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Start listening today at P-O-D-C-A-S-T-L-I-D-R-A-R-Y.org. Look for something worth hearing. Start listening today at P-O-D-C-A-S-T-L-I-D-R-A-R-Y.org. Book one, part one.
I went down yesterday to the Paris with Glaucon, the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess, Bendis, the Thracian Artemis. And also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing. I was delighted with the procession of the inhabitants, but that of the Thracians was equally, if not more, beautiful. When we had finished our prayers and viewed this spectacle, we turned in the direction of the city, and at that instance, Paul and Marcus, the son of Cephalus, chanced to catch sight of us from a distance as we were starting on our way home, and told his servant to run and bid us wait for him.
The servant took hold of me by the cloak behind, and said, Paul and Marcus desires you to wait. I turned round and asked him where his master was. There he is, said the youth, coming after you if you will only wait. Certainly we will, said Glaucon, and after a few minutes, Paul and Marcus peered, and with him Adamantis, Glaucon's brother, Nicaratus, the son of Nicius, and several others who had been at the procession.
Paul and Marcus said to me, I perceive Socrates that you and your companion are already on your way to the city. You are not far wrong, I said. What do you see he rejoined, how many we are? Of course.
And are you stronger than all these? For if not, you will have to remain where you are. May there not be the alternative I said that we may persuade you to let us go. But can you persuade us if we refuse to listen to you, he said?
Certainly not, replied Glaucon. Then we are not going to listen, of that you may be assured. Adamantis added, As no one told you of the torture ace on horseback in honor of the goddess, which will take place in the evening, With horses I replied, that is a novelty. Will horsemen carry tortures and pass them one to another during the race?
Yes, said Paul and Marcus, and not only so, but a festival will be celebrated at night, which you certainly ought to see. Let us rise soon after supper and see this festival. There will be a gathering of young men, and we will have a good talk. Stay then and do not be perverse.
Glaucon said, I suppose, since you insist, that we must. Very good, I replied. Accordingly we went with Paul and Marcus to his house, and then we found his brothers, Lizzius and Euthadimus, and with them Frasimakis, the Chalcedonian, Trimantides, the Puneon, and Klytophon, the son of Aristoninus. There was too, Cephalus, the father of Paul and Marcus, whom I had not seen for a long time, and I thought him very much aged.
He was seated on a cushioned chair, and had a garland on his head, for he had been sacrificing in the court. And there were some other chairs in the room arranged in a semicircle upon which we sat down by him. He saluted me eagerly, and then he said, You don't come to see me, Socrates, as often as you ought. If I were still able to go and see you, I would not ask you to come to me.
But at my age I can hardly get to the city, and therefore you should come oftener to the Pereus, for let me tell you that the more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. Do not then deny my request, but make our house your resort and keep company with these young men. We are old friends, and you will be quite at home with us. I replied, there is nothing which from my part I like better selfless than conversing with aged men, for I regard them as travelers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy or rugged and difficult, and this is a question which I should like to ask of you who have arrived at that time which the poets call the threshold of old age.
Is life harder towards the end, or what report do you give of it? "'I will tell you,' Socrates,' he said, "'what my own feeling is.' "'Men of my age flock together. We are birds of a feather,' as the old proverb says, "'and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is. I cannot eat, I cannot drink.
The pleasures of youth and love are fled away. There was a good time once, but now that is gone and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. But to me, Socrates, these complainers seem to blame that which is not really in fault, for if old age were the cause, I too being old and every other old man would have felt as they do.
But this is not my own experience, nor that of others whom I have known. How well I remember the aged poet Sophocles when in answer to the question, how does love suit with age? Sophocles, are you still the man you were? Peace,' he replied, most gladly have I escaped the thing of which you speak.
I feel as if I had escaped from a mad and furious master. His words have occurred to my mind since, and they seem as good to me now as at the time when he uttered them, for certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom. When the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp, not of one mad master only but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers.
For he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition, youth and age are equally a burden. I listened in admiration and wanting to draw him out that he might go on. Yes, Sophocles, I said, but I rather suspect that people in general are not convinced by you when you speak thus. They think that old age sits lightly upon you not because of your happy disposition, but because you are rich and wealth is well known to be a great comforter.
You are right, he replied, they are not convinced, and there is something in what they say. Not, however, so much as they imagine. I might answer them as Themistocles answered the Serbian who was abusing him and saying that he was famous, not for his own merits, but because he was an Athenian. If you had been a native of my country or I of yours, neither of us would have been famous.
And to those who are not rich and are impatient of old age, the same reply may be made, for to the good poor man old age cannot be a light burden, nor can a bad rich man ever have peace with himself. May I ask, Sophocles, whether your fortune was for the most part inherited or acquired by you. Acquired? Socrates, do you want to know how much I acquired?
In the art of making money I have been midway between my father and grandfather, for my grandfather whose name I bear, doubled and trebled the value of his patrimony, that which he inherited being much what I possess now. But my father, Lysani, has reduced the property below what it is at present, and I shall be satisfied if I leave to these my sons not less but a little more than I received. That is why I ask you the question, I reply, because I see that you are indifferent about money which is a characteristic rather of those who have inherited their fortunes than of those who have acquired them. The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit which is common to them and all men.
And hence they are very bad company for they can't talk about anything but the praises of wealth. That is true, he said. Yes, that is very true, but may I ask another question. What do you consider to be the greatest blessing which you have reached from your wealth?
