Book II, 357–365

357a When I had said this, I thought I had escaped the discussion. But apparently it had only been a prelude. Glaucon is always exceedingly courageous in everything, and now too he would not accept Thrasymachus' surrender. “Socrates,” he said, “do you want us merely to seem persuaded, or to be 357b truly persuaded that it is in every way better to be just than unjust?”

“Truly persuaded, if it were in my power,” I said.

“Then you are not doing what you want. Tell me this: do you think there is a kind of good we would welcome possessing, not for its consequences, but because we cherish it for itself—joy, for example, and those harmless pleasures that leave nothing in their wake except the pleasure of having them?”

“I do think there is such a kind,” I said. 357c

“And what of a good we love both for itself and for its results—understanding, for example, sight and health? Surely we welcome such things on both accounts.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you see a third class of goods,” he said, “including exercise, medical treatment when one is ill, medicine itself and other ways of earning money? We might say these are burdensome but beneficial, and would not choose to have them for their own sake, 357d but for their wages and the other things that come of them.”

“Yes, that is a third class too,” I said. “But what of it?”

“In which of these classes,” he asked, “do you place justice?”

358a “In the finest,” I said: “the class to be cherished both for itself and for what comes of it by anyone who wishes to be happy.”

“But that is not how most people see it,” he said. “They put it among burdensome things to be practiced for wages and for the good reputation it brings, but shunned in itself as something difficult.”

“I know that is their view,” I said. “Thrasymachus has long condemned justice as such a thing and praised injustice. But I seem to be a slow learner.” 358b

“Come then,” he said, “listen to me as well, if you still think so. Thrasymachus seems to me to have been charmed by you like a snake before his time. I am not yet satisfied with the demonstration concerning either justice or injustice. I want to hear what each is and what power it has in itself when present in the soul; let us set aside wages and all their consequences. So, if you agree, this is what I shall do. I will renew 358c Thrasymachus' argument. First I shall tell you what people say justice is and where it arose; second, that all who practice it do so unwillingly, as a necessity rather than a good; third, that they are right to do so, since, they say, the unjust person's life is far better than the just person's. For my part, Socrates, I do not believe that. But I am at a loss: my ears have been deafened by hearing Thrasymachus and countless others, and I have yet to hear anyone defend justice as 358d better than injustice in the way I want. I want to hear it praised in itself, and I think you are the person most able to tell me. I shall therefore strain every nerve in praise of the unjust life and then show you how, in turn, I want to hear you condemn injustice and praise justice. But see whether this is what you want.”

“More than anything,” I said. “What subject could a person of sense find greater pleasure in discussing and hearing discussed, again and again?” 358e

“Excellent,” he said. “Now listen to the first thing I promised to discuss: what justice is, and where it came from.

“They say that doing injustice is naturally a good thing, and suffering it an evil, but that the evil of suffering it exceeds the good of doing it. So when people do injustice to one another and suffer it in return, and have tasted both, those who cannot avoid the one and secure 359a the other think it profitable to agree among themselves neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. From this, they say, they began to establish laws and mutual covenants, and called what the law commands lawful and just. This, then, is the origin and nature of justice: a middle ground between the best condition, doing wrong with impunity, and the worst, suffering wrong without the power to retaliate. Justice stands between them and is prized not as 359b a good, but because one is too weak to do injustice. For anyone who can do it, if he is truly a man, would never make an agreement with anyone neither to do injustice nor to suffer it. That would be madness. This, Socrates, is the nature of justice, according to the argument, and these are the circumstances from which it arose.

“We could best perceive that even those who practice justice do so unwillingly, because they lack the power to do injustice, if we did this 359c in thought: grant each of them, the just and the unjust, the freedom to do whatever he wishes, and follow them to see where their desires will lead. We would catch the just man in the very act of following the same path as the unjust, through the desire for more that every nature pursues as a good, though law forcibly diverts it toward respect for equality. The freedom I mean would be most complete if they possessed the power once said 359d to have belonged to the ancestor of Gyges the Lydian. The story goes that he was a shepherd serving the ruler of Lydia at the time. After heavy rain and an earthquake, the earth split open, leaving a chasm in the place where he grazed his flocks. Astonished at the sight, he descended and saw, among other marvels told of in the story, a hollow bronze horse with openings. Looking inside, he saw a corpse, apparently larger than a human being, wearing nothing except a gold ring 359e on its hand. He took the ring and climbed out. When the shepherds assembled for their customary monthly meeting to report on the flocks to the king, he came with the ring.

