Book IX, 571–578

571a “The tyrannical man himself is left for us to examine,” I said: “how he changes from a democratic man, what he is like once he has become one, and how he lives—wretchedly or happily.”

“He is indeed the one still left,” he said.

“Do you know,” I said, “what I still long for?”

“What is that?”

“I do not think we have sufficiently distinguished the kinds and numbers of desires. As long as that remains wanting, 571b the inquiry we are pursuing will be less clear.”

“Is it not still a good time to do so?” he said.

“Certainly. And consider what I want to discern among them. It is this: among pleasures and desires that are not necessary, some, I think, are lawless. They seem to arise in everyone, but when restrained by laws and by the better desires joined with reason, they either depart altogether from some people or remain few and weak; 571c in others they are stronger and more numerous.”

“Which ones do you mean?” he said.

“The ones that awaken during sleep,” I said, “when the rest of the soul is asleep—the reasoning, gentle part that rules the other—while the beastly, savage part, swollen with food or drink, leaps up, shakes off sleep, and seeks to go out and satisfy its own appetites. You know that in this condition it dares do anything, freed, as it thinks, from every restraint of shame and good sense. It does not hesitate to attempt 571d intercourse with its mother, as it imagines, or with anyone else, human being, god, or beast. It will commit any murder and abstain from no food. In a word, no madness or shamelessness is beyond it.”

“What you say is entirely true,” he said.

“But when, I think, a person is sound and temperate within himself, and goes to sleep having awakened his reasoning part and feasted it on fine arguments and inquiries, entering into reflection with himself, 571e while giving his desiring part neither too little nor too much, so that it may fall asleep without disturbing 572a the best part by pleasure or pain, but let it alone, by itself and pure, examine and reach toward the perception of something it does not know, whether of things past, present, or to come; when likewise he has calmed his spirited part, and does not fall asleep with it stirred by anger at anyone, but brings these two parts to rest and sets in motion the third, in which understanding arises—when he takes his rest in this way, you know that in such a condition he comes nearest to grasping the truth, and that lawless visions 572b are least likely then to appear in his dreams.”

“I think that is exactly so,” he said.

“We have been drawn into speaking of these matters at some length. But this is what we want to know: that there is in each of us a certain terrible, savage, lawless kind of desire, even in some who appear quite moderate; dreams make this evident. So consider whether you think I am saying anything sound and whether you agree.”

“I agree.”

“Now recall the democratic man as we said he was. 572c He had been brought up from youth under a thrifty father, who honored only desires for acquiring wealth and despised the unnecessary ones, which arise for play and display. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then, having joined the company of more sophisticated men, full of the desires we have just described, he rushed into every sort of excess and adopted their way of life out of hatred for his father’s thrift. But because his nature was better than that of his corrupters, and he was pulled in both directions, 572d he settled midway between the two ways of life. Enjoying each set of pleasures in moderation, as he thought, he lived a life neither illiberal nor lawless, and became democratic instead of oligarchic.”

“That was, and still is, our view of such a man,” he said.

“Suppose now,” I said, “that this man, grown older, has a young son raised in turn amid these habits of his.”

“I suppose so.”

“Suppose, too, that the same things happen to the son as happened to his father: he is drawn toward every kind of lawlessness, 572e called complete freedom by those who lead him on; his father and the rest of his family come to the aid of the desires that lie in the middle, while the others aid the opposite side. And when these cunning sorcerers and makers of tyrants despair of holding the young man by any other means, they contrive to plant in him a master passion to lead the idle desires that divide up whatever lies 573a ready at hand—a great winged drone. Or what else do you think love of that kind could be?”

“Nothing else at all,” he said.

“Then when the other desires buzz about it, laden with incense, perfumes, garlands, wine, and the unrestrained pleasures of such gatherings, feeding and swelling it to the utmost until they implant the sting of longing in the drone, then this leader of the soul is attended by madness as its bodyguard and 573b driven into a frenzy. If it finds within the man any beliefs or desires thought to be good and still capable of shame, it kills them and drives them out, until it purges him of temperance and fills him with an alien madness.”

“You describe perfectly the birth of a tyrannical man,” he said.

