Book II, 374–381

374a “No, a whole army, which will go out and fight the invaders for all their possessions and for everything we were speaking of just now.”

“But what?” he said. “Are the citizens themselves not enough?”

“Not if you and all of us were right in the agreement we made when we founded the city. We agreed, if you remember, that it is impossible for one person to practice many crafts well.”

“What you say is true,” he said. 374b

“Well then,” I said, “does the contest of war not seem to you a matter of craft?”

“Very much so,” he said.

“Should we care more for shoemaking than for warfare?”

“Not at all.”

“Yet we forbade our shoemaker to attempt to be a farmer at the same time, or a weaver or a builder, but made him a shoemaker, so that the work of shoemaking would be done well for us. Likewise we assigned each of the others a single task, the one for which he was naturally suited, which he would pursue throughout his life, free from other occupations, without missing the right moments, and so do well. 374c Are the affairs of war not of the greatest importance to carry out well? Or is warfare so easy that a farmer can be a warrior while farming, a shoemaker while making shoes, or a practitioner of any other craft while practicing it? Yet no one would become sufficiently skilled at checkers or dice if he did not make that very thing his practice from childhood, but took it up as a sideline. 374d Will a man take up a shield, or any other weapon or instrument of war, and that same day become a capable competitor in heavy-armed combat or any other kind of battle, when no other instrument, simply by being picked up, will make anyone a craftsman or an athlete, or be of use to someone who has neither acquired the knowledge of each craft nor given it sufficient practice?”

“Then the instruments would be worth a great deal indeed,” he said.

“So,” I said, “the greater the guardians’ task, 374e the more it will require freedom from all other occupations, as well as the greatest skill and devotion.”

“I think so,” he said.

“And will it not require a nature suited to that pursuit as well?”

“Of course.”

“Then our task, it seems, if we are capable of it, will be to select the people whose natures are suited to guarding a city.”

“Yes, that will be our task.”

“By Zeus,” I said, “we have taken on no slight undertaking. Still, we must not lose courage, so far as our strength allows.”

375a “Certainly not,” he said.

“Do you think,” I said, “that in the matter of guarding, the nature of a well-bred puppy differs from that of a well-born young man?”

“What do you mean?”

“Both must be keen to perceive, quick to pursue whatever they perceive, and strong as well, if they must seize it and fight.”

“Yes,” he said, “they need all those qualities.”

“And courage, surely, if they are to fight well.”

“Of course.”

“But will anything be courageous, whether horse, dog, or any other creature, if it has no spirit? Have you not observed 375b how irresistible and unconquerable spirit is, how its presence makes every soul fearless and undefeated against all things?”

“I have.”

“Then the bodily qualities the guardian needs are clear.”

“Yes.”

“And the quality of soul too: a spirited temper.”

“That too.”

“How then, Glaucon,” I said, “will they not be savage to one another and to the other citizens, with such natures?”

“By Zeus,” he said, “it is hard to see how they could avoid it.” 375c

“Yet they must be gentle to their own people and fierce toward enemies. Otherwise they will not wait for others to destroy them: they will get there first and do it themselves.”

“True,” he said.

“What are we to do, then?” I said. “Where shall we find a character both gentle and high-spirited? A gentle nature, surely, is opposed to a spirited one.”

“So it appears.”

“And yet, deprived of either quality, a man will never make a good guardian. These qualities appear incompatible; 375d thus it follows that a good guardian cannot exist.”

“So it seems,” he said.

I was at a loss, and after reviewing what had gone before I said, “No wonder we are at a loss, my friend: we have lost sight of the example we set before ourselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have overlooked the existence of natures that possess both these opposites, though we thought no such natures possible.”

“Where are they?”

“One may see them in other animals too, but not least 375e in the animal to which we compared our guardian. You know, I suppose, that noble dogs are by nature as gentle as can be toward those they know and live with, but the reverse toward strangers.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So this is possible,” I said, “and it is not contrary to nature to seek a guardian of this kind.”

“Apparently not.”

“Do you think our prospective guardian needs one more quality: besides being spirited, must he not also be a philosopher by nature?”

376a “How so?” he asked. “I do not understand.”

“You will see this too in dogs,” I said, “and it is a remarkable thing in the creature.”

“What thing?”

