Plato, Republic 571a–575e: Book IX: Lawless desires in sleep; the making of the tyrannical man

“There remains for consideration,” said I, “the tyrannical man himself—the manner of his development out of the democratic type and his character and the quality of his life, whether wretched or happy.” “Why, yes, he still remains,” he said. “Do you know, then, what it is that I still miss?” “What?” “In the matter of our desires I do not think we sufficiently distinguished their nature and number. And so long as this is lacking our inquiry will lack clearness.” “Well,” said he, “will our consideration of them not still be opportune?” “By all means. And observe what it is about them that I wish to consider. It is this. Of our unnecessary pleasures and appetites there are some lawless ones, I think, which probably are to be found in us all, but which, when controlled by the laws and the better desires in alliance with reason, can in some men be altogether got rid of, or so nearly so that only a few weak ones remain, while in others the remnant is stronger and more numerous.” “What desires do you mean?” he said. “Those,” said I, “that are awakened in sleep when the rest of the soul, the rational, gentle and dominant part, slumbers, but the beastly and savage part, replete with food and wine, gambols and, repelling sleep, endeavors to sally forth and satisfy its own instincts. You are aware that in such case there is nothing it will not venture to undertake as being released from all sense of shame and all reason. It does not shrink from attempting to lie with a mother in fancy or with anyone else, man, god or brute. It is ready for any foul deed of blood; it abstains from no food, and, in a word, falls short of no extreme of folly and shamelessness.” “Most true,” he said. “But when, I suppose, a man’s condition is healthy and sober, and he goes to sleep after arousing his rational part and entertaining it with fair words and thoughts, and attaining to clear self-consciousness, while he has neither starved nor indulged to repletion his appetitive part, so that it may be lulled to sleep and not disturb the better part by its pleasure or pain, but may suffer that in isolated purity to examine and reach out towards and apprehend some of the things unknown to it, past, present or future;”

“and when he has in like manner tamed his passionate part, and does not after a quarrel fall asleep with anger still awake within him, but if he has thus quieted the two elements in his soul and quickened the third, in which reason resides, and so goes to his rest, you are aware that in such case he is most likely to apprehend truth, and the visions of his dreams are least likely to be lawless.” “I certainly think so,” he said. “This description has carried us too far, but the point that we have to notice is this, that in fact there exists in every one of us, even in some reputed most respectable, a terrible, fierce and lawless brood of desires, which it seems are revealed in our sleep. Consider, then, whether there is anything in what I say, and whether you admit it.” “Well, I do.” “Now recall our characterization of the democratic man. His development was determined by his education from youth under a thrifty father who approved only the acquisitive appetites and disapproved the unnecessary ones whose object is entertainment and display. Is not that so?” “Yes.” “And by association with more sophisticated men, teeming with the appetites we have just described, he is impelled towards every form of insolence and outrage, and to the adoption of their way of life by his hatred of his father’s niggardliness. But since his nature is better than that of his corrupters, being drawn both ways he settles down in a compromise between the two tendencies, and indulging and enjoying each in moderation, forsooth, as he supposes, he lives what he deems a life that is neither illiberal nor lawless, now transformed from an oligarch to a democrat.” “That was and is our belief about this type.” “Assume, then, again,” said I, “that such a man when he is older has a son bred in turn in his ways of life.” “I so assume.” “And suppose the experience of his father to be repeated in his case. He is drawn toward utter lawlessness, which is called by his seducers complete freedom. His father and his other kin lend support to these compromise appetites while the others lend theirs to the opposite group.”

“And when these dread magi and king-makers come to realize that they have no hope of controlling the youth in any other way, they contrive to engender in his soul a ruling passion to be the protector of his idle and prodigal appetites, a monstrous winged drone. Or do you think the spirit of desire in such men is aught else?” “Nothing but that,” he said. “And when the other appetites, buzzing about it, replete with incense and myrrh and chaplets and wine, and the pleasures that are released in such revelries, magnifying and fostering it to the utmost, awaken in the drone the sting of unsatisfied yearnings, why then this protector of the soul has madness for his body-guard and runs amuck, and if it finds in the man any opinions or appetites accounted worthy and still capable of shame, it slays them and thrusts them forth until it purges him of sobriety, and fills and infects him with frenzy brought in from outside.” “A perfect description,” he said, “of the generation of the tyrannical man.” “And is not this analogy,” said I, “the reason why Love has long since been called a tyrant?” “That may well be,” he said. “And does not a drunken man, my friend,” I said, “have something of this tyrannical temper?” “Yes, he has.” “And again the madman, the deranged man, attempts and expects to rule over not only men but gods.” “Yes indeed, he does,” he said. “Then a man becomes tyrannical in the full sense of the word, my friend,” I said, “when either by nature or by habits or by both he has become even as the drunken, the erotic, the maniacal.” “Assuredly.” “Such, it seems, is his origin and character, but what is his manner of life?” “As the wits say, you shall tell me.” “I do,” I said; “for, I take it, next there are among them feasts and carousals and revellings and courtesans and all the doings of those whose souls are entirely swayed by the indwelling tyrant Eros.” “Inevitably,” he said. “And do not many and dread appetites shoot up beside this master passion every day and night in need of many things?” “Many indeed.” “And so any revenues there may be are quickly expended.” “Of course.”