“As he sat among the others, he happened to turn the bezel of the ring toward himself, to the inside of his hand. At once 360a he became invisible to those sitting beside him, and they spoke of him as if he had gone away. Wondering at this, he felt for the ring again and turned the bezel outward, and became visible. He thought it over and tested whether the ring had this power. It did: when he turned the bezel inward he became invisible, and when he turned it outward he reappeared. As soon as he realized this, he arranged to join the messengers sent to the king. On arriving, 360b he seduced the king's wife, conspired with her against him, killed him, and seized the throne. Suppose, then, there were two such rings, and the just man put on one and the unjust man the other. No one, it would seem, could be so adamantine as to remain just, to have the courage to refrain from touching what belongs to others, when he could take whatever he liked from the marketplace without fear, 360c enter houses and sleep with whomever he wished, kill or release from prison whomever he pleased, and act among human beings like a god. In doing all this he would behave no differently from the other man; both would go the same way. Someone might say this is strong evidence that no one is just willingly but only under compulsion, since justice is not a good for the individual: wherever a person believes he can do injustice, he does it. Everyone thinks injustice far more profitable 360d for himself than justice, and thinks rightly, the advocate of this argument will say. For if someone with such power refused to do any wrong or touch another's property, all who knew of it would think him utterly miserable and foolish. They would praise him to one another, however, deceiving each other out of fear of being wronged. So much for that.

360e “To judge the lives we are discussing properly, we must distinguish the most just man from the most unjust. Otherwise we cannot judge. How shall we distinguish them? Like this: take nothing away from the unjust man's injustice or the just man's justice, but make each perfect in his own way of life.

“First, let the unjust man work as a master craftsman does. A consummate pilot or doctor discerns what is possible in his art and what is not, attempting the one and leaving the other; and if he makes a mistake, he can set it right. 361a In the same way, if the unjust man is to be thoroughly unjust, let him undertake his unjust acts skillfully and escape detection. The man who gets caught must be considered inept; for the height of injustice is to seem just without being so. We must therefore give the wholly unjust man the fullest injustice and take nothing away from him: though he commits the gravest wrongs, let him enjoy the highest reputation 361b for justice. If he stumbles, let him be able to recover, eloquent enough to persuade people if any of his misdeeds come to light and strong enough to use force when force is needed, through his courage and vigor and the support of friends and wealth. Having set him up in this way, let us place beside him in our account the just man, a simple and noble man who, in Aeschylus' words, wants not to seem good but to be good. We must take away the appearance of goodness. For if he seems just, 361c honors and gifts will come to him on account of that appearance, and it will be unclear whether he is just for justice's sake or for the gifts and honors. Strip him, then, of everything except justice, and put him in the opposite condition to the first man. Though he does no wrong, let him have the greatest reputation for injustice, so that his justice will be tested by his refusal to yield to disgrace and all that follows it. Let him persist unchanged until 361d death, seeming unjust all his life while actually just. Thus, when each has reached the extreme, one in justice and the other in injustice, we can judge which of the two is happier.”

“Good heavens, Glaucon,” I said, “how vigorously you polish each of your two men, as though they were statues, for our judgment!”

“As vigorously as I can,” he said. “With men like these it is not difficult, I think, to tell what sort of life awaits each of them. We must say it, even if the words are rather coarse; and if they are, Socrates, do not think it is I who speak, but those who praise injustice above justice. 361e

“They will say that the just man, in the condition I have described, will be whipped, racked, chained, 362a and have his eyes burned out. At last, after suffering every evil, he will be impaled, and will learn that one must seek not to be just but to seem so. Aeschylus' words, it turns out, would have been much more rightly applied to the unjust man. For they will say that the unjust man, pursuing what is real and not living for appearances, wants not to seem unjust but to be unjust,

‘Reaping the deep furrow of his mind, 362bFrom which good counsel springs.’