“When it sees a stranger, it grows angry although it has suffered no harm from him; but when it sees someone it knows, it welcomes him, even if it has never received a kindness from him. Have you never wondered at that?”

“I have not given it much thought until now,” he said, “but clearly that is what it does.”

“Yet this trait of its nature seems refined 376b and truly philosophical.”

“In what way?”

“Because,” I said, “it distinguishes a friendly face from an enemy’s by nothing but its knowing the one and not knowing the other. How could a creature fail to love learning when it determines what belongs to it and what is alien by knowledge and ignorance?”

“It could not possibly fail,” he said.

“But love of learning and love of wisdom are the same thing, are they not?” I asked.

“Yes, the same,” he said.

“Then we may confidently conclude that if a human being is to be 376c gentle toward his own people and those he knows, he must by nature be a philosopher and a lover of learning.”

“Let us conclude that,” he said.

“Thus whoever is to be a worthy guardian of our city will be, by nature, philosophical, spirited, swift, and strong.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“So much for his natural qualities. But how shall these men be raised and educated? And will examining that question help us to see what lies behind our whole inquiry: how justice and injustice arise in a city? We do not want to leave out a necessary account or pursue one at excessive length.” 376d

Glaucon’s brother said, “I certainly expect this inquiry to be useful for that purpose.”

“By Zeus, dear Adeimantus,” I said, “then we must not abandon it, even if it proves rather long.”

“Certainly not.”

“Come, then: let us educate these men in thought, as though we had leisure to tell a story.” 376e

“Yes, we must.”

“What, then, is their education? Is it hard to find a better one than the one discovered over the course of ages? It consists, I think, of physical training for the body and music and poetry for the soul.”

“Yes.”

“And shall we not begin their education with music and poetry, before physical training?”

“Of course.”

“Do you include stories in music and poetry?” I asked.

“I do.”

“And are there two kinds of stories, one true and the other false?”

“Yes.”

377a “We must educate them in both, but begin with the false?”

“I do not understand what you mean,” he said.

“Do you not understand,” I said, “that the first things we tell children are stories? These, taken as a whole, are false, though they contain some truth. And we tell children stories before we give them physical training.”

“That is so.”

“That is what I meant when I said we should begin with music and poetry before physical training.”

“Right,” he said.

“You know, then, that the beginning is the most important part of any undertaking, especially 377b for anything young and tender? That is when it is most readily molded and takes the impression one wishes to stamp upon it.”

“Very much so.”

“Shall we then so easily allow children to hear any stories composed by just anyone and take into their souls beliefs for the most part contrary to those we think they ought to hold when they have grown up?”

“We shall never allow it.”

“First, then, it seems we must oversee the storytellers. We must admit whatever fine story 377c they compose and reject whatever is not fine. The stories we admit, we shall persuade nurses and mothers to tell the children, shaping their souls with these stories far more than they shape their bodies with their hands. But most of the stories they tell now must be cast out.”

“Which ones?” he asked.

“We shall see the lesser stories,” I said, “in the greater. For both the greater and the lesser must have the same pattern and the same effect. Do you not think so?” 377d

“I do,” he said. “But I do not even know which greater stories you mean.”

“Those that Hesiod and Homer and the other poets used to tell us,” I said. “They fashioned false stories for people and told them, and still tell them.”

“Which stories,” he asked, “and what is your objection to them?”

“What one ought to object to first and most of all,” I said, “especially when the falsehood is badly told.”

“What is that?” 377e

“When someone gives a bad image in words of what gods and heroes are like, as a painter does when he paints something that bears no resemblance to what he intended to portray.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is right to object to such things. But what exactly do we mean, and which things?”

“First,” I said, “whoever told the greatest lie about the greatest beings told it badly, when he said that Uranus did the things Hesiod ascribes to him, and that Cronus in turn 378a took revenge upon him as he did. As for the deeds of Cronus, and what he suffered at his son’s hands, even if they were true I would not think they should be told so readily to the young and unthinking. Best keep them silent; but if they must be told, let as few as possible hear them in secret, after sacrificing not a pig but some great, hard-to-obtain offering, so that as few as possible may come to hear them.”

“Those are troubling stories indeed,” he said. 378b

“And they must not be told in our city, Adeimantus,” I said. “A young listener must not be told that if he commits the gravest injustice he does nothing extraordinary, or that if he punishes his unjust father in every possible way he is only doing what the first and greatest of the gods did.”