“Is this, then,” I said, “the reason Love has long been called a tyrant?”

“It seems likely,” he said.

“And does not a drunken man, my friend,” I said, “acquire something of a tyrant’s 573c state of mind?”

“He does.”

“Moreover, the man who is mad and deranged attempts, and expects himself to be able, to rule not only human beings but even gods.”

“Certainly,” he said.

“A man becomes a tyrant in the fullest sense, my good friend,” I said, “when by nature or habit or both he becomes drunken, lustful, and mad.”

“Absolutely.”

“So this, it seems, is how such a man comes into being. But how does he live? 573d”

“As they say in games,” he said, “‘You tell me.’”

“I will,” I said. “I imagine that afterward they hold festivals, revels, feasts, keep courtesans, and indulge in everything of the kind, all directed by Love, the tyrant dwelling within and governing every affair of the soul.”

“Necessarily,” he said.

“And do not numerous dreadful desires spring up each day and night, demanding many things?”

“Numerous indeed.”

“So any income is quickly spent.”

“How could it not be? 573e”

“After that come borrowing and the stripping away of property.”

“Of course.”

“And when everything runs out, must not the desires, densely nested and fierce, cry aloud, while these men, goaded by the stings of their other desires and above all by Love himself, who leads the rest like a bodyguard, rush about searching to see who has something they can take by deceit or 574a by force?”

“Most certainly,” he said.

“They must seize things from every quarter, then, or be gripped by great pangs and torments.”

“They must.”

“And just as the later pleasures in him gained the upper hand over the older ones and robbed them of what was theirs, so will he, though younger, claim a greater share than his father and mother, and take it from them when he has spent his own share, allotting himself some of their property?”

“Of course he will,” he said. 574b

“And if they refuse, will he not first try to steal from his parents and deceive them?”

“Certainly.”

“And if he cannot, will he then turn to plunder and violence?”

“I think so,” he said.

“And if the old man and old woman resist and fight, my friend, would he be careful to refrain from any tyrannical act?”

“I have little confidence,” he said, “in the fate of such a man’s parents.”

“But Adeimantus, by Zeus, for the sake of a newly beloved courtesan whom he does not need, would such a man, do you think, strike and enslave to her his long-beloved and indispensable 574c mother? Or for the sake of a handsome new lover whom he does not need, would he do the same to his aged but indispensable father, his oldest friend, if he brought these newcomers into the same house?”

“Yes, by Zeus,” he said.

“What a blessing it seems,” I said, “to have fathered a tyrannical son!”

“Indeed,” he said. 574d

“And when his father’s and mother’s resources fail him and the swarm of pleasures within him has grown vast, will he not first lay hands on the wall of a house or the cloak of a man walking late at night, and afterward plunder some temple? Through all this, the beliefs about what is noble and shameful that he held from childhood, the beliefs that upheld justice, will be overcome by those desires newly released from bondage, now serving as Love’s bodyguard. Before, these were let loose only in his dreams 574e while he was still subject to laws and his father, ruled within himself by a democracy. But once Love has made him its subject, he becomes continually while awake the man he used to be only rarely in dreams. He will shrink from no dreadful murder, no food, no deed. 575a Love, living as a tyrant within him in utter anarchy and lawlessness, himself the sole ruler, will lead the man who contains him, as though he were a city, to dare anything that will feed himself and the uproar surrounding him: part has come from outside, from evil company, while part has been set loose and freed from within by his own habits. Is this not the life of such a man?”

“It is indeed,” he said.

“And if there are few such men in a city,” I said, “575b and the rest of the people remain temperate, they go abroad to serve as the bodyguards of some other tyrant, or fight as mercenaries if a war is going on somewhere. But if they find themselves in a time of peace and quiet, they stay in the city and commit many small evils.”

“What do you mean by these?”

“They steal, break into houses, cut purses, strip people of their clothes, rob temples, and sell people into slavery. Sometimes, if they are able speakers, they bring malicious charges, give false testimony, and take bribes. 575c”

“Small evils indeed,” he said, “if such men are few.”

