παιδευτέον δʼ ἐν ἀμφοτέροις, πρότερον δʼ ἐν τοῖς ψευδέσιν; οὐ μανθάνω, ἔφη, πῶς λέγεις. οὐ μανθάνεις, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅτι πρῶτον τοῖς παιδίοις μύθους λέγομεν; τοῦτο δέ που ὡς τὸ ὅλον εἰπεῖν ψεῦδος, ἔνι δὲ καὶ ἀληθῆ. πρότερον δὲ μύθοις πρὸς τὰ παιδία ἢ γυμνασίοις χρώμεθα. ἔστι ταῦτα. τοῦτο δὴ ἔλεγον, ὅτι μουσικῆς πρότερον ἁπτέον ἢ γυμναστικῆς. ὀρθῶς, ἔφη. οὐκοῦν οἶσθʼ ὅτι ἀρχὴ παντὸς ἔργου μέγιστον, ἄλλως τε δὴ καὶ νέῳ καὶ ἁπαλῷ ὁτῳοῦν; μάλιστα γὰρ δὴ τότε πλάττεται, καὶ ἐνδύεται τύπος ὃν ἄν τις βούληται ἐνσημήνασθαι ἑκάστῳ. κομιδῇ μὲν οὖν. ἆρʼ οὖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτω παρήσομεν τοὺς ἐπιτυχόντας ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων μύθους πλασθέντας ἀκούειν τοὺς παῖδας καὶ λαμβάνειν ἐν ταῖς ψυχαῖς ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ ἐναντίας δόξας ἐκείναις ἅς, ἐπειδὰν τελεωθῶσιν, ἔχειν οἰησόμεθα δεῖν αὐτούς; οὐδʼ ὁπωστιοῦν παρήσομεν. πρῶτον δὴ ἡμῖν, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἐπιστατητέον τοῖς μυθοποιοῖς, καὶ ὃν μὲν ἂν καλὸν [μῦθον] ποιήσωσιν, ἐγκριτέον, ὃν δʼ ἂν μή, ἀποκριτέον. τοὺς δʼ ἐγκριθέντας πείσομεν τὰς τροφούς τε καὶ μητέρας λέγειν τοῖς παισίν, καὶ πλάττειν τὰς ψυχὰς αὐτῶν τοῖς μύθοις πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ σώματα ταῖς χερσίν· ὧν δὲ νῦν λέγουσι τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐκβλητέον. ποίους δή; ἔφη. ἐν τοῖς μείζοσιν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, μύθοις ὀψόμεθα καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. δεῖ γὰρ δὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τύπον εἶναι καὶ ταὐτὸν δύνασθαι τούς τε μείζους καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. ἢ οὐκ οἴει; ἔγωγʼ, ἔφη· ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἐννοῶ οὐδὲ τοὺς μείζους τίνας λέγεις. οὓς Ἡσίοδός τε, εἶπον, καὶ Ὅμηρος ἡμῖν ἐλεγέτην καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ποιηταί. οὗτοι γάρ που μύθους τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ψευδεῖς συντιθέντες ἔλεγόν τε καὶ λέγουσι. ποίους δή, ἦ δʼ ὅς, καὶ τί αὐτῶν μεμφόμενος λέγεις; ὅπερ, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, χρὴ καὶ πρῶτον καὶ μάλιστα μέμφεσθαι, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐάν τις μὴ καλῶς ψεύδηται. τί τοῦτο; ὅταν εἰκάζῃ τις κακῶς [οὐσίαν] τῷ λόγῳ, περὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων οἷοί εἰσιν, ὥσπερ γραφεὺς μηδὲν ἐοικότα γράφων οἷς ἂν ὅμοια βουληθῇ γράψαι. καὶ γάρ, ἔφη, ὀρθῶς ἔχει τά γε τοιαῦτα μέμφεσθαι. ἀλλὰ πῶς δὴ λέγομεν καὶ ποῖα;
“And education must make use of both, but first of the false?” “I don’t understand your meaning.” “Don’t you understand,” I said, “that we begin by telling children fables, and the fable is, taken as a whole, false, but there is truth in it also? And we make use of fable with children before gymnastics.” “That is so.” “That, then, is what I meant by saying that we must take up music before gymnastics.” “You were right,” he said. “Do you not know, then, that the beginning in every task is the chief thing, especially for any creature that is young and tender? For it is then that it is best molded and takes the impression that one wishes to stamp upon it.” “Quite so.” “Shall we, then, thus lightly suffer our children to listen to any chance stories fashioned by any chance teachers and so to take into their minds opinions for the most part contrary to those that we shall think it desirable for them to hold when they are grown up?” “By no manner of means will we allow it.” “We must begin, then, it seems, by a censorship over our storymakers, and what they do well we must pass and what not, reject. And the stories on the accepted list we will induce nurses and mothers to tell to the children and so shape their souls by these stories far rather than their bodies by their hands. But most of the stories they now tell we must reject.” “What sort of stories?” he said. “The example of the greater stories,” I said, “will show us the lesser also. For surely the pattern must be the same and the greater and the less must have a like tendency. Don’t you think so?” “I do,” he said; “but I don’t apprehend which you mean by the greater, either.” “Those,” I said, “that Hesiod and Homer and the other poets related. These, methinks, composed false stories which they told and still tell to mankind.” “Of what sort?” he said; “and what in them do you find fault?” “With that,” I said, “which one ought first and chiefly to blame, especially if the lie is not a pretty one.” “What is that?” “When anyone images badly in his speech the true nature of gods and heroes, like a painter whose portraits bear no resemblance to his models.” “It is certainly right to condemn things like that,” he said; “but just what do we mean and what particular things?”
