“Of course.”

“And in some people’s souls,” I said, “it is 581c this part that rules, while in others it’s one of the other two, whichever it happens to be?”

“That’s right,” he said.

“And that’s why we say there are also three primary kinds of people: the philosophic, the victory-loving, the profit-loving?”

“Exactly.”

“And three kinds of pleasure too, one underlying each of them?”

“Certainly.”

“Now you know,” I said, “that if you were to ask three such people in turn which of these lives is the most pleasant, each would praise his own above the rest? The 581d moneymaker will say that, compared with making a profit, the pleasure of being honored or of learning is worth nothing, unless it makes him some money?”

“True,” he said.

“And what about the honor-lover?” I said. “Doesn’t he regard the pleasure that comes from money as rather vulgar, and the pleasure of learning, except insofar as learning brings honor, as so much smoke and nonsense?”

“That’s how it is,” he said.

“And the philosopher,” I said, “what should we suppose he thinks of the other 581e pleasures, compared with the pleasure of knowing the truth as it is, and of always being in some such state as he goes on learning? Doesn’t he think they fall far short of that pleasure? And doesn’t he call them necessary in the literal sense, since he’d have no need of any of them if necessity didn’t require it?”

“We can be sure of that,” he said.

“Then since the pleasures of each type, and their very lives, are in dispute—not over which way of living is finer or more shameful, or better or worse, but over which is actually 582a more pleasant and less painful—how could we know which of them is speaking most truly?”

“I can’t really say,” he said.

“Well, look at it this way. By what should things be judged if they’re to be judged well? Isn’t it by experience and understanding and reason? Or could anyone have a better criterion than these?”

“How could he?” he said.

“Consider, then. Of the three men, which has the most experience of all the pleasures we mentioned? Does the profit-lover, by learning what truth itself is like, seem to you to have more experience of the 582b pleasure of knowing than the philosopher has of the pleasure of profit?”

“There’s a great difference,” he said. “The philosopher can’t help tasting the other pleasures, starting in childhood. But the profit-lover, when he learns the nature of the things that are, has no need to taste this pleasure and find out how sweet it is, or to gain experience of it; in fact, even if he were eager to, it wouldn’t be easy.”

“So the philosopher far surpasses the profit-lover,” I said, “in experience of both pleasures.” 582c

“Far more, certainly.”

“And what about the honor-lover? Does the philosopher have less experience of the pleasure of being honored than the honor-lover has of the pleasure of understanding?”

“Well, honor,” he said, “comes to all of them, if each accomplishes what he has set out to do—the rich man is honored by many, and so are the brave man and the wise one—so all of them have experience of what the pleasure of being honored is like. But what pleasure there is in beholding what is, no one but the philosopher can have tasted.” 582d

“So as far as experience goes,” I said, “he’s the best judge of the three.”

“By far.”

“And he alone will have gained his experience together with understanding.”

“Certainly.”

“Moreover, the instrument by which things must be judged belongs not to the profit-lover or the honor-lover, but to the philosopher.”

“What instrument?”

“We said, I think, that they must be judged by means of arguments. Didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

“And arguments are above all his instrument.”

“Of course.”

“Now if the things under 582e judgment were best judged by wealth and profit, what the profit-lover praised and disparaged would necessarily be the truest.”

“Quite necessarily.”

“And if by honor and victory and courage, wouldn’t it be what the honor-lover and victory-lover praised?”

“Clearly.”

“But since it’s by experience and understanding and reason?”

“Then necessarily,” he said, “what the philosopher and lover of reason praises is truest.”

“So of the three pleasures, the pleasure of the part of the soul with which we learn would be the most pleasant, and the life of the one among us in whom this part rules would be the most pleasant?”

“How could it not be?” he said. “The man of understanding, at any rate, speaks with authority when he praises his own life.”

“And which life,” I said, “and which pleasure does the judge put second?”

“Clearly the warrior’s, the honor-lover’s, since it’s closer to his own than the moneymaker’s is.”

“And last, it seems, the profit-lover’s.”

“Of course,” he said. 583b

“So that makes two in a row, and twice the just man has beaten the unjust. Now for the third, Olympic-style, to Zeus the Savior and Olympian: note that, apart from the pleasure of the man of understanding, the pleasure of the others isn’t wholly true or pure, but a kind of shadow-painting, as I think I’ve heard from one of the wise. And yet this would be the greatest and most decisive of the falls.”

