(392) about men poets and story-tellers are guilty of making the gravest misstatements when they tell us that wicked men are often happy, and the good miserable; and that injustice is profitable when undetected, but that justice is a man’s own loss and another’s gain—these things we shall forbid them to utter, and command them to sing and say the opposite. To be sure we shall, he replied. But if you admit that I am right in this, then I shall maintain that you have implied the principle for which we have been all along contending. I grant the truth of your inference. That such things are or are not to be said about men is a question which we cannot determine until we have discovered what justice is, and how naturally advantageous to the possessor, whether he seem to be just or not. Most true, he said. Enough of the subjects of poetry: let us now speak of the style; and when this has been considered, both matter and manner will have been completely treated. I do not understand what you mean, said Adeimantus. Then I must make you understand; and perhaps I may be more intelligible if I put the matter in this way. You are aware, I suppose, that all mythology and poetry is a narration of events, either past, present, or to come? Certainly, he replied. And narration may be either simple narration, or imitation, or a union of the two? That again, he said, I do not quite understand. I fear that I must be a ridiculous teacher when I have so much difficulty in making myself apprehended. Like a bad speaker, therefore, I will not take the whole of the subject,

(4) This chapter contains one of those threats (of which there are other instances) made to the gods. The speaker is in fact so identified with divinity that any evil which happens to him must be conceived as involving the same calamity to the gods and to the universe

(380) ‘God plants guilt among men when he desires utterly to destroy a house.’ And if a poet writes of the sufferings of Niobe—the subject of the tragedy in which these iambic verses occur—or of the house of Pelops, or of the Trojan war or on any similar theme, either we must not permit him to say that these are the works of God, or if they are of God, he must devise some explanation of them such as we are seeking; he must say that God did what was just and right, and they were the better for being punished; but that those who are punished are miserable, and that God is the author of their misery—the poet is not to be permitted to say; though he may say that the wicked are miserable because they require to be punished, and are benefited by receiving punishment from God; but that God being good is the author of evil to any one is to be strenuously denied, and not to be said or sung or heard in verse or prose by any one whether old or young in any well-ordered commonwealth. Such a fiction is suicidal, ruinous, impious. I agree with you, he replied, and am ready to give my assent to the law. Let this then be one of our rules and principles concerning the gods, to which our poets and reciters will be expected to conform,—that God is not the author of all things, but of good only. That will do, he said.

(388) men to me, subdued at the hands of Patroclus the son of Menoetius 13 .’ 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 14 .’ On your views, we must not admit them. On my views, if you like to father them on me; that we

(363) upon them the punishments which Glaucon described as the portion of the just who are reputed to be unjust; nothing else does their invention supply. Such is their manner of praising the one and censuring the other. Once more, Socrates, I will ask you to consider another way of speaking about justice and injustice, which is not confined to the poets, but is found in prose writers. The universal voice of mankind is always declaring that justice and virtue are honourable, but grievous and toilsome; and that the pleasures of vice and injustice are easy of attainment, and are only censured by law and opinion. They say also that honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty; and they are quite ready to call wicked men happy, and to honour them both in public and private when they are rich or in any other way influential, while they despise and overlook those who may be weak and poor, even though acknowledging them to be better than the others. But most extraordinary of all is their mode of speaking about virtue and the gods: they say that the gods apportion calamity and misery to many good men, and good and happiness to the wicked. And mendicant prophets go to rich men’s doors and persuade them that they have a power committed to them by the gods of making an atonement for a man’s own or his ancestor’s

(388) 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 8 , 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 9 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 10 .’ 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 11 .’ 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 12 .’ Or again:— ‘Woe is me that I am fated to have Sarpedon, dearest of

(1) THE yoni and phallus were worshiped by nearly all ancient peoples as appropriate symbols of God's creative power. The Garden of Eden, the Ark, the Gate of the Temple, the Veil of the Mysteries, the vesica piscis or oval nimbus, and the Holy Grail are important yonic symbols; the pyramid, the obelisk, the cone, the candle, the tower, the Celtic monolith, the spire, the campanile, the Maypole, and the Sacred Spear are symbolic of the phallus. In treating the subject of Priapic worship, too many modern authors judge pagan standards by their own and wallow in the mire of self-created vulgarity. The Eleusinian Mysteries--the greatest of all the ancient secret societies--established one of the highest known standards of morality and ethics, and those criticizing their use of phallic symbols should ponder the trenchant words of King Edward III, "Honi soit qui mal y pense."

(5) And all the Words of Power, and all the accusations which are uttered against me—the gods stand firm against them: the cycles of the gods unitedly

(11) And they made for selves molten images, and they worshipped each the idol, the molten image which they had made for \themselves, and they began to make graven images ind unclean simulacra, and malignant spirits assisted 3.v*;?v'v. knd seduced (them) into committing transgression land uncleanness.