πρῶτον μέν, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, τὸ μέγιστον καὶ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων ψεῦδος ὁ εἰπὼν οὐ καλῶς ἐψεύσατο ὡς Οὐρανός τε ἠργάσατο ἅ φησι δρᾶσαι αὐτὸν Ἡσίοδος, ὅ τε αὖ Κρόνος ὡς ἐτιμωρήσατο αὐτόν. τὰ δὲ δὴ τοῦ Κρόνου ἔργα καὶ πάθη ὑπὸ τοῦ ὑέος, οὐδʼ ἂν εἰ ἦν ἀληθῆ ᾤμην δεῖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτως λέγεσθαι πρὸς ἄφρονάς τε καὶ νέους, ἀλλὰ μάλιστα μὲν σιγᾶσθαι, εἰ δὲ ἀνάγκη τις ἦν λέγειν, διʼ ἀπορρήτων ἀκούειν ὡς ὀλιγίστους, θυσαμένους οὐ χοῖρον ἀλλά τι μέγα καὶ ἄπορον θῦμα, ὅπως ὅτι ἐλαχίστοις συνέβη ἀκοῦσαι. καὶ γάρ, ἦ δʼ ὅς, οὗτοί γε οἱ λόγοι χαλεποί. καὶ οὐ λεκτέοι γʼ, ἔφην, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, ἐν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ πόλει. οὐδὲ λεκτέον νέῳ ἀκούοντι ὡς ἀδικῶν τὰ ἔσχατα οὐδὲν ἂν θαυμαστὸν ποιοῖ, οὐδʼ αὖ ἀδικοῦντα πατέρα κολάζων παντὶ τρόπῳ, ἀλλὰ δρῴη ἂν ὅπερ θεῶν οἱ πρῶτοί τε καὶ μέγιστοι. οὐ μὰ τὸν Δία, ἦ δʼ ὅς, οὐδὲ αὐτῷ μοι δοκεῖ ἐπιτήδεια εἶναι λέγειν. οὐδέ γε, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, τὸ παράπαν ὡς θεοὶ θεοῖς πολεμοῦσί τε καὶ ἐπιβουλεύουσι καὶ μάχονται—οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀληθῆ—εἴ γε δεῖ ἡμῖν τοὺς μέλλοντας τὴν πόλιν φυλάξειν αἴσχιστον νομίζειν τὸ ῥᾳδίως ἀλλήλοις ἀπεχθάνεσθαι—πολλοῦ δεῖ γιγαντομαχίας τε μυθολογητέον αὐτοῖς καὶ ποικιλτέον, καὶ ἄλλας ἔχθρας πολλὰς καὶ παντοδαπὰς θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων πρὸς συγγενεῖς τε καὶ οἰκείους αὐτῶν—ἀλλʼ εἴ πως μέλλομεν πείσειν ὡς οὐδεὶς πώποτε πολίτης ἕτερος ἑτέρῳ ἀπήχθετο οὐδʼ ἔστιν τοῦτο ὅσιον, τοιαῦτα λεκτέα μᾶλλον πρὸς τὰ παιδία εὐθὺς καὶ γέρουσι καὶ γραυσί, καὶ πρεσβυτέροις γιγνομένοις καὶ τοὺς ποιητὰς ἐγγὺς τούτων ἀναγκαστέον λογοποιεῖν. Ἥρας δὲ δεσμοὺς ὑπὸ ὑέος καὶ Ἡφαίστου ῥίψεις ὑπὸ πατρός, μέλλοντος τῇ μητρὶ τυπτομένῃ ἀμυνεῖν, καὶ θεομαχίας ὅσας Ὅμηρος πεποίηκεν οὐ παραδεκτέον εἰς τὴν πόλιν, οὔτʼ ἐν ὑπονοίαις πεποιημένας οὔτε ἄνευ ὑπονοιῶν. ὁ γὰρ νέος οὐχ οἷός τε κρίνειν ὅτι τε ὑπόνοια καὶ ὃ μή, ἀλλʼ ἃ ἂν τηλικοῦτος ὢν λάβῃ ἐν ταῖς δόξαις δυσέκνιπτά τε καὶ ἀμετάστατα φιλεῖ γίγνεσθαι· ὧν δὴ ἴσως ἕνεκα περὶ παντὸς ποιητέον ἃ πρῶτα ἀκούουσιν ὅτι κάλλιστα μεμυθολογημένα πρὸς ἀρετὴν ἀκούειν. ἔχει γάρ, ἔφη, λόγον. ἀλλʼ εἴ τις αὖ καὶ ταῦτα ἐρωτῴη ἡμᾶς, ταῦτα ἅττα τʼ ἐστὶν καὶ τίνες οἱ μῦθοι, τίνας ἂν φαῖμεν;