“By far. But what do you mean?” 583c

“I’ll find it out,” I said, “if I search while you answer.”

“Ask away, then,” he said.note

“Tell me, then,” I said. “Don’t we say that pain is the opposite of pleasure?”

“Certainly.”

“And that there is such a thing as feeling neither enjoyment nor pain?”

“There is.”

“Lying in the middle between the two—a kind of calm of the soul with respect to them? Or isn’t that how you’d put it?”

“That’s how,” he said.

“Now do you remember,” I said, “what sick people say when they’re ill?”

“What?”

“That nothing, it turns out, is more pleasant than being healthy, but that 583d before they fell ill they hadn’t noticed it was the most pleasant thing.”

“I remember,” he said.

“And you hear people in severe pain saying that nothing is more pleasant than for the pain to stop?”

“I do.”

“And I think you notice people in many other situations like these, where, when they’re in pain, it’s not feeling pain, and the calm that comes with it, that they praise as most pleasant—not enjoyment.”

“Yes,” he said, “because at such times, perhaps, calm does become pleasant and welcome.” 583e

“And so when someone stops enjoying himself,” I said, “the calm after pleasure will be painful.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“So what we said just now lay between the two—the calm—will at times be both, pain and pleasure.”

“It seems so.”

“But can what is neither become both?”

“I don’t think so.”

“And further, pleasure and pain, when they arise in the soul, are both a kind of motion, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“And didn’t what is neither painful nor pleasant turn out just now to be a calm, lying in the middle between these two?”

“It did.”

“Then how can it be right to think that not being in pain is pleasant, or that not enjoying oneself is distressing?”

“It can’t.”

“So it isn’t so,” I said. “Rather, the calm at such times appears pleasant beside what is painful, and painful beside what is pleasant, and there’s nothing sound in these appearances as regards the truth about pleasure; it’s a kind of sorcery.”

“So the argument indicates, at any rate,” he said. 584b

“Then look at pleasures that don’t come out of pains,” I said, “so that you won’t happen to suppose, in the present case, that it’s the nature of things for pleasure to be the cessation of pain, and pain the cessation of pleasure.”

“Where are these,” he said, “and which pleasures do you mean?”

“There are many others,” I said, “but consider especially, if you like, the pleasures of smell. These arise suddenly, with no prior pain, and are of extraordinary intensity, and when they stop they leave no pain behind.”

“Very true,” he said. 584c

“Then let’s not be persuaded that release from pain is pure pleasure, or that release from pleasure is pain.”

“No, let’s not.”

“And yet,” I said, “the so-called pleasures that reach the soul through the body—pretty much the most numerous and the greatest of them—are of this kind: releases of some sort from pain.”

“Yes, they are.”

“And the anticipatory pleasures and pains that arise from expecting these things beforehand are the same way?”

“The same.” 584d

“Now do you know,” I said, “what they’re like, and what they most resemble?”

“What?” he said.

“Do you think,” I said, “that in nature there is an up, a down, and a middle?”

“I do.”

“Then do you think that someone being carried from down below to the middle would think anything other than that he was being carried up? And standing in the middle and looking back at where he’d been carried from, would he think he was anywhere but up, never having seen what is truly up?”

“By Zeus,” he said, “I don’t think such a person would think anything else.” 584e

“And if he were carried back again,” I said, “he’d think he was being carried down, and he’d be right?”

“Of course.”

“And he’d go through all this because he has no experience of what is truly up and middle and down?”

“Clearly.”

“Then would you be surprised if people without experience of truth, just as they hold unsound opinions about many other things, are also so disposed toward pleasure and pain and what lies between them that when they’re carried to the 585a painful, they think truly and really are in pain; but when they’re carried from pain to the middle, they firmly believe they’re arriving at fulfillment and pleasure? Like people who, having no experience of white, look at gray against black, they look at painlessness against pain and are deceived, having no experience of pleasure.”

“By Zeus,” he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised—I’d be much more surprised if it weren’t so.”

“Well, think of it this way,” I said. “Aren’t hunger and thirst and the 585b like kinds of emptiness in the condition of the body?”

“Of course.”

“And aren’t ignorance and folly, in turn, emptiness in the condition of the soul?”

“Very much so.”

“And the one who takes in food and the one who acquires understanding are both filled?”

“Of course.”

“And is the truer filling with what has less being, or with what has more?”

