[451b]
than with friends, so that your
encouragement is none.” And Glaucon, with a laugh, said,
“Nay, Socrates, if any false note in the argument does us any
harm, we release you as1 in a homicide case, and warrant you pure
of hand and no deceiver of us. So speak on with confidence.”
“Well,” said I, “he who is released in that
case is counted pure as the law bids, and, presumably, if there, here
too.” “Speak on, then,” he said,
“for all this objection.” “We must return
then,” said I, “and say now what perhaps ought to have
been said in due sequence there.
1 ὥσπερ marks the legal metaphor to which ἐκεῖ below refers. Cf. Laws 869 E, and Euripides Hippolytus 1433 and 1448-1450, with Hirzel,Δίκη etc. p. 191, n. 1, Demosthenes xxxvii. 58-59. Plato transfers the idea to the other world in Phaedo 114 A-B, where the pardon of their victims is required for the release of sinners. The passage is used by the older critics in the comparison of Plato with Christianity.
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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