“First, because he seems just, he rules in his city. Then he marries from whatever family he chooses and gives his children in marriage to whomever he chooses; he makes agreements and partnerships with whom he likes, profiting from all these dealings because he has no scruples about wrongdoing. When he enters contests, public or private, he prevails and gains the advantage over his enemies. With those gains he grows rich, 362c helps his friends and harms his enemies, and offers the gods ample and splendid sacrifices and dedications. He can serve the gods, and whatever people he wishes, far better than the just man can. Thus it is reasonable to expect that he will be dearer to the gods than the just man. That, Socrates, is how they say that gods and men have furnished the unjust man with a better life than the just.” 362d

When Glaucon had said this, I was preparing to reply, but his brother Adeimantus spoke. “Surely, Socrates,” he said, “you do not think the case has been sufficiently made?”

“What is missing?” I asked.

“The very thing,” he said, “that most needed to be said.”

“Well then,” I said, “as the saying goes, let a brother stand by his brother. Come to his aid if he has left something out. Though what he has already said is enough to throw me and leave me unable to defend justice.” 362e

“Nonsense,” he said. “Listen to this as well. We must also examine the arguments opposed to his, those that praise justice and condemn injustice, to make Glaucon's intention clearer.

“Fathers tell their sons, and everyone who cares for anyone tells those in their care, that one must be just. They praise not justice itself 363a but the good reputation it brings, so that a man thought just can gain offices and marriages through his reputation, and all the things Glaucon has just listed as accruing to a just man through public esteem. They go further still in their account of reputation, invoking the esteem of the gods and describing without end the blessings they say the gods give the pious. Noble Hesiod and Homer say as much. Hesiod says that for the just the gods make oaks 363b ‘bear acorns at their crowns and bees in their midst,’ and ‘woolly sheep are weighed down with fleeces’; and he names many other blessings besides. Homer speaks in much the same way:

‘As when a blameless king, who fears the gods,Upholds just judgments, and the dark earth bears 363cWheat and barley, trees are heavy with fruit,Flocks breed without fail, and the sea yields fish.’

“Musaeus and his son give the just even more extravagant rewards from the gods: they take them in their tale down to Hades, lay them at a banquet of the pious, and make them spend all time 363d henceforth crowned and drunk, as though eternal intoxication were the finest wage of virtue. Others extend the gods' rewards further still: they say that the pious man who keeps his oaths leaves behind children of children and a continuing line. Such things, and others like them, are their praises of justice. But the impious and unjust they bury in mud in Hades and force to carry water in a sieve. While they still live, they bring them into ill repute, and speak of the same punishments Glaucon described for the just who are thought unjust. 363e That is all they have to say of the unjust. Such is their praise and blame of the two kinds of people.

“Besides this, Socrates, consider another sort of discourse about justice and injustice, heard in private and among the poets. 364a With one voice they sing that moderation and justice are fine but difficult and laborious, while license and injustice are pleasant and easy to acquire and are shameful only by convention and law. They say that unjust acts are generally more profitable than just ones, and readily call rich, wicked people who possess other forms of power happy and worthy of honor, both publicly and privately. But they dishonor and despise those who are weak 364b and poor, even while admitting that they are better than the others. Most astonishing of all are the things they say about the gods and virtue: that the gods have allotted many good people misfortune and a wretched life, and their opposites an opposite fate. Itinerant priests and diviners go to the doors of the rich and persuade them that they have a power granted by the gods to remedy, through sacrifices and incantations, any wrong a man 364c or his ancestors have done, amid feasting and pleasure. And should he wish to harm an enemy, they can, for a small expense, injure the just as readily as the unjust through spells and bindings, persuading the gods, as they claim, to serve them. For all these claims they summon poets as witnesses. To show how easy vice is, some quote:

‘Wickedness can be had in abundance 364dWith ease: its road is smooth and it lives close by;But before virtue the gods have set sweat,’

and speak of a long, rugged, uphill road. Others call Homer as witness that men can turn the gods, for he too said:

‘Even the gods themselves can be entreated;With sacrifices and gentle prayers, 364eWith libations and the savor of burnt offerings,People turn them aside by supplication when one has transgressed and sinned.’