“No, by Zeus,” he said, “I too think these stories are unfit to tell.”

“Nor, indeed,” I said, “must we tell of gods warring, plotting, and fighting against gods 378c—such tales are not even true—if those who will guard our city are to regard it as utterly shameful to fall easily into hatred of one another. Far less should we tell them tales of battles among giants or embroider them with all the many different feuds of gods and heroes against their relatives and families. Instead, if we are somehow to persuade them that no citizen has ever hated another citizen and that such hatred is unholy, these are the kinds of things that must be said to children from the start by old men and women; and as the children grow older, the poets too must be compelled to compose stories along these lines. 378d But we must not admit into the city stories of Hera bound by her son, or Hephaestus hurled down by his father when he tried to defend his mother from a beating, or any of the battles among gods that Homer has composed, whether made with a hidden meaning or without one. A young person cannot distinguish what has a hidden meaning from what does not; the opinions he takes in at that age tend to be hard to wash away 378e and hard to change. Perhaps this is why we must make it our chief concern that the first stories they hear are as beautifully told as possible, to guide them toward virtue.”

“That makes sense,” he said. “But suppose someone asks us what these stories are, and which ones we mean. What would we say?”

And I said, “Adeimantus, you and I 379a are not poets at present but founders of a city. Founders should know the patterns within which poets must tell their stories, and must not allow them to depart from those patterns; they need not compose the stories themselves.”

“Right,” he said. “But just what are these patterns for speaking about the gods?”

“Something like this,” I said: “a god must always be represented as he truly is, whether someone portrays him in epic or lyric or tragedy.”

“Yes, he must.” 379b

“And a god is truly good, and must be spoken of as such?”

“Certainly.”

“Now, nothing good is harmful, is it?”

“I do not think so.”

“Does what is not harmful do harm?”

“Not at all.”

“And what does no harm does no evil?”

“None.”

“And what does no evil cannot be the cause of any evil?”

“How could it?”

“And is the good beneficial?”

“Yes.”

“So it is a cause of well-being?”

“Yes.”

“Then the good is not the cause of everything, but the cause of what goes well; of evil it is not the cause.” 379c

“Exactly,” he said.

“Neither, then,” I said, “could a god, being good, be the cause of everything, as most people say. Of the things that befall human beings he causes few, and of many he is not the cause, since good things are far fewer than bad things for us. For good things we must hold no one else responsible, but for bad things we must seek other causes, not a god.”

“What you say seems entirely true to me,” he said.

“Then,” I said, “we must not accept Homer’s mistake, or any other poet’s, when he foolishly errs concerning the gods 379d and says:

“‘Two jars stand upon the floor of Zeus,filled with destinies, one of blessings, the other of sorrows;and to the man for whom Zeus mixes a portion from both,now evil comes, now good;but to the man for whom he mixes none and gives the unmixed second jar,grinding hunger drives him over the sacred earth.’

“379e Nor must we accept that Zeus is for us the steward

“‘of both blessings and evils.’

“If anyone says that Athena and Zeus caused Pandarus to break the oaths and truce, we shall not praise him; nor shall we praise the strife and judgment of the gods 380a attributed to Themis and Zeus. And we must not let the young hear what Aeschylus says:

“‘A god plants guilt in mortalswhen he wishes to destroy a house utterly.’

“If someone writes of the sufferings of Niobe, in a work containing these verses, or of the descendants of Pelops, or of the Trojan War, or of anything else of the kind, we must not allow him to say that these are the works of a god; or if he does say so, he must discover something like the account we are seeking now 380b and say that what the god did was just and good, and that those who were punished benefited from it. But we must not permit the poet to say that those who paid the penalty were wretched and that it was a god who brought this about. If he says that the wicked were wretched because they needed punishment, but benefited in paying the penalty at a god’s hands, that we may allow. But we must fight in every way against anyone’s saying that a god, who is good, becomes a cause of evil to anyone; we must allow no one in his own city, if it is to have good laws, to tell such a tale or listen to one, 380c whether young or old, whether it is told in verse or without meter. Such talk, if spoken, would be neither holy nor beneficial to us nor consistent with itself.”

“I vote with you for this law,” he said, “and it pleases me.”

“This, then,” I said, “will be one of our laws and patterns concerning the gods, by which speakers must speak and poets compose: a god is not the cause of all things but of good things.”