“There is, first of all,” I said, “the greatest lie about the things of greatest concernment, which was no pretty invention of him who told how Uranus did what Hesiod says he did to Cronos, and how Cronos in turn took his revenge; and then there are the doings and sufferings of Cronos at the hands of his son. Even if they were true I should not think that they ought to be thus lightly told to thoughtless young persons. But the best way would be to bury them in silence, and if there were some necessity for relating them, that only a very small audience should be admitted under pledge of secrecy and after sacrificing, not a pig, but some huge and unprocurable victim, to the end that as few as possible should have heard these tales.” “Why, yes,” said he, “such stories are hard sayings.” “Yes, and they are not to be told, Adeimantus, in our city, nor is it to be said in the hearing of a young man, that in doing the utmost wrong he would do nothing to surprise anybody, nor again in punishing his father’s wrong-doings to the limit, but would only be following the example of the first and greatest of the gods.” “No, by heaven,” said he, “I do not myself think that they are fit to be told.” “Neither must we admit at all,” said I, “that gods war with gods and plot against one another and contend—for it is not true either— if we wish our future guardians to deem nothing more shameful than lightly to fall out with one another; still less must we make battles of gods and giants the subject for them of stories and embroideries, and other enmities many and manifold of gods and heroes toward their kith and kin. But if there is any likelihood of our persuading them that no citizen ever quarrelled with his fellow-citizen and that the very idea of it is an impiety, that is the sort of thing that ought rather to be said by their elders, men and women, to children from the beginning and as they grow older, and we must compel the poets to keep close to this in their compositions. But Hera’s fetterings by her son and the hurling out of heaven of Hephaestus by his father when he was trying to save his mother from a beating, and the battles of the gods in Homer’s verse are things that we must not admit into our city either wrought in allegory or without allegory. For the young are not able to distinguish what is and what is not allegory, but whatever opinions are taken into the mind at that age are wont to prove indelible and unalterable. For which reason, maybe, we should do our utmost that the first stories that they hear should be so composed as to bring the fairest lessons of virtue to their ears.” “Yes, that is reasonable,” he said; “but if again someone should ask us to be specific and say what these compositions may be and what are the tales, what could we name?”
