Plato · Complete work
Book II, 382–383
Book II, 382–383 of 39. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
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382a τί δέ; ἦν δʼ ἐγώ· ψεύδεσθαι θεὸς ἐθέλοι ἂν ἢ λόγῳ ἢ ἔργῳ φάντασμα προτείνων;οὐκ οἶδα, ἦ δʼ ὅς.οὐκ οἶσθα, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅτι τό γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ψεῦδος, εἰ οἷόν τε τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, πάντες θεοί τε καὶ ἄνθρωποι μισοῦσιν;πῶς, ἔφη, λέγεις;οὕτως, ἦν δʼ ἐγώ, ὅτι τῷ κυριωτάτῳ που ἑαυτῶν ψεύδεσθαι καὶ περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἐθέλει, ἀλλὰ πάντων μάλιστα φοβεῖται ἐκεῖ αὐτὸ κεκτῆσθαι.οὐδὲ νῦν πω, ἦ δʼ ὅς, μανθάνω. 382bοἴει γάρ τί με, ἔφην, σεμνὸν λέγειν· ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὅτι τῇ ψυχῇ περὶ τὰ ὄντα ψεύδεσθαί τε καὶ ἐψεῦσθαι καὶ ἀμαθῆ εἶναι καὶ ἐνταῦθα ἔχειν τε καὶ κεκτῆσθαι τὸ ψεῦδος πάντες ἥκιστα ἂν δέξαιντο, καὶ μισοῦσι μάλιστα αὐτὸ ἐν τῷ τοιούτῳ.πολύ γε, ἔφη.ἀλλὰ μὴν ὀρθότατά γʼ ἄν, ὃ νυνδὴ ἔλεγον, τοῦτο ὡς ἀληθῶς ψεῦδος καλοῖτο, ἡ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ ἄγνοια ἡ τοῦ ἐψευσμένου· ἐπεὶ τό γε ἐν τοῖς λόγοις μίμημά τι τοῦ ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ ἐστὶν παθήματος καὶ ὕστερον γεγονὸς εἴδωλον, οὐ πάνυ 382c ἄκρατον ψεῦδος. ἢ οὐχ οὕτω;πάνυ μὲν οὖν.τὸ μὲν δὴ τῷ ὄντι ψεῦδος οὐ μόνον ὑπὸ θεῶν ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπʼ ἀνθρώπων μισεῖται.δοκεῖ μοι.τί δὲ δὴ τὸ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις [ψεῦδος]; πότε καὶ τῷ χρήσιμον, ὥστε μὴ ἄξιον εἶναι μίσους; ἆρʼ οὐ πρός τε τοὺς πολεμίους καὶ τῶν καλουμένων φίλων, ὅταν διὰ μανίαν ἤ τινα ἄνοιαν κακόν τι ἐπιχειρῶσιν πράττειν, τότε ἀποτροπῆς ἕνεκα ὡς φάρμακον χρήσιμον γίγνεται; καὶ ἐν αἷς νυνδὴ 382d ἐλέγομεν ταῖς μυθολογίαις, διὰ τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι ὅπῃ τἀληθὲς ἔχει περὶ τῶν παλαιῶν, ἀφομοιοῦντες τῷ ἀληθεῖ τὸ ψεῦδος ὅτι μάλιστα, οὕτω χρήσιμον ποιοῦμεν;καὶ μάλα, ἦ δʼ ὅς, οὕτως ἔχει.κατὰ τί δὴ οὖν τούτων τῷ θεῷ τὸ ψεῦδος χρήσιμον; πότερον διὰ τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι τὰ παλαιὰ ἀφομοιῶν ἂν ψεύδοιτο;γελοῖον μεντἂν εἴη, ἔφη.ποιητὴς μὲν ἄρα ψευδὴς ἐν θεῷ οὐκ ἔνι.οὔ μοι δοκεῖ.ἀλλὰ δεδιὼς τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ψεύδοιτο; 382eπολλοῦ γε δεῖ.ἀλλὰ διʼ οἰκείων ἄνοιαν ἢ μανίαν;ἀλλʼ οὐδείς, ἔφη, τῶν ἀνοήτων καὶ μαινομένων θεοφιλής.οὐκ ἄρα ἔστιν οὗ ἕνεκα ἂν θεὸς ψεύδοιτο.οὐκ ἔστιν.πάντῃ ἄρα ἀψευδὲς τὸ δαιμόνιόν τε καὶ τὸ θεῖον.παντάπασι μὲν οὖν, ἔφη.κομιδῇ ἄρα ὁ θεὸς ἁπλοῦν καὶ ἀληθὲς ἔν τε ἔργῳ καὶ λόγῳ, καὶ οὔτε αὐτὸς μεθίσταται οὔτε ἄλλους ἐξαπατᾷ, οὔτε κατὰ φαντασίας οὔτε κατὰ λόγους οὔτε κατὰ σημείων πομπάς, οὔθʼ ὕπαρ οὐδʼ ὄναρ.