“That is quite enough,” he said. 380d

“Now what of this second question? Do you believe a god is a sorcerer who deliberately appears now in one shape and now in another, sometimes himself changing his own form into many shapes, sometimes deceiving us and making us think such things of him? Or is he simple, and least of all beings liable to depart from his own form?”

“I cannot answer that yet,” he said.

“Consider this: if something departs from its own form, must it not be changed either by itself or by another?” 380e

“It must.”

“And the things that are best constituted are least altered and moved by something else, are they not? Take a body affected by food and drink and exertion, or a plant by the sun’s heat and the winds and such conditions. Is it not the healthiest and strongest that is 381a least altered?”

“Of course.”

“And will not some external experience least disturb and change the bravest and wisest soul?”

“Yes.”

“And surely the same account holds for all composite things—implements, buildings, and clothes: those well made and in good condition are least altered by time and other influences.”

“That is so.” 381b

“Anything, then, in good condition by nature or craft or both admits the least change from another thing.”

“So it seems.”

“But a god and everything divine are in every respect in the best condition.”

“Of course.”

“In this respect, then, a god would be least likely to take on many forms.”

“Least likely indeed.”

“But might he change and alter himself?”

“Clearly he would have to,” he said, “if he changes at all.”

“Would he change himself into something better and finer, or into something worse and uglier than himself?” 381c

“Necessarily into something worse,” he said, “if he changes at all: surely we would not say that a god lacks beauty or excellence.”

“You are quite right,” I said. “And given that, Adeimantus, do you think anyone, god or human, would willingly make himself worse in any respect?”

“Impossible,” he said.

“Then it is also impossible,” I said, “for a god to wish to alter himself. Rather, it seems, each of them, as beautiful and excellent as possible, always remains simply in his own form.”

“That seems to me entirely necessary,” he said. 381d

“Then let no poet, my good friend,” I said, “tell us:

“‘The gods, appearing as strangers from foreign lands,take on every shape and wander through the cities.’

“Nor let anyone slander Proteus and Thetis; nor bring Hera onstage in tragedy or other poetry, changed into a priestess begging alms

“‘for the life-giving children of Inachus, the river of Argos.’

“381e Let them not tell us many other falsehoods of that kind. And let mothers not be persuaded by these tales to frighten their children by telling them wicked stories that certain gods roam about at night appearing as strangers in all sorts of shapes. Otherwise they blaspheme the gods and at the same time make their children more timid.”

“No, they must not,” he said.

“But,” I said, “could it be that the gods themselves do not change, yet make us think they appear in all kinds of shapes, deceiving and bewitching us?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

374a “But with a whole army. It will march out and fight the invaders for all our property and for everything we were just talking about.”

“Why?” he said. “Aren’t the citizens themselves enough?”

“No, if you and all of us were right when we founded the city,” I said. “We agreed, if you remember, that one person cannot do many crafts well.”

“That’s true,” he said. 374b

“So isn’t fighting in war a skilled occupation?” I asked.

“Very much so,” he said.

“Should we care more about shoemaking than warfare?”

“Not at all.”

“We stopped the shoemaker from trying to be a farmer, weaver, or builder at the same time. He was to be a shoemaker, so that his work would be done well. In the same way, we assigned each other person one job suited to his nature. He was to devote his life to it, free from other work, and not miss the right times to do it well. 374c Isn’t it especially important that work in war be done well? Or is it so easy that someone can be a skilled soldier while farming, making shoes, or doing any other craft? Yet nobody could become good at checkers or dice without practicing from childhood, if he treated the game as a sideline. 374d Will simply picking up a shield or some other weapon or piece of military equipment make a person a capable fighter in heavy armor, or in any other kind of combat, on that very day? No other tool, just by being picked up, makes anyone a craftsman or athlete. It would be useless to someone who had neither learned the skill nor practiced it enough.”

“If it did,” he said, “tools would be worth a great deal.”

“So the greater the guardians’ work,” I said, “374e the more they must be free of other work, and the more skill and attention it will require.”

“I think so,” he said.

“And won’t it also require a nature suited to the occupation?”

“Of course.”

“Then our job, if we can manage it, is to select the people with the right natures to guard the city.”

“Yes, it is.”