“Clearly with what has more.”

“Then which kinds of things do you think have a greater share in pure being: things like bread and drink and relish and all nourishment, or the kind that consists of true opinion and knowledge and understanding and, 585c in sum, all excellence? Judge it this way. What is bound up with what is always the same, and immortal, and with truth, and is itself of that sort and comes to be in something of that sort—does that seem to you to have more being than what is bound up with what is never the same, and mortal, and is itself of that sort and comes to be in something of that sort?”

“What is bound up with what is always the same,” he said, “is far superior.”

“Then does the being of what is always the same have any more share in being than in knowledge?”

“Not at all.”

“What about truth?”

“Not in that either.”

“And if it had less share in truth, wouldn’t it have less in being too?”

“Necessarily.” 585d

“So in general, don’t the kinds of things that serve the care of the body have less share in truth and being than those that serve the care of the soul?”

“Much less.”

“And don’t you think the same holds of the body itself compared with the soul?”

“I do.”

“And isn’t what is filled with things that have more being, and has more being itself, more really filled than what is filled with things that have less being and has less being itself?”

“Of course.”

“So if being filled with what suits one’s nature is pleasant, then what is more really filled, and with things that have more being, would make one more 585e really and truly enjoy a true pleasure; while what takes in things that have less being would be less truly and less securely filled, and would get a share of a less trustworthy and less true pleasure.”

“Quite necessarily,” he said.

“So those without experience of understanding and excellence, who are always busy with feasting and the like, are carried down, it seems, and then back up as far as the middle, and they wander this way all their lives. They’ve never passed beyond this to what is truly up—never looked up at it or been carried there—never been filled with what really is, and never tasted secure and pure pleasure. Instead, like cattle, always looking down, heads bent to the ground and to their tables, they graze, fattening themselves and mating; 586b and in their greed for more of these things they kick and butt one another with horns and hooves of iron, and kill each other because they can never be satisfied, since they don’t fill the real part of themselves, the part that can hold them, with things that are real.”

“Socrates,” said Glaucon, “you’re describing the life of the many exactly, like an oracle.”

“Then aren’t they bound to live with pleasures mixed with pains—phantoms of true pleasure, shadow-paintings, 586c colored by being set beside one another, so that each seems intense—and to breed mad passions for themselves in the foolish, and to be fought over, just as Stesichorus says the phantom of Helen was fought over by the men at Troy, in ignorance of the truth?”

“Something like that,” he said, “is quite inevitable.”note

“And what about the spirited part? Isn’t the same sort of thing bound to happen to anyone who gives it full play—through envy prompted by love of honor, or violence prompted by love of victory, or anger prompted by bad temper— 586d pursuing his fill of honor and victory and anger without reasoning or understanding?”

“The same sort of thing,” he said, “is bound to happen with this part too.”

“Well then,” I said, “may we confidently say that even the desires connected with the profit-loving and victory-loving parts, if they follow knowledge and reason and pursue with them the pleasures that the part with understanding directs them to, will obtain the truest pleasures, so far as they can obtain true ones, 586e since they follow truth—and the pleasures that are their own, if what is best for each thing is also most its own?”

“It certainly is most its own,” he said.

“So when the whole soul follows the philosophic part and isn’t in conflict with itself, each part can do its own work in every other respect and be just, and in particular each can enjoy its own pleasures, the best pleasures and, so far as possible, the 587a truest.”

“Exactly.”

“But when one of the other parts gains control, the result is that it can’t find its own pleasure, and it compels the other parts to pursue a pleasure that is alien to them and not true.”

“That’s so,” he said.

“And wouldn’t what stands furthest from philosophy and reason be most likely to produce such effects?”

“By far.”

“And isn’t what stands furthest from reason what stands furthest from law and order?”

“Clearly.”

“And didn’t the erotic and 587b tyrannical desires turn out to stand furthest off?”

“By far.”

“And the kingly and orderly ones least far?”

“Yes.”

“Then the tyrant, I think, will stand furthest from true pleasure, the pleasure that is his own, and the king least far.”

“Necessarily.”

“And so the tyrant will live most unpleasantly,” I said, “and the king most pleasantly.”

“Quite necessarily.”

“Then do you know,” I said, “how much more unpleasantly the tyrant lives than the king?”

“I will if you tell me,” he said.