καὶ ἐγὼ εἶπον· ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, οὐκ ἐσμὲν ποιηταὶ ἐγώ τε καὶ σὺ ἐν τῷ παρόντι, ἀλλʼ οἰκισταὶ πόλεως· οἰκισταῖς δὲ τοὺς μὲν τύπους προσήκει εἰδέναι ἐν οἷς δεῖ μυθολογεῖν τοὺς ποιητάς, παρʼ οὓς ἐὰν ποιῶσιν οὐκ ἐπιτρεπτέον, οὐ μὴν αὐτοῖς γε ποιητέον μύθους. ὀρθῶς, ἔφη· ἀλλʼ αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο, οἱ τύποι περὶ θεολογίας τίνες ἂν εἶεν; τοιοίδε πού τινες, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ· οἷος τυγχάνει ὁ θεὸς ὤν, ἀεὶ δήπου ἀποδοτέον, ἐάντέ τις αὐτὸν ἐν ἔπεσιν ποιῇ ἐάντε ἐν μέλεσιν ἐάντε ἐν τραγῳδίᾳ. δεῖ γάρ. οὐκοῦν ἀγαθὸς ὅ γε θεὸς τῷ ὄντι τε καὶ λεκτέον οὕτω; τί μήν; ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδέν γε τῶν ἀγαθῶν βλαβερόν· ἦ γάρ; οὔ μοι δοκεῖ. ἆρʼ οὖν ὃ μὴ βλαβερὸν βλάπτει; οὐδαμῶς. ὃ δὲ μὴ βλάπτει κακόν τι ποιεῖ; οὐδὲ τοῦτο. ὃ δέ γε μηδὲν κακὸν ποιεῖ οὐδʼ ἄν τινος εἴη κακοῦ αἴτιον; πῶς γάρ; τί δέ; ὠφέλιμον τὸ ἀγαθόν; ναί. αἴτιον ἄρα εὐπραγίας; ναί. οὐκ ἄρα πάντων γε αἴτιον τὸ ἀγαθόν, ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν εὖ ἐχόντων αἴτιον, τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἀναίτιον. παντελῶς γʼ, ἔφη. οὐδʼ ἄρα, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὁ θεός, ἐπειδὴ ἀγαθός, πάντων ἂν εἴη αἴτιος, ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ λέγουσιν, ἀλλὰ ὀλίγων μὲν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις αἴτιος, πολλῶν δὲ ἀναίτιος· πολὺ γὰρ ἐλάττω τἀγαθὰ τῶν κακῶν ἡμῖν, καὶ τῶν μὲν ἀγαθῶν οὐδένα ἄλλον αἰτιατέον, τῶν δὲ κακῶν ἄλλʼ ἄττα δεῖ ζητεῖν τὰ αἴτια, ἀλλʼ οὐ τὸν θεόν. ἀληθέστατα, ἔφη, δοκεῖς μοι λέγειν. οὐκ ἄρα, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ἀποδεκτέον οὔτε Ὁμήρου οὔτʼ ἄλλου ποιητοῦ ταύτην τὴν ἁμαρτίαν περὶ τοὺς θεοὺς ἀνοήτως ἁμαρτάνοντος καὶ λέγοντος— ὡς δοιοί τε πίθοι κατακείαται ἐν Διὸς οὔδει / κηρῶν ἔμπλειοι, ὁ μὲν ἐσθλῶν, αὐτὰρ ὃ δειλῶν· / καὶ ᾧ μὲν ἂν μείξας ὁ Ζεὺς δῷ ἀμφοτέρων, ἄλλοτε μέν τε κακῷ ὅ γε κύρεται, ἄλλοτε δʼ ἐσθλῷ· / ᾧ δʼ ἂν μή, ἀλλʼ ἄκρατα τὰ ἕτερα, τὸν δὲ κακὴ βούβρωστις ἐπὶ χθόνα δῖαν ἐλαύνει· / οὐδʼ ὡς ταμίας ἡμῖν Ζεὺς— ἀγαθῶν τε κακῶν τε τέτυκται. /
And I replied, “Adeimantus, we are not poets, you and I at present, but founders of a state. And to founders it pertains to know the patterns on which poets must compose their fables and from which their poems must not be allowed to deviate; but the founders are not required themselves to compose fables.” “Right,” he said; “but this very thing—the patterns or norms of right speech about the gods, what would they be?” “Something like this,” I said. “The true quality of God we must always surely attribute to him whether we compose in epic, melic, or tragic verse.” “We must.” “And is not God of course good in reality and always to be spoken of as such?” “Certainly.” “But further, no good thing is harmful, is it?” “I think not.” “Can what is not harmful harm?” “By no means.” “Can that which does not harm do any evil?” “Not that either.” “But that which does no evil would not be cause of any evil either?” “How could it?” “Once more, is the good beneficent?” “Yes.” “It is the cause, then, of welfare?” “Yes.” “Then the good is not the cause of all things, but of things that are well it the cause—of things that are ill it is blameless.” “Entirely so,” he said. “Neither, then, could God,” said I, “since he is good, be, as the multitude say, the cause of all things, but for mankind he is the cause of few things, but of many things not the cause. For good things are far fewer with us than evil, and for the good we must assume no other cause than God, but the cause of evil we must look for in other things and not in God.” “What you say seems to me most true,” he replied. “Then,” said I, “we must not accept from Homer or any other poet the folly of such error as this about the gods when he says Two urns stand on the floor of the palace of Zeus and are filled with / Dooms he allots, one of blessings, the other of gifts that are evil, / and to whomsoever Zeus gives of both commingled— Now upon evil he chances and now again good is his portion, / but the man for whom he does not blend the lots, but to whom he gives unmixed evil— Hunger devouring drives him, a wanderer over the wide world, / nor will we tolerate the saying that Zeus is dispenser alike of good and of evil to mortals. / ”
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