“For small evils are small compared with great ones,” I said, “and all these things, beside the wickedness and misery a tyrant brings upon a city, do not, as the saying goes, come anywhere near the mark. When there are many such men in a city, along with others who follow them, and they become aware of their numbers, they are the ones who, with the people’s folly, bring a tyrant into being: whichever of them has within his own soul the greatest and most powerful 575d tyrant.”

“Naturally,” he said, “for he would be the most tyrannical.”

“Yes, if they submit willingly. But if the city will not let him have his way, then, as he once punished his father and mother, he will, if he can, punish his fatherland in turn, bringing in new companions; and he will hold in slavery under them, and maintain in that state, the land once dear to him—his motherland, as the Cretans call it, and his fatherland. This would be the consummation of such a man’s desire. 575e”

“Yes, entirely,” he said.

“Even in private life, before they come to power,” I said, “these men behave in this way. First, they associate either with people who flatter them and are ready to serve their every need, or, if they themselves need something from someone, they fawn upon him, daring every show of intimacy; once they have got what they wanted, they become strangers. 576a”

“Very much so.”

“So throughout their lives they are never anyone’s friends. They are always masters over someone or slaves to someone else. A tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or genuine friendship.”

“Certainly not.”

“Would we not be right to call such people untrustworthy?”

“How could we not?”

“And as unjust as can be, if we were right 576b in what we agreed earlier about the nature of justice.”

“We certainly were right,” he said.

“Then let us sum up the worst man,” I said. “He is, I take it, the man who is awake just as we have described him in dreams.”

“Exactly.”

“He comes into being when the man most tyrannical by nature achieves absolute rule; and the longer he lives as a tyrant, the more he becomes such a man.”

“That must be so,” said Glaucon, taking up the conversation.

“And will the man who proves the worst,” I said, “576c also prove the most wretched? Will the one who exercises tyranny for the longest time and to the greatest degree in truth be wretched to the greatest degree and for the longest time? People at large, though, have many different opinions.”

“At least this much must be so,” he said.

“Now the tyrannical man would resemble the tyrannized city, the democratic man the democratic city, and likewise with the others, would he not?”

“Of course.”

“And as one city stands to another in virtue and happiness, so does one man stand to another? 576d”

“How could it be otherwise?”

“Then how does a tyrannized city compare in virtue with a city governed by a king, such as we described at the outset?”

“They are complete opposites,” he said. “One is best, the other worst.”

“I will not ask which you mean,” I said, “for it is plain. But do you judge them in the same way in happiness and misery, or differently? And let us not be overawed by the sight of the tyrant alone, or of the few who attend him. Let us go inside and behold the whole 576e city, as we must, penetrate into every part of it, and only then declare our verdict.”

“That is a fair challenge,” he said, “and everyone can see that no city is more wretched than one under tyranny, and none happier than one under a king.”

“Then would I be right,” I said, “to issue the same challenge 577a concerning the men, asking that judgment be made by someone able to enter into a man’s character in thought and discern it clearly? He must not look only at the outside, like a child dazzled by the pomp tyrants put on for strangers, but must see through it. Suppose I claimed we should all listen to such a judge, one both able to judge and familiar with tyrants, who has lived in the same house and observed how they behave at home toward each member of the family, where they are most likely 577b to be seen stripped of their tragic costume, and who has also seen them in public dangers. Suppose we asked him, after seeing all this, to report how the tyrant fares in happiness and misery beside other men?”

“You would be quite right to issue that challenge too,” he said.

“Shall we pretend, then,” I said, “that we ourselves are among those able to judge, and that we have already met such people, so that we have someone to answer our questions?”

“Certainly.” 577c

“Come, then,” I said, “consider it this way. Remember the likeness between city and man, examine each in turn, and tell me what each undergoes.”

“What kinds of things?” he said.

“First,” I said, “speaking of the city, would you call a city under tyranny free or enslaved?”

“As enslaved as could be,” he said.

“And yet you see masters and free people in it.”

“I see a tiny number of them,” he said. “But the whole city, one might say, including its most decent part, is enslaved, dishonored, and wretched. 577d”

“If the man resembles the city,” I said, “must not the same order prevail within him? Must his soul not be full of bondage and servility, with its most decent parts enslaved, while a small part, the most depraved and frenzied, rules as master?”