“There are three pleasures, it seems: one genuine and two 587c bastard. The tyrant has gone beyond the bastard ones to the far side, fleeing law and reason, and lives with certain slavish pleasures as his bodyguard. Just how much worse off he is isn’t at all easy to say, except perhaps this way.”

“How?” he said.

“The tyrant stood third from the oligarchic man, I think, since the democratic man was between them.”

“Yes.”

“Then if what we said before is true, the phantom of pleasure he lives with would also be third from the oligarch’s in point of truth?”

“That’s right.”

“And the oligarchic man in turn is third from the kingly one, if 587d we count the aristocratic and the kingly as the same.”

“Yes, third.”

“So the tyrant stands removed from true pleasure,” I said, “by a number that is three times three.”

“It seems so.”

“Then the phantom of tyrannical pleasure, it seems,” I said, “would be a plane figure, as measured by the number of its length.”

“Exactly.”

“And by squaring and then raising to the third dimension, it’s clear how great a distance separates him.”

“It’s clear,” he said, “to someone good at calculating, anyway.”

“So if someone turns it around and says how far the king 587e stands from the tyrant in truth of pleasure, he’ll find, when the multiplication is complete, that the king lives seven hundred and twenty-nine times more pleasantly, and the tyrant more painfully by that same distance.”

“What a staggering calculation you’ve heaped up,” he said, “of the difference 588a between the two men, the just and the unjust, in pleasure and pain!”

“And yet it’s a true number,” I said, “and one that fits their lives, if days and nights and months and years fit them.”

“They certainly do,” he said.note

“So if the good and just man beats the bad and unjust man by that much in pleasure, won’t he beat him by an incalculably greater margin in grace of life, and in beauty and excellence?”

“Incalculably greater, by Zeus,” he said. 588b

“Well then,” I said, “since we’ve reached this point in the argument, let’s take up again what was said at the start, which brought us here. It was said, I think, that injustice pays for someone who is completely unjust but has a reputation for justice. Or wasn’t that how it was put?”

“It certainly was.”

“Then let’s talk with the man who said it,” I said, “now that we’ve agreed on the power that doing injustice and doing just things each have.”

“That’s a job for a skilled sculptor,” he said. “Still, since words are easier to mold than wax and the like, consider it molded.”

“Now mold one other shape, a lion’s, and one of a human being. Let the first be by far the largest, and the second second.”

“Those are easier,” he said, “and they’re molded.”

“Now join the three into one, so that they somehow grow together with one another.”

“They’re joined,” he said.

“Now mold around them on the outside the image of one of them, the human being, so that to anyone who can’t see what’s inside, but sees only the 588e outer shell, it looks like a single creature, a human being.”

“It’s molded around them,” he said.

“Then let’s tell whoever says it pays this human being to do wrong, and that doing just things doesn’t benefit him, that he is saying nothing other than this: that it pays him to feast the many-sided beast and make it strong, and the lion and all that belongs to the lion too, while he starves 589a the human being and makes him weak, so that he gets dragged wherever either of the other two leads; and that he shouldn’t accustom them to one another or make them friends, but leave them to bite each other and fight and devour one another.”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what someone who praises doing wrong would be saying.”

“And on the other hand, someone who says that just things pay would say that we must do and say whatever will give the human being within the fullest 589b mastery over the whole person. He’ll take charge of the many-headed creature like a farmer, nurturing and taming the gentle parts and preventing the wild ones from growing, making the lion’s nature his ally; and caring for them all in common, making them friends with one another and with himself, that’s how he’ll raise them. Isn’t that so?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what someone who praises justice says.”

“So in every way the one who praises just things would be telling the truth, 589c and the one who praises unjust things would be lying. Whether you look at it with an eye to pleasure, or to good reputation, or to benefit, the praiser of justice speaks the truth, while the one who finds fault with it says nothing sound, and doesn’t even know what he’s finding fault with.”

“No,” he said, “it seems to me he doesn’t, not in any way.”

“Then let’s persuade him gently—he isn’t going wrong willingly—by asking him: ‘My dear fellow, wouldn’t we say that what custom counts as fine and shameful came to be so for reasons like these? The fine is what puts the bestial parts of our nature under 589d the human being, or rather perhaps under the divine; the shameful is what enslaves the gentle to the wild.’ Will he agree, or what?”

“He will,” he said, “if he takes my advice.”