“They bring out a clamor of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, offspring, they say, of the Moon and the Muses, and perform sacrifices according to them. They persuade not only private people but whole cities that there are releases from wrongdoing and purifications through sacrifice and pleasurable games, both 365a for the living and for the dead. These they call initiations, which deliver us from the evils of the next world, whereas terrible things await those who have not made sacrifice.

“When all these tales of virtue and vice, of how gods and men honor them, are told so often and at such length, my dear Socrates,” he said, “what do we think they do to the souls of young people? Especially those gifted enough to seize on everything they hear and infer from it what sort of person they should be 365b and which way they should go to live the best life. Such a young man will probably say to himself, borrowing Pindar's words: ‘Shall I climb by justice to a high-walled fortress, or by crooked deceits, and fortify myself there for life?’ For, according to what they say, if I am just but do not also seem so, I gain nothing but manifest toil and loss. If I am unjust but cultivate a reputation for justice, a marvelous life is promised me. 365c Since appearance, as the wise tell me, ‘overpowers even truth’ and determines happiness, I must turn wholly toward it. Around myself, as a facade and outward show, I must paint a likeness of virtue, while drawing along behind me the crafty, many-colored fox of that wisest of men, Archilochus. But, someone will say, it is not easy to be wicked and always escape notice. Nor is any other great enterprise 365d easy, we will reply. Still, if we mean to be happy, we must follow where the tracks of the arguments lead. To keep ourselves hidden, we will form conspiracies and clubs; there are masters of persuasion to teach us the arts of speaking in assemblies and courts. By these means we will sometimes persuade and sometimes use force, gaining the advantage without paying the penalty. But we cannot hide from or overpower the gods. Well, if they do not exist, or do not care about human affairs, why should 365e we care about hiding from them? If they exist and do care, all we know or have heard of them comes from the laws and the poets who trace their ancestry. Those same poets say that sacrifices, ‘gentle prayers,’ and offerings can persuade and turn them. We must believe the poets in both claims or neither.

“If we believe them, we must do wrong and offer sacrifices

357a After saying this, I thought I was done with the discussion. But it seems that was only the introduction. Glaucon has always been exceptionally bold in everything, and at that point he refused to accept Thrasymachus's withdrawal.

“Socrates,” he said, “do you want us merely to seem convinced, or do you want to convince us 357b that it really is better in every way to be just than unjust?”

“I would choose to convince you for real,” I said, “if it were up to me.”

“Then you aren't doing what you want. Tell me this. Is there a kind of good that we'd welcome for its own sake, not because we want what comes from it? Enjoyment is one example, along with harmless pleasures that have no later result beyond our pleasure in having them.”

“I think there is such a kind,” I said. 357c

“And what about something we value both for itself and for what comes from it, such as thinking, seeing, and being healthy? Surely we welcome these for both reasons.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you see a third kind of good? It includes exercise, medical treatment when we're sick, medicine, and other ways of making money. We'd call these things hard work but useful. We wouldn't choose them for their own sake, 357d but for the pay and other things we get from them.”

“Yes, there is that third kind too,” I said. “But why do you ask?”

“Which of these kinds,” he asked, “does justice belong to?”

358a “I think it belongs to the finest kind,” I said. “Anyone who wants to be happy must value it both for itself and for what comes from it.”

“Most people don't think so,” he said. “They place it in the burdensome kind, something to practice for its rewards and the respect that comes with a good reputation. They think it is difficult and should be avoided for its own sake.”

“I know that's what they think,” I said. “Thrasymachus has long attacked justice as that kind of thing and praised injustice. But apparently I'm a slow learner.” 358b

“Come on, then, hear me out too, and see whether you still think the same. You seem to have charmed Thrasymachus into silence too soon, as if he were a snake. I'm not yet satisfied with the case made for either side. I want to hear what each one is and what effect it has in itself when it is present in the soul. Set aside the rewards and everything else that comes from them. So, if you agree, here's what I'll do: I'll take up 358c Thrasymachus's argument again. First I'll say what people claim justice is and where it comes from. Second, I'll say they claim everyone who practices it does so unwillingly, because they must, not because it's good. Third, I'll say why, according to them, that's reasonable: the unjust person's life is much better than the just person's. I don't believe that myself, Socrates. But I'm confused. I've heard Thrasymachus and countless others say it so often that my ears are ringing, while I've never heard anyone make the case for justice over injustice 358d in the way I'd like. I want to hear justice praised for itself, and I think you're the one best able to do that. So I'll put all my effort into praising an unjust life. When I'm finished, you'll see how I want to hear you condemn injustice and praise justice. But first tell me if you're willing to listen.”

