[443d]
that justice is indeed something of
this kind, yet not in regard to the doing of one's own business externally,
but with regard to that which is within and in the true sense concerns one's
self, and the things of one's self—it means that1 a man must not suffer the principles in his soul to
do each the work of some other and interfere and meddle with one another,
but that he should dispose well of what in the true sense of the word is
properly his own,2 and
having first attained to self-mastery3 and beautiful order4 within himself,5 and having
harmonized6 these three principles, the notes or
intervals of three terms quite literally the lowest, the highest, and the
mean,
1 μὴ ἐάσαντα . . . δόχαν444 A: Cf. Gorgias 459 C, 462 C. A series of participles in implied indirect discourse expand the meaning of τὴν ἐντός（πρᾶξιν), and enumerate the conditions precedent (resumed in οὕτω δή443 E; Cf. Protagoras 325 A) of all action which is to be called just if it tends to preserve this inner harmony of the soul, and the reverse if it tends to dissolve it. The subject of πράττειν is anybody or Everyman. For the general type of sentence and the Stoic principle that nothing imports but virtue cf. 591 E and 618 C.
2 Cf. on 433 E.
3 Cf. Gorgias 491 D where Callicles does not understand.
4 Cf. Gorgias 504.
5 Cf. 621 C and on 352 A.
6 The harmony of the three parts of the soul is compared to that of the three fundamental notes or strings in the octave, including any intervening tones, and so by implication any faculties of the soul overlooked in the preceding classification. Cf. Plutarch, Plat. Quest. 9. Proclus, p. 230 Kroll.ὥσπερ introduces the images, the exact application of which is pointed by ἀτεχνῶς. Cf. on 343 C. The scholiast tries to make two octaves (δὶς διὰ πασῶν) of it. The technical musical details have at the most an antiquarian interest, and in no way affect the thought, which is that of Shakespeare's “For government, though high and low and lower,/ Put into parts, doth keep one in concent,/ Congreeing in a full and natural close/ Like music.” (Henry V. I. ii. 179) Cf. Cicero, De rep. ii. 42, and Milton (Reason of Church Government), “Discipline . . . which with her musical chords preserves and holds all the parts thereof together.”
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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