(395) Neither are comic and tragic actors the same; yet all these things are but imitations. They are so. And human nature, Adeimantus, appears to have been coined into yet smaller pieces, and to be as incapable of imitating many things well, as of performing well the actions of which the imitations are copies. Quite true, he replied. If then we adhere to our original notion and bear in mind that our guardians, setting aside every other business, are to dedicate themselves wholly to the maintenance of freedom in the State, making this their craft, and engaging in no work which does not bear on this end, they ought not to practise or imitate anything else; if they imitate at all, they should imitate from youth upward only those characters which are suitable to their profession—the courageous, temperate, holy, free, and the like; but they should not depict or be skilful at imitating any kind of illiberality or baseness, lest from imitation they should come to be what they imitate. Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth and continuing far into life, at length grow into habits and become a second nature, affecting body, voice, and mind? Yes, certainly, he said. Then, I said, we will not allow those for whom we profess a care and of whom we say that they ought to be good men, to imitate a woman, whether young or old, quarrelling with her husband, or striving and vaunting against the gods in

(606) element to break loose because the sorrow is another’s; and the spectator fancies that there can be no disgrace to himself in praising and pitying any one who comes telling him what a good man he is, and making a fuss about his troubles; he thinks that the pleasure is a gain, and why should he be supercilious and lose this and the poem too? Few persons ever reflect, as I should imagine, that from the evil of other men something of evil is communicated to themselves. And so the feeling of sorrow which has gathered strength at the sight of the misfortunes of others is with difficulty repressed in our own. How very true! And does not the same hold also of the ridiculous? There are jests which you would be ashamed to make yourself, and yet on the comic stage, or indeed in private, when you hear them, you are greatly amused by them, and are not at all disgusted at their unseemliness;—the case of pity is repeated;—there is a principle in human nature which is disposed to raise a laugh, and this which you once restrained by reason, because you were afraid of being thought a buffoon, is now let out again; and having stimulated the risible faculty at the theatre, you are betrayed unconsciously to yourself into playing the comic poet at home. Quite true, he said. And the same may be said of lust and anger and all the other affections, of desire and pain and pleasure, which are held to be inseparable from every action—in all of them poetry feeds and waters the passions instead of drying them up; she lets them rule, although they ought to be controlled, if mankind are ever to increase in happiness and virtue. I cannot deny it.

(2) This, therefore, is nearly the cause of our aberration to a multitude of conceptions. For men being in reality unable to apprehend the reasons of sacred institutions, but conceiving that they are able, are wholly hurried away by their own human passions, and form a conjecture of divine concerns from things pertaining to themselves. In so doing, however, they err in a twofold respect; because they fall from divine natures; and because, being frustrated of these, they draw them down to human passions. But it is requisite not to apprehend after the same manner, things which are performed both to Gods and men, such as genuflexions, adorations, gifts, and first fruits, but to establish the one apart from the other, conformably to the difference between things more and things less honourable; and to reverence the former, indeed, as divine, but to despise the latter as human, and as performed to men. It is proper, likewise, to consider, that the latter produce passions, both in the performer and those to whom they are performed; for they are human and corporeal-formed; but to honour the energy of the former in a very high degree, as being performed through immutable admiration, and a venerable condition of mind, because they are referred to the Gods.

(364) sins by sacrifices or charms, with rejoicings and feasts; and they promise to harm an enemy, whether just or unjust, at a small cost; with magic arts and incantations binding heaven, as they say, to execute their will. And the poets are the authorities to whom they appeal, now smoothing the path of vice with the words of Hesiod;— ‘Vice may be had in abundance without trouble; the way is smooth and her dwelling-place is near. But before virtue the gods have set toil 6 ,’ and a tedious and uphill road: then citing Homer as a witness that the gods may be influenced by men; for he also says:— ‘The gods, too, may be turned from their purpose; and men pray to them and avert their wrath by sacrifices and soothing entreaties, and by libations and the odour of fat, when they have sinned and transgressed 7 .’ And they produce a host of books written by Musaeus and Orpheus, who were children of the Moon and the Muses—that is what they say—according to which they perform their ritual, and persuade not only individuals, but whole cities, that expiations and atonements for sin may be made by sacrifices and amusements which fill a vacant hour, and are equally at the service of the living and the dead; the latter

(20) And make not for yourselves molten or graven gods ; a For they are vanity, And there is no spirit in them ; For they are work of (men's) hands, And all who trust in them, trust in nothing. Serve them not, nor worship them,