383a οὕτως, ἔφη, ἔμοιγε καὶ αὐτῷ φαίνεται σοῦ λέγοντος.συγχωρεῖς ἄρα, ἔφην, τοῦτον δεύτερον τύπον εἶναι ἐν ᾧ δεῖ περὶ θεῶν καὶ λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν, ὡς μήτε αὐτοὺς γόητας ὄντας τῷ μεταβάλλειν ἑαυτοὺς μήτε ἡμᾶς ψεύδεσι παράγειν ἐν λόγῳ ἢ ἐν ἔργῳ;συγχωρῶ.πολλὰ ἄρα Ὁμήρου ἐπαινοῦντες, ἀλλὰ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐπαινεσόμεθα, τὴν τοῦ ἐνυπνίου πομπὴν ὑπὸ Διὸς τῷ Ἀγαμέμνονι· οὐδὲ Αἰσχύλου, ὅταν φῇ ἡ Θέτις τὸν Ἀπόλλω ἐν τοῖς αὑτῆς 383b γάμοις ᾄδοντα ἐνδατεῖσθαι τὰς ἑὰς εὐπαιδίας —νόσων τʼ ἀπείρους καὶ μακραίωνας βίους,ξύμπαντά τʼ εἰπὼν θεοφιλεῖς ἐμὰς τύχαςπαιᾶνʼ ἐπηυφήμησεν, εὐθυμῶν ἐμέ.κἀγὼ τὸ Φοίβου θεῖον ἀψευδὲς στόμαἤλπιζον εἶναι, μαντικῇ βρύον τέχνῃ·ὁ δʼ, αὐτὸς ὑμνῶν, αὐτὸς ἐν θοίνῃ παρών,αὐτὸς τάδʼ εἰπών, αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ κτανὼντὸν παῖδα τὸν ἐμόν—383c ὅταν τις τοιαῦτα λέγῃ περὶ θεῶν, χαλεπανοῦμέν τε καὶ χορὸν οὐ δώσομεν, οὐδὲ τοὺς διδασκάλους ἐάσομεν ἐπὶ παιδείᾳ χρῆσθαι τῶν νέων, εἰ μέλλουσιν ἡμῖν οἱ φύλακες θεοσεβεῖς τε καὶ θεῖοι γίγνεσθαι, καθʼ ὅσον ἀνθρώπῳ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον οἷόν τε.παντάπασιν, ἔφη, ἔγωγε τοὺς τύπους τούτους συγχωρῶ, καὶ ὡς νόμοις ἂν χρῴμην.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from all ten books of the Greek (John Burnet’s Oxford edition, Perseus Digital Library) for fidelity, Platonic dialogue and imagery, and modern clarity.
382a “But tell me,” I said, “would a god wish to lie in word or deed, presenting a false appearance?”
“I do not know,” he said.
“Do you not know,” I said, “that what is truly a lie, if one may call it that, is hated by gods and human beings alike?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“This,” I said: “no one willingly accepts falsehood in the ruling part of himself about the most important things; there, above all places, he dreads possessing it.”
“I still do not understand,” he said. 382b
“You think I mean something profound,” I said. “What I mean is that all of us are least willing to be deceived in our souls about what is, to remain ignorant and harbor falsehood there; that is where we hate it most.”
“By far,” he said.
“And the name ‘true falsehood’ would most properly belong, as I was just saying, to ignorance in the soul of one who has been deceived. A spoken falsehood is an imitation of that condition of the soul, an image produced afterward, not falsehood in its pure form. 382c Is that not so?”
“Certainly.”
“Then true falsehood is hated not only by gods but also by human beings.”
“So it seems to me.”
“What, then, of falsehood in speech? When, and for whom, is it useful enough not to deserve hatred? Against enemies, surely; and when those we call friends attempt some evil through madness or folly, it can serve as a medicine to turn them away. And in the stories we mentioned 382d just now, because we do not know the truth about the distant past, we make falsehood as like the truth as we can and so make it useful.”
“Yes, that is exactly so,” he said.
“Which of these uses, then, could a god have for falsehood? Would he lie by making something up because he does not know the distant past?”
“That would be absurd,” he said.
“Then no lying poet resides in a god.”