“Is there anyone, then,” I said, “whom it profits, on this account, to take gold unjustly, if what happens is something like this: in taking the gold he at the same time enslaves the best part of himself 589e to the most wicked? If taking gold meant enslaving his son or daughter, and to savage and wicked men at that, it wouldn’t profit him, however much he got for it. But if he enslaves the most divine part of himself to the most godless and foul, and feels no pity, isn’t he wretched? Isn’t he taking a bribe of gold for a far 590a more terrible ruin than Eriphyle did when she accepted the necklace in return for her husband’s life?”note

“Far more terrible,” said Glaucon. “I’ll answer for him.”

“And don’t you think licentiousness has long been condemned for reasons like these, because in someone like that the terrible thing, that great and many-formed creature, is let loose more than it should be?”

“Clearly,” he said.

“And aren’t stubbornness and bad temper condemned when the lion-like and 590b snake-like part grows and is strung too tight, out of tune?”

“Certainly.”

“And aren’t luxury and softness condemned for slackening and loosening this same part, when they produce cowardice in it?”

“Of course.”

“And flattery and servility? Aren’t they condemned when someone puts this same part, the spirited part, under the mob-like beast, and lets it be dragged through the mud for the sake of money and that beast’s insatiable greed, training it from youth to become an ape instead of a lion?” 590c

“Very much so,” he said.

“And why do you think manual labor and handicraft bring reproach? Shall we say it’s for any reason other than that the best part in someone is naturally weak, so that he can’t rule the creatures inside him, but only serve them, and can learn nothing but how to flatter them?”

“So it seems,” he said.

“So isn’t this why, in order that someone like that may also be ruled by the same sort of thing that rules the best person, we say he must be the slave of that best person, 590d the one who has the divine ruling within himself? It isn’t that we think he should be ruled to the slave’s harm, as Thrasymachus thought about those who are ruled. It’s that it is better for everyone to be ruled by what is divine and wise—ideally having it as his own within himself, but otherwise set over him from outside—so that, as far as possible, we may all be alike and friends, steered by the same thing.”

“Yes, and rightly,” he said. 590e

“And the law, too,” I said, “makes it clear that this is what it wants, since it is the ally of everyone in the city.

“So does our rule over children. We don’t let them be free until we have set up a constitution in them, as in a city, and, having nurtured the best part 591a in them with the corresponding part in us, have put in place a similar guardian and ruler within them to take its place. Only then do we set them free.”

“Yes, it makes that clear,” he said.

“Then how, Glaucon, and on what argument, shall we say that it profits a person to do wrong, or be licentious, or do something shameful, when it will make him worse, even if he gains more money or some other kind of power?”

“In no way,” he said.

“And how could it profit him to do wrong without being caught, and not pay the penalty? 591b Doesn’t the one who escapes detection become even worse, while in the one who is caught and punished the bestial part is lulled to sleep and tamed, and the gentle part set free? And doesn’t his whole soul, settling into its best nature, acquire a more valuable condition—gaining moderation and justice together with understanding—than a body does when it gains strength and beauty together with health, more valuable by as much as the soul is more valuable than the body?”

“Absolutely,” he said. 591c

“So a person with sense will direct all his efforts to this as long as he lives, won’t he? First he’ll value the studies that will make his soul like this, and think little of the rest.”

“Clearly,” he said.

“Next,” I said, “far from handing over the condition and nourishment of his body to bestial, irrational pleasure and living with his face turned that way, he won’t even look to health, or make it his priority to be strong or healthy or good-looking, unless 591d he’s also going to become moderate as a result. He’ll always be seen tuning the harmony in his body for the sake of the concord in his soul.”

“Absolutely,” he said, “if he really means to be a true musician.”

“And the order and concord in acquiring money too?” I said. “Will he be dazzled by what the many call happiness, and increase the mass of his wealth without limit, taking on limitless troubles?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. 591e

“Instead,” I said, “he’ll keep his eyes on the constitution within himself, and guard against disturbing anything in it through having too much property or too little. Steering in this way, he’ll add to his property and spend from it as far as he can.”

“Quite so,” he said.

“And as for honors, too, he’ll keep his eyes on the same thing. He’ll gladly share in and taste those he thinks will make him better, and he’ll avoid, in private and in public, any he thinks would undo the condition he has.”

“Then he won’t be willing to take part in politics,” he said, “if that’s what he cares about.”

“By the dog,” I said, “he certainly will, in his own city at least—though perhaps not in his native country, unless some divine chance comes about.”