“By Zeus,” I said, “we have taken on no small task. Still, we must not lose our nerve, as long as we have the strength to go on.”

375a “No, we mustn’t,” he said.

“Do you think,” I asked, “that a well-bred puppy’s nature differs from a well-born young man’s when it comes to guarding?”

“In what respect?”

“Both must have sharp senses, be quick to chase whatever they detect, and be strong enough to fight once they catch it.”

“Yes,” he said, “they need all those things.”

“And courage too, if they’re going to fight well.”

“Of course.”

“But will a horse, a dog, or any other animal be brave without a spirited nature? Haven’t you noticed that 375b spirit is impossible to fight or defeat? When it is present, every soul is fearless and unconquerable in the face of anything.”

“I have noticed.”

“So it’s clear what kind of body the guardian needs.”

“Yes.”

“And what kind of soul: a spirited one.”

“That too.”

“Then, Glaucon,” I said, “with natures like that, how will they avoid being savage toward one another and the other citizens?”

“By Zeus,” he said, “not easily.” 375c

“But they must be gentle with their own people and fierce with enemies. Otherwise they won’t wait for someone else to destroy them; they’ll do it themselves first.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“What can we do?” I asked. “Where can we find a character that is both gentle and bold? A gentle nature seems to be the opposite of a spirited one.”

“So it seems.”

“But anyone who lacks either trait can never be a good guardian. Having both seems impossible. 375d So it follows that a good guardian is impossible.”

“It looks that way,” he said.

I was at a loss, but after thinking back over our argument I said, “We have good reason to be at a loss, my friend. We’ve lost sight of the example we set before ourselves.”

“What do you mean?”

“We didn’t realize that there actually are natures with both these opposite traits, though we thought there weren’t.”

“Where?”

“You can see them in other animals, but especially 375e in the animal we compared to a guardian. You know that a well-bred dog is by nature as gentle as can be toward those it knows and is used to, and just the opposite toward strangers.”

“Yes, I know.”

“So it’s possible,” I said. “We’re not asking for a guardian who goes against nature.”

“Apparently not.”

“Do you think the person fitted to guard needs one more thing? Besides being spirited, must he also be philosophical by nature?”

376a “How so?” he said. “I don’t see what you mean.”

“You’ll see this in dogs too,” I said, “and it’s remarkable in the animal.”

“What is?”

“When it sees someone it doesn’t know, it gets angry, even if that person has never hurt it. But it welcomes someone it knows, even if that person has never done it any good. Hasn’t that ever surprised you?”

“I haven’t paid much attention to it until now,” he said. “But dogs plainly do act that way.”

“That feature of its nature seems quite clever, 376b and genuinely philosophical.”

“How?”

“It distinguishes a friendly face from a hostile one on no other grounds than knowing one and not knowing the other. How can it fail to love learning when it uses knowledge and ignorance to decide what belongs and what is foreign?”

“It can’t,” he said.

“And loving learning is the same thing as being philosophical, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then we can confidently say the same about a person. 376c If he is to be gentle toward people he knows and who belong to him, he must naturally be philosophical and love learning.”

“Let’s say so,” he said.

“So a good guardian of our city must by nature be philosophical, spirited, quick, and strong.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“That gives us his nature. But how will we bring these people up and educate them? Will examining that question help us see what we have been seeking all along: how justice and injustice come to be in a city? We don’t want to leave out a useful discussion, or spend too long on one.” 376d

Glaucon’s brother said, “I certainly expect this inquiry to help us with that.”

“By Zeus, my dear Adeimantus,” I said, “we mustn’t abandon it, even if it turns out to be rather long.”

“No, we mustn’t.”

“Come, then. Let’s tell a story, as though we had time to spare, and educate these men in our discussion.” 376e

“Yes, we should.”

“What education will they have? It’s hard to find anything better than what a long tradition has discovered. There is physical training for bodies and education in music and the arts for souls.”

“Yes.”

“So shouldn’t we begin with music and the arts before physical training?”

“Of course.”

“And you include stories in education in music and the arts, don’t you?” I asked.

“I do.”

“There are two kinds of stories: true and false?”

“Yes.”

377a “They must be educated in both, but first in the false ones?”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

“Don’t you understand,” I asked, “that we first tell children myths? Taken as a whole, a myth is fiction, though it contains some truth. We use myths with children before physical exercises.”

“That’s right.”

