[496a]
who has fallen into poverty and
abandonment?” “There is no difference at all,”
he said. “Of what sort will probably be the offspring of such
parents?” “Will they not be bastard1 and base?”
“Inevitably.” “And so when men unfit for
culture approach philosophy and consort with her unworthily, what sort of
ideas and opinions shall we say they beget? Will they not produce what may
in very deed be fairly called sophisms, and nothing that is genuine or that
partakes of true intelligence2?” “Quite
so,” he said.“There is a
very small remnant,3 then,
Adeimantus,” I said,
[496b]
“of those who consort worthily with philosophy, some well-born
and well-bred nature, it may be, held in check4 by exile,5 and so
in the absence of corrupters remaining true to philosophy, as its quality
bids, or it may happen that a great soul born in a little town scorns6 and disregards its parochial affairs; and a small group perhaps
might by natural affinity be drawn to it from other arts which they justly
disdain; and the bridle of our companion Theages7 also might operate as a restraint. For in the
case of Theages all other conditions were at hand
[496c]
for his backsliding from philosophy, but his sickly
habit of body keeping him out of politics holds him back. My own case, the
divine sign,8 is hardly
worth mentioning—for I suppose it has happened to few or none
before me. And those who have been of this little company9 and have tasted
the sweetness and blessedness of this possession and who have also come to
understand the madness of the multitude sufficiently and have seen that
there is nothing, if I may say so, sound or right in any present
politics,10 and that there is no ally
[496d]
with whose aid the champion of justice11 could escape
destruction, but that he would be as a man who has fallen among wild
beasts,12 unwilling to share their
misdeeds13 and unable to hold out singly against the
savagery of all, and that he would thus, before he could in any way benefit
his friends or the state come to an untimely end without doing any good to
himself or others,—for all these reasons I say the philosopher
remains quiet, minds his own affair, and, as it were, standing aside under
shelter of a wall14 in a storm and blast of
dust and sleet and seeing others filled full of lawlessness, is content if
in any way
[496e]
he may keep himself free from
iniquity and unholy deeds through this life and take his departure with fair
hope,15
serene and well content when the end comes.”
“Well,” he said, “that is no very slight thing
1 It is probably fanciful to see in this an allusion to the half-Thracian Antisthenes. Cf. also Theaet. 150 C, and Symp. 212 A.
2 Cf. Euthydem. 306 D.
3 Cf. Phaedrus 250 Aὀλίγαι δὴ λείπονται, and 404 A and on 490 E.
4 Perhaps “overtaken.” Cf. Goodwin on Dem.De cor. 107.
5 It is possible but unnecessary to conjecture that Plato may be thinking of Anaxagoras or Xenophon or himself or Dion.
6 Cf. Theaet. 173 B, 540 D.
7 This bridle has become proverbial. Cf. Plut.De san. tuenda 126 B, Aelian, Var. Hist. iv. 15. For Theages cf. also Apol. 33 E and the spurious dialogue bearing is name.
8 The enormous fanciful literature on the daimonion does not concern the interpretation of Plato, who consistently treats it as a kind of spiritual tact checking Socrates from any act opposed to his true moral and intellectual interests. Cf. What Plato Said, pp. 456-457, on Euthyphro 3 B, Jowett and Campbell, p. 285.
9 For τούτων . . . γενόμενοι cf. Aristoph.Clouds 107τούτων γενοῦ μοι.
10 The irremediable degeneracy of existing governments is the starting-point of Plato's political and social speculations. Cf. 597 B, Laws 832 C f., Epist. vii. 326 A; Byron, apudArnold, Essays in Crit. ii. p. 195 “I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments.” This passage, Apol. 31 E ff. and Gorg. 521-522 may be considered Plato's apology for not engaging in politics Cf. J. V. Novak, Platon u. d. Rhetorik, p. 495 (Schleiermacher, Einl. z. Gorg. pp. 15 f.), Wilamowitz, Platon, i. 441-442 “Wer kann hier die Klage über das eigene Los überhören?” There is no probability that, as an eminent scholar has maintained, the Republic itself was intended as a programme of practical politics for Athens, and that its failure to win popular opinion is the chief cause of the disappointed tone of Plato's later writings. Cf. Erwin Wolff in Jaeger's Neue Phil. Untersuchungen,Heft 6, Platos Apologie, pp. 31-33, who argues that abstinence from politics is proclaimed in the Apology before the Gorgias and that the same doctrine in the seventh Epistle absolutely proves that the Apology is Plato's own. Cf. also Theaet. 173 C ff., Hipp. Maj. 281 C, Euthydem. 306 B,Xen.Mem. i. 6. 15.
11 Cf. 368 b, Apol. 32 Eεἰ . . . ἐβοήθουν τοῖς δικαίοις and 32 Aμαχούμενον ὑπὲρ τοῦ δικαίου.
12 Cf. Pindar, Ol. i. 64. For the antithetic juxtaposition cf. also εἷς πᾶσιν below; see too 520 B, 374 A, Menex. 241 B, Phaedr. 243 C, Laws 906 D, etc. More in the Utopia（Morley, Ideal Commonwealths, p. 84) paraphrases loosely from memory what he calls “no ill simile by which Plato set forth the unreasonableness of a philosopher's meddling with government”
13 Cf. Democrates fr. 38, Diels ii.3 p. 73καλὸν μὲν τὸν ἀδικέοντα κωλύειν: εἰ δὲ μή, μὴ ξυναδικεῖν, “it is well to prevent anyone from doing wrong, or else not to join in wrongdoing.”
14 Maximus of Tyre 21. 20 comments, “Show me a safe wall.” See Stallbaum ad loc. for references to this passage in later antiquity. Cf. Heracleit. fr. 44, Diels 3 i. 67, J. Stenzel, Platon der Erzieher, p. 114, Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, p. 33, Renan, Souvenirs, xvii., P. E. More, Shelburne Essays, iii. pp. 280-281 Cf. also Epist. vii. 331 D, Eurip.Ion 598-601.
15 Cf. Vol. I on 331 A, 621 C-D, Marc. Aurel. xii. 36 and vi. 30in fine. See my article “Hope” in Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
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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