“I think not.”
“Would he lie because he fears his enemies?” 382e
“Far from it.”
“Or because of the folly or madness of his own?”
“But no one foolish or mad is dear to a god,” he said.
“Then there is no reason for a god to lie.”
“None.”
“The divine and the godlike, then, are wholly without falsehood.”
“Entirely,” he said.
“God, then, is utterly simple and true in deed and word. He neither changes himself nor deceives others—neither by apparitions, nor by words, nor by sending signs, whether in waking life or in dreams.”
383a “As I hear you say it, it seems so to me too,” he said.
“You agree, then,” I said, “that this is our second pattern for speech and poetry concerning the gods: they are not sorcerers who change their shapes, nor do they lead us astray by lies in word or deed.”
“I agree.”
“Then, though we praise much in Homer, we shall not praise the sending of the dream from Zeus to Agamemnon. Nor shall we praise Aeschylus when he has Thetis say that Apollo, singing at her wedding, proclaimed the blessings of her children— 383b
“‘Lives untouched by sickness and long in years;calling all my fortunes dear to the gods,he sang a paean and cheered my heart.And I believed the sacred, truthful voiceof Phoebus, rich in the prophetic art.But he who sang, who joined the feast,who spoke these words—he was the one who killedmy child.’
“383c When anyone speaks of the gods this way, we shall be indignant and refuse him a chorus; nor shall we allow teachers to use such works in educating the young, if our guardians are to become god-fearing and godlike to the utmost degree possible for a human being.”
“I wholly agree with these patterns,” he said, “and would employ them as laws.”
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from all ten books of the Greek (Burnet’s Oxford text, Perseus Digital Library).
382a “But would a god want to lie in word or deed by presenting a false appearance?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Don’t you know,” I said, “that all gods and humans hate what we can call a real lie?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean that nobody willingly wants the most important part of himself to be deceived about the most important things. That is where he is most afraid of holding on to a lie.”
“I still don’t understand,” he said. 382b
“You think I mean something grand and mysterious,” I said. “But I mean that everyone would least of all accept having false beliefs in the soul about things as they are, being mistaken and ignorant, and keeping that lie inside. That is the kind of lie they hate most.”
“By far,” he said.
“And what I just described can most accurately be called a real lie: the ignorance in the soul of a person who has been deceived. A lie in words is a kind of imitation of that condition of the soul. It is an image that comes afterward, 382c not a pure lie in itself. Isn’t that so?”
“Certainly.”
“Then the real lie is hated not only by gods but also by humans.”
“I think so.”
“What about a lie in words? When and for whom is it useful enough not to deserve hatred? Isn’t it useful, like a medicine, against enemies? And also against those we call friends, when madness or some other foolishness makes them attempt something bad, and we need to stop them? And in the stories 382d we were just talking about, we don’t know what really happened long ago. By making the fiction as much like the truth as possible, we make it useful. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”
“Which of those uses for a lie could apply to a god? Would he make something up to resemble the past because he didn’t know what happened?”
“That would be ridiculous,” he said.
“Then god has no need to make up false stories.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Would he lie because he was afraid of enemies?” 382e
“Far from it.”
“Or because his own people were foolish or mad?”
“But no foolish or mad person is loved by god,” he said.
“Then there is no reason why a god would lie.”
“No reason.”
“So all divine beings are entirely free of falsehood.”
“Entirely,” he said.
“Then god is entirely simple and truthful in both deed and word. He doesn’t change himself or deceive others, whether through appearances, words, or signs he sends, while they are awake or dreaming.”
383a “When you put it that way,” he said, “that’s how it seems to me too.”
“Then you agree,” I said, “that this is the second pattern poets and storytellers must follow when speaking about gods. Gods don’t change themselves by magic, or mislead us with lies in either word or deed.”
“I agree.”
“So, while we praise many things in Homer, we won’t praise his story that Zeus sent a dream to Agamemnon. Nor will we praise Aeschylus when he has Thetis say that Apollo sang at her 383b wedding and celebrated the future happiness of her children:
‘He said they would live long lives untouched by disease.He said my whole future was blessed by the gods,then sang a joyful hymn to cheer me.I expected Phoebus’s divine mouth,so full of prophecy, to speak only the truth.But he was the one who sang, attended the feast,and spoke those words. He was also the onewho killed my child.’
383c When someone says such things about the gods, we will be angry and will not give him a chorus to perform them. Nor will we let teachers use them to educate the young, if our guardians are to become as reverent toward the gods and as godlike as a human can be.”
“I agree completely with these patterns,” he said, “and I would use them as laws.”