“It must,” he said.

“Then would you call a soul like that enslaved or free?”

“Enslaved, surely.”

“And a city enslaved under tyranny is least able to do what it wishes, is it not?”

“By far.” 577e

“Then the soul under tyranny, speaking of the whole soul, will be least able to do what it wishes. Always dragged by a goad against its will, it will be full of turmoil and remorse.”

“How could it not?”

“And must a city under tyranny be rich or poor?”

“Poor.”

“578a Then a tyrannical soul, too, must always be poor and insatiable.”

“So it is,” he said.

“And must not such a city, and such a man, be full of fear?”

“Very much so.”

“Do you think you could find more wailing, groaning, lamentation, and pain in any other city?”

“Not at all.”

“And do you think such things abound in any other man more than in this tyrannical man, maddened by desires and passions?”

“How could they?” he said. 578b

“Looking to all these things and others like them, I imagine, you judged this city the most wretched of cities—”

“And rightly, did I not?” he said.

“Certainly,” I said. “But looking at these same things, what do you say of the tyrannical man?”

“That he is by far the most wretched of all men,” he said.

“Now you are not quite right,” I said.

“How so?” he said.

“He is not yet, I think, the most wretched man of this kind.”

“Who is, then?”

“Perhaps you will find this man still more wretched.”

“Which man? 578c”

“The man,” I said, “who has a tyrannical nature but does not live out his life as a private citizen, and is so unfortunate that some accident provides him the chance to become a tyrant.”

“From what has already been said,” he replied, “I suspect you are speaking the truth.”

“Yes,” I said, “but in matters like this we must not rely on suspicion. We must examine them carefully by an argument of this kind, for our inquiry concerns the greatest question: the good life and the bad.”

“Quite right,” he said.

“Consider whether I have something to say. I think that in examining the tyrant we must reflect 578d on these people.”

“Which people?”

“Each of those wealthy private citizens in our cities who own many slaves. In this respect they resemble tyrants: they rule over many, though the tyrant’s numbers are different.”

“They are different.”

“You know that such men live without fear and are not afraid of their servants?”

“Why should they be afraid?”

“No reason,” I said. “But do you see why?”

“Yes: the entire city comes to the aid of each individual citizen. 578e”

“Well said,” I replied. “But suppose a god were to lift one man, with fifty or more slaves, out of the city, together with his wife, children, other property, and servants, and set him down in a wilderness where no free person would be there to help him. How great a fear, do you think, would seize him for himself, his children, and his wife, lest the servants kill them?”

“Utter fear,” he said.

571a “We still have to examine the tyrannical man himself,” I said. “How does he change from a democratic man? What is he like once he has changed, and how does he live? Is he miserable or happy?”

“He is indeed the one still left,” he said.

“Do you know what I still want?” I asked.

“What?”

“I don't think we have adequately distinguished the kinds of desires and how many there are. If that remains unfinished, our inquiry 571b into what we are seeking will be less clear.”

“Is it still a good time to do that?” he asked.

“Certainly. Consider what I want to see about them. I think some unnecessary pleasures and desires are lawless. They probably arise in everyone. But in some people laws and better desires, aided by reason, hold them in check. Then they disappear altogether or remain few and weak; 571c in others they become stronger and more numerous.”

“Which desires do you mean?” he asked.

“The ones that wake up during sleep,” I said. “The reasoning, gentle, ruling part of the soul is asleep. But the wild, animal part, filled with food or drink, leaps up. It shakes off sleep and tries to go out and satisfy its own habits. You know it dares to do anything then, as if freed of all shame and good sense. In its imagination it has no hesitation about having sex 571d with its mother, or with any human, god, or animal. It will commit any murder and eat any food. In short, no foolishness or shamelessness is beyond it.”

“That is absolutely true,” he said.