(3) Each one her breast was rending with her nails; They beat them with their palms, and cried so loud, That I for dread pressed close unto the Poet. "Medusa come, so we to stone will change him!" All shouted looking down; "in evil hour Avenged we not on Theseus his assault!" "Turn thyself round, and keep thine eyes close shut, For if the Gorgon appear, and thou shouldst see it, No more returning upward would there be." Thus said the Master; and he turned me round Himself, and trusted not unto my hands So far as not to blind me with his own. O ye who have undistempered intellects, Observe the doctrine that conceals itself Beneath the veil of the mysterious verses! And now there came across the turbid waves The clangour of a sound with terror fraught, Because of which both of the margins trembled; Not otherwise it was than of a wind Impetuous on account of adverse heats, That smites the forest, and, without restraint, The branches rends, beats down, and bears away; Right onward, laden with dust, it goes superb, And puts to flight the wild beasts and the shepherds.

(1) Moreover, it is necessary to add the causes whence evils sometimes arise, and to show how many and of what kind they are. For the form of them is not simple; but, being various, is the leader of the generation of various evils. For if what we a little before said, concerning images and evil dæmons, who assume the appearance of Gods and good dæmons, is true, an abundant evil-producing tribe, about which a contrariety of this kind usually happens, will from hence appear to flow. For an evil dæmon requires that his worshipper should be just, because he assumes the appearance of one belonging to the divine genus; but he is subservient to what is unjust, because he is depraved. The same thing, likewise, that is said of good and evil may be asserted of the true and the false. As, therefore, in divinations we attribute true predictions to the Gods alone, but when we detect any falsehood in predictions we refer this to another genus of cause, viz. that of dæmons; thus, also, in things just and unjust, the beautiful and the just are to be alone ascribed to Gods and good dæmons; but such dæmons as are naturally depraved, perpetrate what is unjust and base. And that, indeed, which consents and accords with itself, and always subsists with invariable sameness, pertains to more excellent natures; but that which is hostile to itself, which is discordant, and never the same, is the peculiarity in the most eminent degree of dæmoniacal dissension, about which it is not at all wonderful that things of an opposing nature should subsist; but perhaps the very contrary, that this should not be the case, would be more wonderful.

(2) As unto those who are too reverential, Speaking in presence of superiors, Who drag no living utterance to their teeth, It me befell, that without perfect sound Began I: "My necessity, Madonna, You know, and that which thereunto is good." And she to me: "Of fear and bashfulness Henceforward I will have thee strip thyself, So that thou speak no more as one who dreams. Know that the vessel which the serpent broke Was, and is not; but let him who is guilty Think that God's vengeance does not fear a sop. Without an heir shall not for ever be The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car, Whence it became a monster, then a prey; For verily I see, and hence narrate it, The stars already near to bring the time, From every hindrance safe, and every bar, Within which a Five-hundred, Ten, and Five, One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman And that same giant who is sinning with her. And peradventure my dark utterance, Like Themis and the Sphinx, may less persuade thee, Since, in their mode, it clouds the intellect;

(4) A poet was I, and I sang that just Son of Anchises, who came forth from Troy, After that Ilion the superb was burned. But thou, why goest thou back to such annoyance? Why climb'st thou not the Mount Delectable, Which is the source and cause of every joy?" "Now, art thou that Virgilius and that fountain Which spreads abroad so wide a river of speech?" I made response to him with bashful forehead. "O, of the other poets honour and light, Avail me the long study and great love That have impelled me to explore thy volume! Thou art my master, and my author thou, Thou art alone the one from whom I took The beautiful style that has done honour to me. Behold the beast, for which I have turned back; Do thou protect me from her, famous Sage, For she doth make my veins and pulses tremble." "Thee it behoves to take another road," Responded he, when he beheld me weeping, "If from this savage place thou wouldst escape; Because this beast, at which thou criest out, Suffers not any one to pass her way, But so doth harass him, that she destroys him;

(3) But directing our attention to particulars, we say that the erection of the phalli is a certain sign of prolific power, which, through this, is called forth to the generative energy of the world. On which account, also, many phalli are consecrated in the spring, because then the whole world receives from the Gods the power which is productive of all generation. But I am of opinion, that the obscene language which then takes place, affords an indication of the privation of good about matter, and of the deformity which is in material subjects, prior to their being adorned. For these being indigent of ornament, by so much the more aspire after it, as they in a greater degree despise their own deformity. Again therefore, they pursue the causes of forms, and of what is beautiful and good, recognizing baseness from base language. And thus, indeed, the thing itself, viz. turpitude, is averted, but the knowledge of it is rendered manifest through words, and those that employ them transfer their desire to that which is contrary to baseness.

(381) Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that ‘The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms 13 ;’ and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms ‘For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;’