“That’s why I said we must begin with music and the arts before physical training.”

“Right,” he said.

“You know how important the beginning of any task is, 377b especially for anything young and tender. That is when it is most easily shaped and takes on whatever impression a person wants to stamp on it.”

“Certainly.”

“Then shall we casually let children hear whatever stories anyone happens to make up? Shall we let them take into their souls beliefs mostly opposed to those we think they should hold when they grow up?”

“We certainly won’t.”

“First, then, we must supervise the storytellers. 377c We must accept any fine story they make and reject the others. We’ll persuade nurses and mothers to tell the accepted stories to children and shape their souls with stories far more than they shape their bodies with their hands. Most of the stories they tell now must be thrown out.”

“Which ones?” he asked.

“We can see the lesser stories in the greater ones,” I said. “The greater and lesser must follow the same pattern and have the same effect. Don’t you agree?” 377d

“Yes,” he said. “But I don’t even understand which greater stories you mean.”

“The ones Hesiod and Homer and the other poets have told us,” I said. “They made up false stories for people and told them, and they still do.”

“Which stories?” he asked. “What fault do you find with them?”

“The fault we should find first and above all, particularly when the fiction is badly made.”

“What fault?” 377e

“When someone gives a bad picture in words of what gods and heroes are like. It’s like a painter making a painting that doesn’t resemble what he set out to portray.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s right to criticize such things. But what stories are we talking about?”

“First,” I said, “there is the greatest falsehood about the greatest beings. The person who said that Uranus did what Hesiod says he did made a bad fiction, as did the one who told how Cronus 378a took revenge on him. As for what Cronus did and suffered at the hands of his son, even if it were true, I don’t think it should be told so casually to the young and foolish. It would be best left unspoken. If it absolutely had to be told, as few people as possible should hear it in secret, after sacrificing not a pig but some great and hard-to-obtain offering. That way very few would get to hear it.”

“Yes,” he said, “these stories are disturbing.” 378b

“And they must not be told in our city, Adeimantus,” I said. “A young listener must not be told that the worst injustice is nothing surprising, or that punishing an unjust father in every possible way would only be doing what the earliest and greatest gods did.”

“No, by Zeus,” he said. “I don’t think such things should be told either.”

“Nor should anyone say that gods fight gods, plot against them, and battle each other. 378c It isn’t true. Those who will guard our city must consider it utterly shameful to fall easily into hostility with each other. We certainly shouldn’t tell them tales of wars with giants, or depict those wars in colorful pictures, or show gods and heroes in their many different feuds with relatives and friends. Instead, if we want to persuade them that no citizen has ever hated another citizen and that such hatred is wrong, that is what men and women should tell children from their earliest years. When they get older, we must require poets to write stories along those lines. 378d We must not admit into the city stories of Hera being bound by her son, or Hephaestus being thrown down by his father when he tried to defend his mother from a beating. Nor should we admit any of Homer’s battles among the gods, whether they are meant as allegories or not. A young person cannot judge what is an allegory and what isn’t. The beliefs he takes in at that age tend to be hard to wash away and hard to change. 378e That may be why we must make sure that the first stories children hear are as well made as possible for teaching virtue.”

“That makes sense,” he said. “But if someone asked us which stories we mean, what would we say?”

I said, “Adeimantus, 379a you and I aren’t poets right now. We’re founders of a city. Founders must know the patterns poets should use to tell stories, and must forbid departures from them. But we don’t have to compose the stories ourselves.”

“Right,” he said. “So what are these patterns for stories about the gods?”

“Something like this,” I said. “A god must always be portrayed as he really is, whether someone writes about him in epic verse, in songs, or in tragedy.”

“He must.” 379b

“And god really is good, and must be described that way?”

“Certainly.”

“Nothing good is harmful, is it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Does something that isn’t harmful cause harm?”

“Not at all.”

“Does what causes no harm do any evil?”

“No.”

“And what does no evil cannot be the cause of any evil?”

“How could it?”

“Is the good beneficial?”

“Yes.”

“So it is the cause of things going well?”

“Yes.”

“Then the good isn’t the cause of everything. It is the cause of good things, not of bad ones.” 379c

“Exactly,” he said.

“Then god, because he is good, cannot be the cause of everything as most people claim,” I said. “He is responsible for few things that happen to humans and not responsible for many. We have far fewer good things than bad ones. We must attribute good things to no one else, but look for other causes of bad things, not god.”