“But suppose someone keeps himself healthy and self-controlled. Before sleeping, he wakes up his reasoning part and feeds it fine arguments and questions, 571e reflecting quietly to himself. He neither starves nor overfills his appetites, so that they will sleep and won't disturb 572a the best part with pleasure or pain. He leaves it alone and clear to examine things, and to reach toward knowledge of something it does not know, whether past, present, or future. Likewise, he calms his spirited part instead of going to sleep with it stirred up by anger at someone. He quiets those two parts and activates the third, where understanding arises. When he rests this way, you know he is most likely to grasp the truth, and 572b lawless visions are least likely to appear in his dreams.”

“I think that is exactly right,” he said.

“We have gone into more detail than we meant to. What we want to know is this: everyone has a frightening, wild, lawless kind of desire, even those of us who seem quite decent. It becomes clear in dreams. See whether what I say makes sense to you and whether you agree.”

“I do agree.”

“Now recall what we said about the democratic man. 572c He grew up as a young man under a thrifty father. His father valued only desires that make money, and despised unnecessary ones that arise for amusement and display. Isn't that right?”

“Yes.”

“Then he spent time with more sophisticated men, full of the desires we just described. He rushed into every kind of excess and toward their way of life because he hated his father's thrift. Yet he was naturally better than those who corrupted him. Pulled both ways, 572d he settled between the two ways of life. He enjoyed each in moderation, as he thought, and lived neither a stingy nor a lawless life. Thus he changed from an oligarchic man to a democratic one.”

“Yes,” he said, “that was, and still is, our account of such a man.”

“Now imagine that this man has grown older and has a young son brought up with the same habits.”

“I imagine it.”

“Imagine the same things happening to this son as happened to his father. He is drawn into every sort of 572e lawlessness, which his guides call complete freedom. His father and other relatives support his middle-range desires, while the others pull him the opposite way. When those cunning magicians and makers of tyrants lose hope of controlling him any other way, they devise a passionate desire in him to lead his idle desires, which spend whatever is at hand. It is a great winged drone 573a—what else would you call such a passion?”

“Nothing else,” he said.

“Then the other desires buzz around it, loaded with incense, perfumes, garlands, wine, and the pleasures of such gatherings. They grow it and feed it to its fullest size, planting the sting of longing in the drone. This leader of the soul gets madness as its bodyguard 573b and is driven into a frenzy. If it finds any decent opinions or desires within the man that still feel shame, it kills them and drives them out. It purges him of self-control and fills him with imported madness.”

“You have described exactly how a tyrannical man develops,” he said.

“Is that why passion has long been called a tyrant?” I asked.

“It probably is,” he said.

“And doesn't a drunken man, my friend, take on something of a tyrant's 573c attitude?”

“He does.”

“And a madman with his mind disturbed tries to rule not only people but gods, and thinks he can.”

“He certainly does,” he said.

“A man becomes fully tyrannical, my friend, when nature, habit, or both make him drunk, passionate, and mad.”

“Exactly.”

“That is how such a man comes into being, it seems. But how does he live?”

573d “As people say when they are playing games,” he replied, “you'll have to tell me that too.”

“I will,” I said. “I think the next things in their lives are festivals, drinking parties, banquets, sex workers, and everything else of the kind. Passion lives inside them as a tyrant and directs their entire soul.”

“It must,” he said.

“Don't numerous and terrible desires sprout up beside it day and night, demanding many things?”

“Very many.”

“Then any income they have is quickly spent.”

“How could it not be?”

573e “Next come loans and the selling off of their property.”

“Of course.”

“When everything is gone, the desires nested inside them will surely scream often and loudly. The men will be goaded by the stings of the other desires, and especially by passion itself, which leads the rest like a band of guards. They will frantically search for someone who has something they can take by deceit or 574a force. Won't they?”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“They must bring in goods from everywhere, or suffer terrible pangs and pain.”

“They must.”

“And just as new pleasures in him took more than the old ones and robbed them, won't the son, though younger than his father and mother, insist on taking more than they do? Once he has spent his share, won't he claim and take part of his parents' property?”

“Of course he will,” he said. 574b

“And if they refuse, won't he first try stealing from and deceiving his parents?”

“Certainly.”

“When that fails, will he then seize things by force?”

“I think so,” he said.