One, he said, of which I could not expect easily to convince others. For let me tell you, Socrates, that when a man thinks himself to be near death, fears and cares enter into his mind which he never had before. The tales of a world below and punishment which is exactly there of deeds done here were once a laughing matter to him, but now he is tormented with the thought that they may be true, either from the weakness of age, or because he is now drawing nearer to that other place, he has a clearer view of these things. Suspicions at the larm crowd thickly upon him, and he begins to reflect and consider what wrongs he has done to others.
And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great, he will many a time like a child, hard-hopping his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings. But to him who is conscious of no sin, sweet hope, as Pindar charmingly says, is the kind nurse of his age. Hope, he says, cherishes the soul of him who lives in justice and holiness, and is the nurse of his age and the companion of his journey. Hope, which is the mightiest, to sway the restless soul of man.
How admirable are his words, and the great blessing of riches I do not say to every man, but to a good man, is, that he has no occasion to deceive or to defraud others, either intentionally or unintentionally, and when he departs to the world below he is not in any apprehension about offerings due to the gods, or debts which he owes to men. Now to this peace of mind the possession of wealth greatly contributes, and therefore I say that, setting one thing against another, of the many advantages which wealth has to give to a man of sense, this is, in my opinion, the greatest. Well said, Seflis, I replied, but as concerning justice, what is it? To speak the truth and to pay your debts, no more than this?
And even to this are there not exceptions? Was that a friend, when in his right mind has deposited arms with me, and he asks for them when he is not in his right mind, ought I to give them back to him? No one would say that I ought, or that I should be right in doing so, any more than he would say that I ought always to speak the truth, and to one who is in his condition. You are quite right, he replied.
But then I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonades is to be believed, said Paul-Markus interposing. I fear, said Seflis, that I must go now, for I have to look after the sacrifices, and I hand over the argument to Paul-Markus and the company. It is not, Paul-Markus, your heir?
I said. To be sure, he answered, and went away laughing to the sacrifices. Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonades say, and according to you truly say, about justice? He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.
I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me, for he certainly does not mean, as we were just now saying, that I ought to return a deposit of arms, or anything else, to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses, and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt. True. Then, when the person who asks me is not in his right mind, I am by no means to make the return. Certainly not.
When Simonades said that the repayment of a debt was justice, he did not mean to include that case? Certainly not, for he thinks that a friend ought always to do good to a friend, and never evil. It means that the return of a deposit of gold which is to the injury of the receiver, if the two parties are friends, is not the repayment of a debt. That is what you would imagine him to say?
Yes. And are enemies also to receive what we owe to them? To be sure, he said, they are to receive what we owe them. And an enemy, as I take it, owes to an enemy, that which is due or proper to him.
That is to say, evil. Simonades then, after the matter of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice, for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him. And this he termed a debt. That must have been his meaning, he said.
By heaven, I replied, and if we ask him what do or proper thing is given by medicine and to whom, what answer do you think that he would make to us? He would surely reply that medicine gives drugs and meat and drink to human bodies. And what do or proper thing is given by cookery, and to what? Seasoning to food.
And what is that which justice gives, and to whom? If Socrates were to be guided at all by the analogy of the preceding instances, then justice is the art which gives good to friends and evil to enemies. That is his meaning, then? I think so.
And who is best able to do good to his friends and evil to his enemies in time of sickness? The physician. Or when they are on a voyage amid the perils of the sea? The pilot.
And in what sort of actions are with a view to what result is the just man able to do harm to his enemy and good to his friend? In going to war against the one and in making alliances with the other? But when a man is well, my dear Polymarcus, there is no need of a physician? No.
And he who is not on a voyage has no need of a pilot? No. Then in time of peace, justice will be of no use. And I am very far from thinking so.
You think that justice may be of use in peace as well as in war? Yes. Or like husbandry for the acquisition of corn? Yes.
Or like shoemaking for the acquisition of shoes. That is what you mean? Yes. And what similar use or power of acquisition has justice in time of peace?
In contracts, Socrates' justice is of use. And by contracts you mean partnerships? Exactly. But is the just man or the skillful player a more useful and better partner to give him the drafts?
The skillful player? And in the laying of bricks and stones is the just man a more useful or better partner than the builder? Quite the reverse. Then in what sort of partnership is the just man a better partner than the harp player?
As in playing the harp, the harp player is certainly a better partner than the just man. In a money partnership? Yes, Polymarcus, but surely not in the use of money, for you do not want a justice man to be your counselor in the purchase or sale of a horse. A man who is knowing about horses would be better for that, would he not?
Certainly. And when you want to buy a ship, the shipwright or the pilot would be better? True. Then what is that joint use of silver or gold in which the just man is to be preferred?
When you want to deposit to be kept safely? You mean when money is not wanted but allowed to lie? Precisely. That is to say, justice is useful when money is useless.
That is the inference. And when you want to keep a pruning hook safe, then justice is useful to the individual and to the state, but when you want to use it, then the art of the vine-dresser. Clearly. And when you want to keep a shield or a liar but not to use them, you would say that justice is useful, but when you want to use them, then the art of the soldier or the musician.
Certainly. And so of all other things, justice is useful when they are useless and useless when they are useful. That is the inference. Then justice is not good for much.
End of book one, part one.