“What you say seems completely true,” he said.

“Then,” I said, “we must not accept Homer’s mistake about the gods, 379d or any other poet’s thoughtless mistake, when he says:

‘Two jars stand on Zeus’s floor,full of fates: one of good, the other of bad.For the man to whom Zeus gives a mixture of both,sometimes he meets with evil, sometimes with good.But the man to whom he gives the one unmixed,a wretched hunger drives him over the holy earth.’

379e Nor should we say that Zeus is our dispenser

‘of good things and bad things.’

“If someone says that Athena and Zeus caused Pandarus to break the oaths and the truce, we won’t approve. Nor will we approve the quarrel and judgment among the gods 380a brought about by Themis and Zeus. Nor must young people be allowed to hear what Aeschylus says:

‘A god plants guilt in mortalswhen he wants to destroy a house completely.’

“If someone writes about Niobe’s sufferings, or those of Pelops’s descendants, or the events at Troy, or anything else of that sort, and includes those lines, we must not let him say these events are a god’s work. Or, if they are a god’s work, he must give something like the account we are now looking for. 380b He must say the god acted justly and well, and those who were punished benefited. The poet must not say that those who paid the penalty were miserable and god was responsible for it. But if poets say that bad people were miserable because they needed punishment, and that they benefited when god punished them, we should allow it. We must fight in every way against anyone who says that a good god causes evil for someone. If a city is to be well governed, no one in it, young or old, must tell or hear such stories, 380c in verse or in prose. Saying them would be irreverent, harmful to us, and inconsistent in itself.”

“I vote for that law,” he said. “I like it.”

“That, then,” I said, “would be one law and pattern concerning the gods. Storytellers and poets must observe it: god is not the cause of everything, but only of good things.”

“That is quite enough,” he said. 380d

“What about this second question? Do you think god is a magician who deliberately appears in different forms at different times? Does he sometimes change himself into many shapes, and at other times deceive us into thinking he has? Or is he simple and less likely than anything else to depart from his own form?”

“I can’t answer that just now,” he said.

“What about this: if anything changes from its own form, must it be changed either by itself or by something else?” 380e

“Yes.”

“And aren’t the things in the best condition least changed or moved by something else? Take a body affected by food, drink, and exertion, or a plant affected by sunlight, winds, and similar conditions. Isn’t the healthiest and strongest body, or plant, 381a changed the least?”

“Of course.”

“And isn’t the bravest and wisest soul the least disturbed and changed by anything that happens to it from outside?”

“Yes.”

“The same goes for all manufactured things, tools, buildings, and clothes. Well-made things in good condition are changed least by time and other influences.”

“That’s true.” 381b

“So anything in good condition, by nature or craftsmanship or both, changes very little when something else acts upon it.”

“So it seems.”

“But god and everything belonging to god are in the very best condition.”

“Of course.”

“On that ground god would be least likely to take on many shapes.”

“Certainly.”

“But would he change and alter himself?”

“He would have to, if he changes at all,” he said.

“Would he change himself for the better and more beautiful, or for the worse and uglier?” 381c

“For the worse, if he changes,” he said. “We can’t say god lacks beauty or excellence.”

“You’re quite right,” I said. “Given that, Adeimantus, do you think any god or human would willingly make himself worse in any way?”

“Impossible,” he said.

“Then it is also impossible for a god to want to change himself,” I said. “Each god, being as beautiful and good as possible, apparently remains forever, simply in his own form.”

“That seems absolutely necessary to me,” he said. 381d

“Then, my friend,” I said, “let none of the poets tell us that

‘the gods, looking like travelers from foreign lands,take every kind of shape as they roam the cities.’

“And let no one tell lies about Proteus and Thetis. In tragedies or other poems, let no one bring on Hera transformed into a priestess collecting alms

‘for the life-giving children of Inachus, the Argive river.’

381e Let them tell us no more lies like these. And let mothers not be persuaded by them to terrify their children with bad stories about gods roaming at night in all sorts of strange disguises. That would both speak falsely about the gods and make the children more cowardly.”

“They mustn’t,” he said.

“But perhaps,” I said, “the gods themselves never change, yet make us think they appear in many forms, tricking and enchanting us?”

“Perhaps,” he said.