[463d]
will it be merely
the names1 of this kinship that you have prescribed for them or
must all their actions conform to the names in all customary observance
toward fathers and in awe and care and obedience for parents, if they look
for the favor2 of either gods or men, since
any other behaviour would be neither just nor pious? Shall these be the
unanimous oracular voices that they hear from all the people, or shall some
other kind of teaching beset3 the ears of your children from their birth, both
concerning4 what
is due to those who are pointed out as their fathers
1 τὰ ὀνόματα μόνον may be thought to anticipate Aristotle's objections.
3 Cf. the reliance on a unanimous public opinion in the Laws, 838 C-D.
4 περὶ . . . περί: for the preposition repeated in a different sense cf. Isocrates iv. 34, ix, 3, and Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, III. i. “As here by Caesar and by you cut off.”
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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