“If his elderly father and mother resist and fight him, my friend, will he be careful not to treat them like a tyrant?”

“I wouldn't feel very confident about such a man's parents,” he said.

“But Adeimantus, by Zeus, would this man beat and enslave his mother, whom he has loved for so long and needs, 574c for the sake of a new lover he does not need? Or would he do the same to his aging father, the oldest of his friends, whom he needs, for the sake of a new young male lover whom he does not need? Would he put his parents under those lovers' control if he brought them into the same house?”

“Yes, by Zeus,” he said.

“What a blessing it seems to be to have a tyrannical son,” I said.

“Quite a blessing,” he said. 574d

“What happens when such a man uses up his father and mother's property, and a great swarm of pleasures has gathered inside him? Won't he first break into someone's house or steal the cloak of someone walking late at night, then rob a temple? Throughout this, the opinions about right and wrong that he held since childhood, the ones that supported justice, will be overcome by the newly freed desires serving as guards to his passion. These desires used to break loose only in dreams 574e when he was still under the rule of law and his father, living with a democracy inside himself. Now that passion rules him like a tyrant, he is always awake as he used to be only occasionally in dreams. He will hold back from no horrible murder, food, or deed. 575a Passion lives as a tyrant within him, without order or law. Since it rules alone, it drives the man it possesses, as if he were a city, to any outrage that will supply itself and its noisy followers. Some of those followers came from outside through bad company; others, born inside him, were loosened and set free by his own behavior. Isn't that how he lives?”

“Yes, it is,” he said.

“If there are only a few such people in a city 575b and the rest of the population has good sense, they go abroad and serve as guards to another tyrant, or work as hired soldiers if there is a war somewhere. But if they live in peace and quiet, they stay in the city and do many kinds of lesser harm.”

“What kinds?”

“They steal, break into houses, cut purses, strip people of their clothes, rob temples, and kidnap people to sell them into slavery. Sometimes, if they are persuasive speakers, they bring false charges. They also give false testimony and accept bribes.”

“Those are minor harms,” he said, “if there are only a few such people.”

575c “Minor things are minor compared with major ones,” I said. “All these things, compared with a tyrant and the harm and misery he brings a city, don't even come close, as the saying goes. When there are many such people in a city, along with their followers, and they realize their numbers, they and the people's foolishness create a tyrant. He is the one among them whose own soul contains the greatest and strongest 575d tyrant.”

“That makes sense,” he said. “He would be the most tyrannical.”

“If the city submits willingly, that is one thing. But if it won't let him have his way, he will punish his country if he can, just as he punished his mother and father before. He will bring in new companions and keep his once beloved motherland—as the Cretans call it—and fatherland enslaved under them. That is the final aim of a man's desires like these.”

“It certainly is,” he said. 575e

“Even in private life, before coming to power, these men behave as follows. The people they associate with are either flatterers ready to do anything for them, or else people whose help they need. Then they stoop to anything and act as though they are close friends. Once they get what they want, 576a they become strangers.”

“Exactly.”

“So they live without ever being anyone's friend. They are always either ruling someone or serving someone else. A tyrannical nature never tastes freedom or real friendship.”

“Certainly not.”

“Would we be right to call such people untrustworthy?”

“How could we not?”

“And as unjust as anyone can be, if what we agreed 576b earlier about the nature of justice was right.”

“It certainly was,” he said.

“Then let's sum up the worst man,” I said. “He is the one who is awake as we described him in a dream.”

“Exactly.”

“And he comes into being when someone tyrannical by nature becomes a sole ruler. The longer he lives as a tyrant, the more he becomes like that.”

“He must,” said Glaucon, taking over the conversation.

“Then will the man who proves most wicked 576c also prove most miserable? And will the one who rules most completely as a tyrant for the longest time truly be the most miserable for the longest time, no matter what different things the majority may think?”

“That must be so,” he said.

“Isn't the tyrannical man like a city under tyranny, the democratic man like a democracy, and the others like their corresponding cities?”

“Of course.”

“And the difference in virtue and happiness between one city and another is the same as the difference between the corresponding men?”

“How could it not be?”

