[420c]
in the worst governed state, and that when we
had made these out we could pass judgement on the issue of our long inquiry.
Our first task then, we take it, is to mold the model of a happy
state—we are not isolating1 a small class in it and postulating their
happiness, but that of the city as a whole. But the opposite type of state
we will consider presently.2 It is as
if we were coloring a statue and someone approached and censured us, saying
that we did not apply the most beautiful pigments to the most beautiful
parts of the image, since the eyes,3 which are the most
beautiful part, have not been painted with purple but with black—
1 ἀπολαβόντες, “separating off,” “abstracting,” may be used absolutely as in Gorgias 495 E, or with any object as 392 E.
2 That is 449 A and books VIII. and IX. The degenerate types of state are four, but the extreme opposite of the good state, the tyranny, is one.
3 So Hippias Major 290 B.
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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