“More than willing,” I said. “What other subject could a sensible person take more pleasure in discussing and hearing about, again and again?” 358e

“Good,” he said. “Listen, then, to the first thing I promised to discuss: what justice is and where it came from.

“People say that doing wrong is naturally good, while suffering wrong is bad. But the harm of suffering it outweighs the benefit of doing it. So when people wrong each other and suffer wrong in turn, and experience both sides, those who cannot avoid being harmed while still doing harm themselves decide it pays to make a mutual agreement neither to wrong nor to be wronged. This is how, they say, people began 359a to set up laws and contracts. They called what the law commands both lawful and just. This, they say, is the origin and nature of justice. It falls between the best situation, doing wrong without being punished, and the worst, suffering wrong without being able to take revenge. Justice is valued as a middle ground, not because it is good 359b but because people lack the power to do wrong. Someone with the power, a real man, would never make an agreement with anyone to refrain from both doing and suffering wrong. He'd have to be mad. That, Socrates, is the nature of justice and its origin, according to this account.

“To see most clearly that people practice justice unwillingly, because they cannot do wrong, let's imagine this: we give both a just and an unjust person permission to do anything they want, 359c and then follow them to see where each person's desires lead. We'd catch the just person going exactly where the unjust one goes, driven by the desire to get more. Every creature naturally pursues this as a good, though the law forces it away from that goal and toward respecting equality. The kind of freedom I mean would be like the power that people say came to the ancestor of 359d [Gyges] the Lydian. He was a shepherd working for the man who ruled Lydia at the time. After a heavy rain and an earthquake, the ground split open where he was grazing his flock. Amazed at the sight, he climbed down. There he saw the other wonders people tell of, including a hollow bronze horse with openings. When he looked inside, he saw a corpse that appeared larger than a human body. It had nothing on it except 359e a gold ring on its hand. He took the ring and climbed out. When the shepherds held their usual meeting to report each month to the king on the flocks, he came along with the ring. As he sat among the others, he happened to turn the setting of the ring inward toward his palm. At once 360a he became invisible to the people sitting beside him, and they talked as though he had gone away. Amazed, he felt for the ring again and turned its setting outward. As soon as he did, he became visible. He tested the ring to see whether it really had this power. It did: when he turned the setting inward he disappeared, and when he turned it outward he reappeared. Once he knew that, he arranged to be one of the messengers sent to the king. When he arrived, 360b he had an affair with the king's wife. Together they attacked and killed the king, and he took power.

“Now suppose there were two such rings, one worn by a just person and the other by an unjust one. It seems no one would be so strong-willed that he'd stay just and dare to keep his hands off other people's things. After all, he could safely take anything he wanted from the marketplace, 360c enter homes and sleep with anyone he chose, kill people or free them from prison at will, and do everything else among humans with the power of a god. If the just person acted this way, he'd behave no differently from the other man. Both would go the same way. Someone might call this strong evidence that nobody is just willingly, but only under compulsion, since justice isn't good for a person in itself. Whenever anyone thinks he can get away with doing wrong, he does it. Everyone thinks injustice brings him much more personal gain 360d than justice does, and the speaker defending this argument will claim that everyone is right. If someone with this power never chose to do wrong and never touched anything belonging to another person, those who found out would think him utterly miserable and foolish. Yet they'd praise him to each other's faces, deceiving one another because each fears being wronged. So much for that.

360e “To judge the two lives we've been discussing correctly, we must set the most just person and the most unjust person far apart. Otherwise we won't be able to judge them. How shall we separate them? We must take nothing away from the unjust person's injustice or the just person's justice. Let each be perfect in his way of life.

