[425b]
the becoming
silence1 of the young in
the presence of their elders; the giving place to them and rising up before
them, and dutiful service of parents, and the cut of the hair2 and the garments and the fashion
of the foot-gear, and in general the deportment of the body and everything
of the kind. Don't you think so?” “I do.”
“Yet to enact them into laws would, I think, be silly.3 For such laws are not
obeyed nor would they last, being enacted only in words and on
paper.” “How could they?” “At any
rate, Adeimantus,” I said, “the direction of the
education from whence one starts is likely to determine
1 For these traits of old-fashioned decorum and modesty cf. Aristophanes Clouds 961-1023, Blaydes on 991, Herodotus ii. 80, Isocrates Areopagiticus 48-49.
2 Cf. Starkie on Aristophanes Wasps 1069.
3 Cf. on 412 B, Isocrates Areopagiticus 41, and Laws 788 B, where the further, still pertinent consideration is added that the multiplication of minor enactments tends to bring fundamental laws into contempt. Cf. “Plato's Laws and the Unity of Plato's Thought,” p. 353, n. 2.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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