576d “So how does a city under a tyrant compare in virtue with the city ruled by kings that we described first?”

“They are complete opposites,” he said. “One is best; the other is worst.”

“I won't ask which you mean,” I said, “since that's clear. Do you judge their happiness and misery the same way or differently? We must not be dazzled by the sight of the tyrant alone, or of the few people around him. We must go inside and look through 576e the whole city, down to every part, before we give our opinion.”

“That is a fair demand,” he said. “Anyone can see that no city is more miserable than one under a tyrant, and none happier than one ruled by kings.”

“Wouldn't it also be fair,” I asked, “to make the same demand 577a in judging the men? The judge should be someone who can enter a man's character in thought and see inside it. He must not be like a child, dazzled by the outward show tyrants put on for strangers. He needs to see clearly. Suppose we all listened to someone able to judge who has lived in the same house with a tyrant and seen him deal with each member of his family, where he is most exposed without his theatrical costume. This person has also seen him face public dangers. Having seen it all, he could tell us how the tyrant compares 577b with others in happiness and misery.”

“That would be a perfectly fair demand,” he said.

“Then shall we pretend that we ourselves are qualified judges, and have met men of this kind already, so we have someone to answer our questions?”

“Certainly.”

577c “Come, then,” I said, “look at it this way. Keep the likeness between city and man in mind, and examine each in turn. Tell me what happens to each.”

“Which things?” he asked.

“First, speaking of the city, would you say a city under a tyrant is free or enslaved?”

“As enslaved as it can be,” he said.

“Yet you see masters and free people there.”

“I do,” he said, “but they are a small part. Nearly the whole city, including its best people, lives in dishonored, miserable slavery.”

577d “If the man resembles the city,” I said, “won't he have the same arrangement within himself? His soul will be full of slavery and lack of freedom. Its best parts will be enslaved, while a small part that is its most vicious and maddest will be master.”

“It must,” he said.

“Would you call that soul enslaved or free?”

“Enslaved, of course.”

“And a city enslaved under a tyrant is least able to do what it wants, isn't it?”

“By far.”

577e “So, speaking of the soul as a whole, a soul under tyranny will be least able to do what it wants. It will always be dragged along by a stinging urge, full of turmoil and regret.”

“How could it not?”

“Must a city under tyranny be rich or poor?”

“Poor.”

578a “So the tyrannical soul must always be needy and never satisfied.”

“That's right,” he said.

“Mustn't both this city and this man be full of fear?”

“Very much so.”

“Do you think you would find more cries of grief, groans, mourning, and pain in any other city?”

“No.”

“Or more of these things in any other man than in the tyrannical one, driven mad by his desires and passions?”

“How could you?” he said.

578b “So you looked at all this and the other things of this kind when you judged that city the most miserable of cities—”

“Wasn't I right?” he said.

“Quite right,” I said. “But looking at these same things, what do you say about the tyrannical man?”

“He is by far the most miserable of all men,” he said.

“That,” I said, “is not quite right.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don't think this man is the most miserable one yet.”

“Then who is?”

578c “Perhaps you will think this man even more miserable: a tyrannical man who does not live out his life as a private person, but has the bad luck, through some chance event, to become a tyrant.”

“From what we have said, I gather you are right,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “but we should not just guess about such matters. We must examine them closely by argument. Our inquiry concerns the greatest issue: a good life or a bad one.”

“Absolutely right,” he said.

“See if my point holds. I think we must consider him by looking at this example.”

“Which example?”

578d “Think of each wealthy private citizen in a city who owns many enslaved people. Such citizens resemble tyrants in ruling many people, though a tyrant rules more.”

“Many more.”

“You know that these citizens feel safe and aren't afraid of those who serve them?”

“What would they have to fear?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Do you see why?”

“Yes. The whole city comes to the help of each private citizen.”

578e “Good,” I said. “But what if a god picked up a man who owned fifty or more enslaved people and moved him, his wife, children, all his property, and the people who served him out of the city? Suppose the god placed them in an isolated place where no free people would come to his help. How deeply would he fear for himself, his children, and his wife, in case his servants killed them?”

“He would be terrified in every way,” he said.