“First, let the unjust person work like a highly skilled craftsman. An expert ship's captain or doctor knows what is possible in his profession and what isn't. He attempts what can be done and leaves the rest alone. And if he does slip up, he knows how to put things right. 361a Likewise, the unjust person must plan his wrongs well and escape detection, if he is to be thoroughly unjust. Anyone who gets caught should be thought incompetent: the height of injustice is to seem just without being so. We must give the wholly unjust person complete injustice and not diminish it. Allow him to commit the greatest wrongs while gaining the greatest reputation 361b for justice. If he makes a mistake, let him be able to fix it. If his wrongdoing comes to light, he must be able to talk his way out of it. When force is required, he must be able to use it, with his courage, strength, friends, and money.

“Now place beside him in our argument a just man, honest and noble, who, as Aeschylus says, wants not to seem good but to be good. We must take away his appearance of goodness. If he seems just, 361c he'll be honored and rewarded because people think he is just. Then we won't know whether he is just for the sake of justice or for the rewards and honors. Strip him of everything except justice and put him in the opposite position from the first man. Though he does no wrong, give him the strongest reputation for wrongdoing. This will test his justice: let him remain unaffected by his bad name and everything that follows from it. Let him keep the same course until 361d death, seeming unjust throughout his life while really being just. Then, with both men at their extremes, one of justice and the other of injustice, we can judge which is happier.”

“Good heavens, Glaucon,” I said, “you've done a powerful job of polishing each man up for our judgment, as if he were a statue.”

“I've done the best I can,” he said. “Given what they're like, I think it won't be hard to describe the life waiting for each. I must say it, 361e and if the words sound rather crude, Socrates, remember that they belong not to me but to people who praise injustice over justice.

“They'll say that the just man in this position will be whipped, tortured, chained, 362a have his eyes burned out, and finally, after suffering every kind of harm, be impaled. He'll learn that he should want to seem just, not be just. Aeschylus's words would be much more fitting for the unjust man. They will say that the unjust man deals in reality, not appearances, and does not want merely to seem unjust but to be unjust:

“‘He harvests a deep furrow in his mind, 362b from which good plans grow.’

“First he can rule the city because he seems just. Then he can marry into any family he wants and give his children in marriage to whomever he wants. He can make contracts and partnerships with anyone he likes. In all these dealings he profits because he has no objection to wrongdoing. In private and public contests, he defeats his enemies and gets the better of them. He grows rich by gaining more than they do, 362c and so can benefit his friends and harm his enemies. He can offer the gods plentiful and magnificent sacrifices and gifts. He can serve the gods, and whichever people he wants, far better than the just man can. It follows, they say, that he's more likely to be loved by the gods than the just man. So, Socrates, they say gods and humans alike provide a better life for the unjust man than for the just man.” 362d

When Glaucon had finished, I was preparing to reply. But his brother Adeimantus spoke up.

“You don't think the argument has been presented fully, do you, Socrates?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The most important thing still hasn't been said.”

“Well,” I said, “as the saying goes, a brother should come to a man's aid. If Glaucon has left anything out, help him. Though he's already said enough to throw me down and make me unable to defend justice.” 362e

“That's no answer,” he said. “Listen to this too. We must also go through the arguments opposed to those Glaucon gave, the ones that praise justice and condemn injustice. That will make what I take to be Glaucon's aim clearer.

“Fathers tell their sons, and anyone responsible for others tells those in their care, that they must be just. But they don't praise justice itself. They praise the good reputation it brings. If a man seems just, 363a his reputation will bring him offices and marriages and everything else Glaucon just listed as benefits that come to the just man from being well regarded. And they go further with this talk of reputations. They add a good reputation with the gods and have an endless list of benefits that, they say, the gods give to the devout. The noble Hesiod and Homer say the same. Hesiod says the gods make the oak trees of just people ‘bear acorns at their tops and bees in their middles,’ 363b and that ‘their woolly sheep are heavy with fleece.’ He describes many other blessings as well. Homer says much the same:

“‘So it is with a blameless king who fears the gods and upholds justice: the dark earth bears 363c wheat and barley, the trees are heavy with fruit, the flocks always bear young, and the sea yields fish.’