“And after this there are borrowings and levyings upon the estate?” “Of course.” “And when all these resources fail, must there not come a cry from the frequent and fierce nestlings of desire hatched in his soul, and must not such men, urged, as it were by goads, by the other desires, and especially by the ruling passion itself as captain of their bodyguard—to keep up the figure—must they not run wild and look to see who has aught that can be taken from him by deceit or violence?” “Most certainly.” “And so he is compelled to sweep it in from every source or else be afflicted with great travail and pain.” “He is.” “And just as the new, upspringing pleasures in him got the better of the original passions of his soul and robbed them, so he himself, though younger, will claim the right to get the better of his father and mother, and, after spending his own share, to seize and convert to his own use a portion of his father’s estate.” “Of course,” he said, “what else?” “And if they resist him, would he not at first attempt to rob and steal from his parents and deceive them?” “Certainly.” “And if he failed in that, would he not next seize it by force?” “I think so,” he said. “And then, good sir, if the old man and the old woman clung to it and resisted him, would he be careful to refrain from the acts of a tyrant?” “I am not without my fears,” he said, “for the parents of such a one.” “Nay, Adeimantus, in heaven’s name, do you suppose that, for the sake of a newly found belle amie bound to him by no necessary tie, such a one would strike the dear mother, his by necessity and from his birth? Or for the sake of a blooming new-found bel ami, not necessary to his life, he would rain blows upon the aged father past his prime, closest of his kin and oldest of his friends? And would he subject them to those new favorites if he brought them under the same roof?” “Yes, by Zeus,” he said. “A most blessed lot it seems to be,” said I, “to be the parent of a tyrant son.” “It does indeed,” he said. “And again, when the resources of his father and mother are exhausted and fail such a one, and the swarm of pleasures collected in his soul is grown great, will he not first lay hands on the wall of someone’s house or the cloak of someone who walks late at night, and thereafter he will make a clean sweep of some temple, and in all these actions the beliefs which he held from boyhood about the honorable and the base, the opinions accounted just, will be overmastered by the opinions newly emancipated and released, which, serving as bodyguards of the ruling passion, will prevail in alliance with it—I mean the opinions that formerly were freed from restraint in sleep, when, being still under the control of his father and the laws, he maintained the democratic constitution in his soul.”

“But now, when under the tyranny of his ruling passion, he is continuously and in waking hours what he rarely became in sleep, and he will refrain from no atrocity of murder nor from any food or deed, but the passion that dwells in him as a tyrant will live in utmost anarchy and lawlessness, and, since it is itself sole autocrat, will urge the polity, so to speak, of him in whom it dwells to dare anything and everything in order to find support for himself and the hubbub of his henchmen, in part introduced from outside by evil associations, and in part released and liberated within by the same habits of life as his. Is not this the life of such a one?” “It is this,” he said. “And if,” I said, “there are only a few of this kind in a city, and the others, the multitude as a whole, are sober-minded, the few go forth into exile and serve some tyrant elsewhere as bodyguard or become mercenaries in any war there may be. But if they spring up in time of peace and tranquillity they stay right there in the city and effect many small evils.” “What kind of evils do you mean?” “Oh, they just steal, break into houses, cut purses, strip men of their garments, plunder temples, and kidnap, and if they are fluent speakers they become sycophants and bear false witness and take bribes.” “Yes, small evils indeed,” he said, “if the men of this sort are few.” “Why, yes,” I said, “for small evils are relatively small compared with great, and in respect of the corruption and misery of a state all of them together, as the saying goes, don’t come within hail of the mischief done by a tyrant. For when men of this sort and their followers become numerous in a state and realize their numbers, then it is they who, in conjunction with the folly of the people, create a tyrant out of that one of them who has the greatest and mightiest tyrant in his own soul.” “Naturally,” he said, “for he would be the most tyrannical.” “Then if the people yield willingly—’tis well, but if the city resists him, then, just as in the previous case the man chastized his mother and his father, so now in turn will he chastize his fatherland if he can, bringing in new boon companions beneath whose sway he will hold and keep enslaved his once dear motherland—as the Cretans name her—and fatherland. And this would be the end of such a man’s desire.” “Yes,” he said, “this, just this.”