“Musaeus and his son promise the just even more extravagant benefits from the gods. In their story they take them down to Hades, lay out a banquet for the devout, and have them spend all their time 363d crowned and drunk. They apparently think endless drunkenness is the finest reward for virtue. Others extend the gods' rewards even further. They say that the children of one's children, and generations after them, survive for the devout person who keeps his oaths. These and similar things are how they praise justice. As for the impious and unjust, they bury them in mud in Hades and force them to carry water in a sieve. While they're still alive, 363e they give them a bad reputation. They describe the punishments Glaucon assigned to just people who are thought unjust, applying them to the unjust instead. They have nothing else to say. That's how they praise one side and condemn the other.

“Consider, besides, another kind of talk about justice and injustice, Socrates. You hear it in private 364a and from poets. They all say with one voice that self-control and justice are fine things but hard and painful, while lack of restraint and injustice are pleasant and easy to acquire, and shameful only by convention and reputation. They say that unjust acts are generally more profitable than just ones. They're quick to call wicked rich people and other powerful people happy and to honor them, in public and in private. But they slight and look down on people who are 364b weak or poor, though they admit those people are better than the others. Most astonishing of all is what they say about the gods and virtue: that the gods themselves allot misfortune and a bad life to many good people, but the opposite fate to bad people. Begging priests and diviners go to rich people's doors and convince them that they have a god-given power. With sacrifices and spells they can heal a wrong committed 364c by a man or his ancestors, all amid pleasures and celebrations. If someone wants to hurt an enemy, they promise to harm just and unjust people alike at little expense, through incantations and binding spells. They claim they can persuade the gods to serve them. They cite poets in support of all this. For the ease of wrongdoing, some teach:

“‘Wickedness can easily be chosen in crowds; 364d its road is smooth, and it lives very near. But the gods put sweat in front of virtue,’

“and describe a long, rough, uphill road to it. For the claim that humans can sway the gods, others cite Homer, who also said:

“‘Even the gods can be won over, and people turn them aside with sacrifices and gentle prayers, 364e libations and the smoke of offerings, begging forgiveness when someone oversteps and does wrong.’

“They bring a noisy heap of books by Musaeus and Orpheus, whom they say were descendants of the Moon and the Muses. They perform sacrifices by these books, and persuade not only individuals but whole cities that there are ways to release and purify us from wrongdoing through sacrifices, 365a pleasurable festivities, both while we're alive and after we die. They call these rites initiations. They promise the rites will free us from the evils of the next world, while terrible things await those who fail to sacrifice.

“All these numerous claims about virtue and vice, my dear Socrates, and how humans and gods reward them—what effect do we think they have on young people's souls? Especially the bright young people who can seize on everything they hear and work out what kind of person they should be, and which road to take 365b for the best possible life? Such a young person would probably ask himself the question in Pindar's lines: ‘Should I climb the high wall by justice, or by crooked tricks, and so build my defenses for life?’ For people say that if I'm just but don't seem just, it does me no good; instead, it clearly brings trouble and loss. But if I'm unjust and secure a reputation for justice, they say an extraordinary life awaits me. 365c Since, as wise people show me, appearance overpowers even truth and decides happiness, I must turn wholly toward appearance. I must paint a picture of virtue all around me, like a facade, while dragging behind me the clever, crafty fox of the very wise Archilochus. ‘But,’ someone says, ‘it's not easy to stay hidden when you're bad.’ Nothing great is easy, 365d we'd answer. Still, if we mean to be happy, we must take this road. That is where the trail of arguments leads. To stay hidden we'll organize sworn groups and clubs. There are teachers of persuasion who can teach us to speak effectively in assemblies and courts. So we can use persuasion in some cases and force in others, taking more without paying the penalty. ‘But we can't hide from the gods or overpower them.’ Well, if there are no gods, or if they don't care about human affairs, why should we 365e care about hiding from them? If they do exist and care, we know and have heard of them only from our laws and from poets who have told us their family histories. Yet those same poets say that sacrifices, gentle prayers, and gifts can persuade and turn them aside. We have to believe the poets on both points or on neither. If we believe them, we should commit wrongs and make sacrifices